I dressed as quite the dandy for the New York Renaissance Festival. I wore purple crushed velvet riding pants that hugged my calves and billowed out at the thighs with a sash across the pelvis to sustain the pure thoughts female attendees; a scandalously unbuttoned silky pirate shirt that was technically a woman’s blouse; and…
I stepped out of my car near Hasbrouck Park in New Paltz for the vigil 29 hours after James Alex Fields Jr. mowed down dozens of people counter-protesting an alt-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The murder of Heather Heyer and the injuring of at least 19 others was the acme of a day of mass…
If you have ever had the pleasure of attending a town planning board meeting (and who hasn’t?), you have probably seen the NIMBY-ers — clots of enraged homeowners who surge to their feet with tears of salty conviction in their eyes, planning board documents clutched in their sweaty, quaking fists as they demand why –…
Plans are in the works to bring a boutique campground to the town of Gardiner in Ulster County, but neighbors are robustly resisting the planned development, going as far to form a citizen’s group and retaining an attorney to resist the project. “Heartwood” would consist of 70 cabins with bathrooms, electricity and heating; a working…
The smell of sticky asphalt wafted into my car from the newly paved road as I rolled past a steady stream of pedestrians walking towards the 2017 Rosendale Street Fest. The town, a cluster of vibrantly painted shops on the Rondout Creek between New Paltz and Kingston, has a population of 6,000 on non-festival days,…
Tivoli Bays is currently inaccessible by boat, as the launch site within the state-owned land is closed until further notice. Unless, of course, you have some moxie. My plan for accessing the 1700-acre preserve near Bard College in Dutchess County was to simply park in one of the small lots at a trailhead and roll…
New York Zipline Adventure Tours at Hunter Mountain is billed as the longest, highest, (but not necessarily fastest) zipline in North America. The fastest zipline in North America is located somewhere in Canada, according to the tour’s instructors, but two out of three superlatives is extreme enough for a good adventure. I walked into the…
The seedy riff of the Rolling Stones “Satisfaction” wailed through the Stair Galleries in Hudson Saturday as antique wonks peered at rugs from the South Caucus and Persia and aimed their iPhone flashlights at imperfections on sets of Venetian rococo gilt chairs. Drug-fueled 1960s rock might not be the most natural choice for an auction…
After entering my normal coffee joint to purchase a sugary caffeinated drink the day before Pride, I asked one of the baristas whether they would be attending “the parade” in Hudson. She didn’t know what I meant, so I specified I was talking about the annual Gay Pride Parade. “Aerg,” the other barista chimed in,…
As I entered the vast interior of the Hudson Area Library, I could already see the altitudinous Ella Ghent rising above the other figures in the children’s area. She was conservatively dressed for the occasion, wearing an apron, thick stockings and flats. Besides her was her ukulele. Ella spends most of her time as Michael…
If you walk past the boutiques and antique stores of Hudson’s Warren Street until the boulevard terminates, then hang a right, you will eventually come upon a scene ripped from time: two rows of dusty shacks leaning over the water around a bay. The shacks are on stilts and are constructed with scrounged materials: roofing…
The East Durham Irish Festival takes place in the most ridiculously Irish town this side of Galway. As we drove down Route 145 in Greene County on Memorial Day weekend, we passed a sign declaring we were entering “The Emerald Isle of the Catskills.” I had traveled with my girlfriend Jody down to Kingston to…
