Putnam County businesses are organizing as never before and now constitute a force of 500.
“We”™re psyched, we really are,” said Pete Bardunias, executive director of The Greater Mahopac-Carmel Chamber of Commerce, which will celebrate its 500th member at a gathering and press conference on the grounds of Boscobel Historic Site at 10 a.m. on Friday, May 28.
Representatives of some of the original members of the Mahopac Chamber of Commerce from 1948 as well as representatives from Boscobel, the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival and the Cold Spring Area Chamber of Commerce will all attend.
“It”™s a simple little ceremony we”™re going to do to commemorate a milestone in Putnam County,” said Bardunias. “In all the counties around us 500 members is not that big a deal. But it is here, because we”™ve never had it.”
He noted Forbes magazine had ranked Putnam County as the 15th-richest county per capita nationally and the second-richest in New York, but noted, “We are behind the times in supporting our business community.”
“Since 1949 a lot of things have come full circle,” he said, noting that post ”“war, Mahopac was a tourist haven stoked by a railroad connection with the New York Central. “The train would drop people literally across from Lake Mahopac,” said Bardunias, noting a half dozen hotels once served the area and  are all gone.
But the lake remains and the tourists are starting to rediscover the southernmost lake in New York that allows motor boats, a draw among myriad attractions from hiking or fishing the Croton Reservoir or kayaking. “The Buddhist Monastery in Carmel is a hidden gem that attracts a lot of visitors,” said Bardunias.
“We realized we have to start attracting business again from the city and start attracting day trippers,” he said.
