The Chamber and Chrysler Closing

Last week I got a copy of the Community Directory that was put together by the Greater Rensselaer Chamber of Commerce. It is full of information, including a list of Rensselaer restaurants, churches, clubs or organizations, and social services. They list a bunch of informative websites and even include Rensselaer Adventures. If you think you could use a copy, you can get one by stopping by the Chamber office, which is in the Tucker Real Estate office in downtown Rensselaer.

One of the problems of any directory of this sort is that almost as soon as it is printed, it will be out of date. For example, consider Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge of Rensselaer. I stopped by this week because I had seen the ads in the newspaper announcing that they were closing in before the end of the month.
In fact, their service department (but not yet their parts department) is already closed.
I stopped in to ask some questions, and the man I talked to was quite nice considering that I was not there to buy a car. I asked how many new cars they had on the lot and he said six or seven. (The rest are "pre-owned.") He said that after they close, the people working there, about a half dozen, will be on their own. The service department people had already been let go.

I think this dealership was Denny Kramer Dodge for many years and then it was Heuring. I bought one car from them, a red Dodge Shadow in about 1990. The salesman I talked to did not know much about the past, but did say that it had not been Heuring for about four years. He also seemed to think that the future of the Chrysler company was rosy, which is quite a bit different from what I read on the Internet.

It will all be over on October 21. There were not a lot of cars left on the lot, and whatever they do not sell will probably go to a car auction.
Who would have thought two years ago that by 2010 Rensselaer would have no new car dealers?

Update: Many years ago this location was the Tonner dealership selling Cadillac, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and GMC trucks. Felders had the Chevy dealership, so at one time Rensselaer had two General Motors dealerships.