MEET MORGEN

Growing up in Caroline, New York—farm country about ten miles outside of Ithaca—my brother and I learned how dairy cows are raised, corn is grown, and hay is baled, while spending countless hours playing with friends in nearby fields, woods and streams. 

When we moved to Washington, DC, I missed the countryside of upstate New York terribly, but my father built a workshop in our basement where my brother and I built model airplanes, skateboards, and rebuilt our bicycles. 

My public school days were winding down and I was gearing up to attend Columbia University, when my mother encouraged me to focus on one of my two loves: engineering or architecture. I chose architecture, with its emphasis on the impact of buildings on people. Having finally earned a Master’s Degree in Architecture from Harvard, I worked with firms designing homes, office towers, hospitals and museums. I earned a second Master’s Degree at NYU learning to integrate digital art into public space. Collaborations with multidisciplinary teams followed, installing digital art, traditional sculpture, and other large media at Hudson Yards and now JFK’s New Terminal One. 

In 2014, my wife, Margie, and I moved to Hastings and were struck by the overwhelming commitment to community. During Covid, Margie joined the Vine Squad, then started the Hastings Mask Project, and soon a committee of five grew to 300 volunteers who sewed and distributed 7,000 masks.  As Covid wound down, Margie refocused her energy to help co-found the Hastings Pollinator Pathway, a project encouraging gardening that supports biodiversity on public and private land.  Their Adopt-a-Spot program now has nearly 20 Spots around the Village, and over 180 Hastings households have added their gardens to the HPP map to show their commitment to this philosophy of land stewardship.

My involvement in Hastings’ Democratic Committee started simply: I wondered what was happening with the Waterfront. I spoke with residents, read every document I could, and gained a deeper understanding of how 42 acres—with magnificent views and enormous potential—could lay fallow. In 2018, with a desire to help achieve Village consensus in this on-going effort, I joined the Waterfront Rezoning Committee. That committee gave me insight into the competing demands that restrain Hastings from moving forward; in 2019, I joined the Board of Trustees intent on disentangling them. I’ve worked with Waterfront owners to ensure we have parkland and a shoreline everyone can be excited about; through the Comprehensive Plan Update and the Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan, I’ve helped prepare our community for development on the Waterfront that reflects the very best of us, development we control and that doesn’t control us. 

Though my involvement in Hasting’s politics began with my passion for the Waterfront, I’ve brought that passion to address other problems facing our Village: easing traffic on James and High Streets, ensuring that Ravensdale Bridge, Farragut Avenue and Broadway work for cars and pedestrians and bicyclists too; and reassuring residents that they’re heard, and their needs addressed. I approach all of our issues from the core belief that I should leave things better than I found them, whether I’m planting a tree, designing a building, or fighting to reconnect our Village to the Hudson River. 

Hastings-on-Hudson deserves 21st-century infrastructure, parks teeming with life, and a world-class Waterfront—and I believe with the right planning and determination, we will have that.