On Saturday, April 10 beginning at 10 a.m. tenants from the Troy Housing Authority's Taylor Apartments and volunteers from the Alley Action project will be painting a mural by the basketball and picnic area under the Congress Street Bridge.

Sid Fleisher and Barbara Nelson have been working on the Alley Action program in Troy over the past few years, and completed a book in 2006 called "The Troy Alley Improvement Project". The project encourages people to take ownership of their neighborhoods through community action, and they have organized several of these paint-by-number style murals.

The wall has already been cleaned and primed with the help of the Rensselaer County Jail work release program, and the main part of the drawing was applied to the wall last night. More information is available at www.trolleyaction.org, or stop by tomorrow and see the painting in action for yourself. Below is a flier with more information.

Alley Action Project Taylor Apartments Mural Painting Event

*Update* - Read the full story here.

The Troy Housing Authority is expected to soon sell 2.3 acres of land where the John J. Ahern apartments once sat to the developer of the Congress-Ferry Street Corridor project for $649,000, according to THA executive secretary Bill Meissner.

The property was closed by 1989 due to persistent crime and drug problems at the location and has sat vacant ever since. The four buildings which used to stand on the location were demolished in 2000.

There will be public discussion on the matter Friday at 11 a.m. at the Italian Community Center, located at 1450 Fifth Ave.