The swami and Stone Ridge
Whenever Vivekananda went on one of his exhausting lecture tours in the US, the Leggetts would offer their guru the use of their home, Ridgely Manor, as a country refuge for a period of rest and quiet.
Local History
Oscar of the Waldorf: New Paltz farmer, Manhattan maître d’ to millionaires
He was a rich man by 1910, with a house on Lexington Avenue in addition to his thousand-acre spread in New Paltz. He farmed the land and enjoyed throwing fancy picnics for friends that featured produce grown on his own property. Yes, Oscar of the Waldorf was doing farm-to-table cuisine long before it got trendy.
Bethel Woods marks Woodstock festival’s 50th anniversary
In case you missed it, the Generation Gap is back with a vengeance. Maybe what we all need to facilitate intergenerational communication is to take some field trips together to the Museum at Bethel Woods.
Archaeoastronomy lecture in Rhinebeck
Woodstock’s Glenn Kreisberg’s latest book, Spirits in Stone, published last year by Inner Traditions, reflects his effort to set the record straight of long-lost cultures whose language was at once sophisticated and mysterious, a story whose telling would seem ideally suited to someone who has spent so much of his life exploring and recording the ineffable vestiges of those cultures.
The anatomy of an enigma: The unknown Hervey White
Erroneously named “founder” of Woodstock by Life magazine in 1938, Hervey White [1866-1944] is better described as godfather of a town he personally transformed into America’s most famous Bohemia, earlier even than 1920. But despite this fact, and although admired by artists and farmers alike, Hervey lived and died an enigma. Some knew part, but none knew all his secrets.
Founders’ Day in Fleischmanns marks 150th anniversary of a yeast-fueled Catskills haven
Saturday, June 8: Bakers, baseball fans and New Yorker readers all owe the Fleischmanns a debt of gratitude, whether they know it or not.
High Falls to celebrate its 350th anniversary
Saturday, June 15: After the parade, there will be short speeches and awards presented at the reviewing stand, followed by hot dogs and ice cream available for all, courtesy of Rich Parete, town supervisor.
Warm welcome in the land of cement
Saturday, June 1: Wallkill Valley Land Trust hosts “Rosendale and Beyond: Reshaping the Land – Farmsteads, Cement Works and Canal Towns” historic house tour.
Juneteenth celebrated on Huguenot Street with living history, music & BBQ
Sunday, June 2: Juneteenth celebrates the day in 1865 when Union soldiers landed at Galveston, Texas carrying the belated news that the Civil War had ended. It’s regarded as the last community of slaves in America to get the word that they had been freed.
The Hudson River State Hospital, where natural beauty and humane treatment revolutionized mental health treatment, faces uncertain future
Designed by architect Frederic Withers on sylvan grounds landscaped by the famous team of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the Hudson River State Hospital, as it was originally called, reflected one man’s progressive notion of asylums as recuperative places for healing.
