Matamoras Cruise-in
Matamoras, NYTuesday, May 1, 2018
'Cruise-In the Port' has changed its location. Instead of the local streets in Port Jervis, NY, the event now has found a home at the Airport Park in Matamoras, NY. It remains to be seen how the property will be used for this event – but there is a lot of area.
What a way to start a new show season!
So, on the day of the event, we paraded to Airport Park in a '62 Corvette, a '72 9-second Camaro and a '65 Corvette. We were a bit early and didn't expect any problems. However, that expectation didn't bear out. I had anticipated the show being in a rather large open parking lot - not so. We drove around that space and were directed to a roadway that was already full. We were almost the final group that had to back into the roadway, adding to a center lane of cars.
As I walked the area, I noticed that many of the cars were not the types to be at a Cruise-in such as this one. We came to find out that there was a baseball game going on in and the players and spectators had parked on this roadway adjacent to the ball field. We also found out that all that area was supposed to be dedicated to the cruise-in, but a scheduling problem had occurred and the situation was as it was. Hopefully this will not be the case in June.
The event was a very social one. There wasn't the old problem of using a functioning road in Port Jervis; more spectators were present, music was available for the whole evening and a couple of food concessions were also available. By and large, the event was quite well appreciated.
But one glaring problem will continue to exist. Exitting the site will be a problem. All the roads from Airport Park lead to Rt 6, and it is not controlled by a traffic light anywhere on that section of road. Add to that, traffic flows freely on Rt 6, so entering that road will always be time consuming.