How a Small City in Upstate N.Y. Is Preparing for the Solar Eclipse

There were five cars in the crowded driveway, one for each of the young men in the cramped basement running through their band’s new songs. Their last real gig was on New Year’s Eve, and now it was late March. The keyboard player was keeping an eye on the time because he had to get to a piano lesson soon. He’s the teacher.

Here in Plattsburgh, N.Y., people seem set in their ways with music. If only the psychedelic rock band could break through. Just one right-place, right-time, honest-to-God show where newcomers might actually hear their stuff.

And suddenly, there they are, in the emphatically, improbably, shockingly right place — Plattsburgh — at precisely and cosmically the right time, when the moon is projected to pass across the face of the sun in a perfect eclipse.

And their band, Ursa and the Major Key, has been chosen to perform April 8 as the opening act.

“We’re making sure to breathe,” said Nelson Moore, 28, the band’s drummer, adding: “I sometimes get a little bit of stage fright.”

The crowd size remains a guess. “I’ve heard people say get gas, or get stocked up on food,” said his brother, Eli Moore, 25, a vocalist. “This could be something.”

The eclipse’s path of totality looks like a sash across the United States, stretching from its shoulder to its opposite hip, with countless towns and citizens holding viewing parties large and small, in parks and on mountaintops and in backyards. Plattsburgh, population 20,000 and smack in that path, is bracing for several times that number of tourists.

The city, close enough to Montreal that one might hear as much French spoken as English in the summer months, is nearly large enough to survive all the visitors, but small enough to harbor a little bit of collective optimism, that this fluke of light and shadow could lead to something bigger.

A nearby hotel took a reservation for the eclipse seven years ago, in 2017, with a pen and paper because the computer couldn’t book rooms that far ahead. But last-minute preparations are everywhere, many focused on the main event: a public viewing party at the Plattsburgh City Beach.

The beach is normally closed in April and doesn’t open until Memorial Day. On a recent visit, a frigid wind blew through the rib-cage frame of an empty gazebo, past a brick cabana bar and public restrooms with no running water because the pipes could still freeze.

Scott Dubrey, 45, grew up coming here with his parents and siblings. “It was busy back then, super, super busy,” he said. “You couldn’t move on this beach.”

As the recreation leader for the city, he’s in charge of fixing it up for the eclipse. A recent snowstorm halted work for a couple days, but it soon resumed.

“We have a tractor with two rakes,” he said, looking at the damp, cool sand. “We have what we call a York rake and a surf rake. The surf rake can nitpick all the stones and sticks and stuff.”

Standing in the sand, facing away from the lake and toward the empty cabana area, he thought of those summers here as a boy, and allowed himself to imagine what this eclipse party might lead to. Maybe a full-time food vendor. This could be something.

“It doesn’t have to be much,” he said. “Hot dogs and hamburgers.”

On the day itself, visitors will be fed primarily by a food truck called Tammy’s Lunch Box, a mainstay at high school games, the parking lot of a hospital and weekend breakfasts at a maple farm known for its syrup. The truck’s owner and namesake, Tammy Deno, has no comparable event to look back on for guidance. She flipped a big wall calendar to last April — blank.

She pulled up a web page for the beach event. “Right now it’s 800-something interested and 47 people going,” she said, shaking her head. “Facebook crap.”

She’s keeping it simple, leaving behind popular items like taco boats in favor of staples: hamburgers and hot dogs, including a local variety with meat sauce called a Michigan.

And what about traffic? When a food truck runs low on supplies, it goes and gets more. But when it’s trapped in a crowded parking lot on a beach, it’s not really a food truck anymore. It’s just a tiny kitchen that’s out of burgers.

“It’s almost like talking to me about my grandchildren that I don’t have,” she said. “You pray for the best.” As for the once-in-a-lifetime total eclipse: “Doesn’t thrill me at all. I probably won’t even get to see it.”

She bristles at reports of area hotels jacking up their rates for the night. And yet, she softens a little at the thought of her bottom line. “If it turns out great, it will be a leg up,” she said.

For Ed Guenther, 62, an outdoor guide, scoutmaster and amateur astronomer, it is as if life has led him to this day.

“My default is to go outside and look up,” he said. “This is something I learned how to do when I was 4. I used to go hunting with my dad — my dad was a navigator in World War II. He did everything by the stars.”

He watched a total eclipse in Oregon in 2017, and can still hear the audible awe — the “whoa” — that swept the surrounding crowd. Eclipse-chasing friends from that day are gathering for this one in Texas, where the skies are likely to be clear. Plattsburgh is often overcast this time of year, sometimes for hours, sometimes for days.

But Mr. Guenther is stubbornly staying put, and will be at the beach with his large telescope and powerful solar filter.

“We get some incredibly clear skies out here,” he said defiantly on the beach in late March. “I was able to see 104 separate areas of the sun at one time. I’ve never been able to do that.”

To prove his point, year after year since the Oregon eclipse, he has gone outside on April 8 at around 3 p.m. to check and photograph the conditions. It’s as if the 4-year-old boy inside the 62-year-old man is willing the sky to be clear.

“It’s a blue sky, every year,” he said. “Hopefully I haven’t cursed myself.”

For Ursa and the Major Key, preparing for a gig of unknown size, the set list is taking shape. They will perform on a wooden stage delivered to the beach on wheels.

“We’ve played on that stage before,” said Tyler Bosley, 29, the guitarist. “But not at that location.”

“At the Naked Turtle?” Eli Moore asked.

“The sewage plant!” corrected his brother, Nelson. They went back to rehearsing an on-point Pink Floyd cover. (“I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.”)

The notion that they could be noticed on Monday, that it could all lead somewhere, is a powerful daydream, and Eli is quick to pump the brakes.

“This concept of the big break in the music industry — not to be pessimistic, but it doesn’t really work like that,” he said. “Somebody came up to me and was like, ‘This is huge they’re having you do it!’ And I was like, ‘Is it?’”

Maybe not. But it could be something.