Greg O’Connell remembered as force behind small

MOUNT MORRIS — Greg O’Connell, who transformed a fading Main Street into a hub of renewed business activity, died Aug. 2 at age 83. O’Connell first made his mark redeveloping Brooklyn’s Red Hook waterfront. In the mid-2000s, he turned his focus to Livingston County, drawing on ties from his years as a SUNY Geneseo student in the 1960s. He bought and renovated more than two dozen Mount Morris properties to see if his urban redevelopment model could work in a rural setting. “He was inspired by the fact that [Mount Morris] was in such bad shape and he wanted to make improvements for those that lived there,” said Louise Wadsworth, downtown coordinator for Livingston County. She met O’Connell in 2008, when the village’s business district was nearly empty. Wadsworth recalled showing him a book c