Catskill Mountain Foundation makes cultural impact
Twenty years ago, Peter and Sarah Finn considered buying a movie theater in the village of Hunter that had seen better days. They figured they might spiff it up. Make it suitable for live performances as well as screenings. Hire a couple of people. Maybe sell books and art in a corner.
That was about it.
"It was definitely a small vision in the beginning," said Sarah Finn of those embryonic plans, which began to grow — then grow some more — in February 1998, when the couple founded a not-for-profit called the Catskill Mountain Foundation that eventually purchased the building.
But even then, the Finns pictured the lone structure as a cultural nexus for Hunter and the wider community.