This is an informal Facebook group that aims to connect the extraordinary ladies that are shaping Newburgh. Whether a planner, activist, historian, journalist, creative or business owner, this is a forum for women of all ages and backgrounds to exchange information, ideas, jobs, opportunities. This project is modeled after the successful launch of Roberta Moses group in New York City.

The group is named after Newburgh's own heroine Libby Lyons. Hailing from New York City, Elizabeth Lyon came to Newburgh in the 1970’s where she was “aggravated to death with the complications of restoring NYC properties”. She considered the derelict buildings on Montgomery Street to be the “find of the century”.  She purchased five homes, saving them from urban renewal that had just leveled Water Street a few years earlier... 

An informative article from a September 30, 1979 Evening News quoted Ms. Lyon saying, “You cannot just give up on one section of a city and say the rest of the city will not be affected. The Urban Renewal Theory failed but it took people a lot of destruction of irreplaceable heritage until we looked at ourselves long enough to understand our alleged solution was so bad it could not possibly be the way to go…I did it because the bulldozing was a personal violation to me. I felt that way about the burning of Paris and the bombing of Berlin. When something beautiful is destroyed, where ever it is, everyone loses.”

Excerpt from Newburgh Restoration.

Please invite those who are working for the positive interest of Newburgh to the Libby Lyons Group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/304939569966938/

#libbylyons