Sometimes, surprising beauty lies behind a nondescript gate. At the end of a long street in Kingston, N.Y., and behind a wrought iron gate, lies a sparkling little park. It’s situated on the Hudson River near where the Rondout Creek flows into the wide river, so that water seems to surround the park. It has a backdrop of wooded trails and an inlet, a gentle place that Frederick Law Olmsted would have approved. Looking out at the Hudson, a dear friend and I watched the river lap quietly, walked the railroad tracks along the shoreline, and listened to the birds flying to and fro above the inlet.

It’s a peaceful scene. Yet a look at the railroad tracks prompted other images, of crowds in Victorian dress arriving by the thousands on a Hudson River steamboat from New York City. They rode the carousel at its amusement park, danced at its big pavilion, stayed at the hotel on the hill, and viewed concerts and fireworks. From the landing, many connected with trains that would take them to the Catskills.

Both scenes above occurred in the same spot, Kingston Point, but a century apart. It’s a place today to explore and feel nature and to envision a prior life as a city escape and playground for thousands in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Today, it’s called Kingston Point Rotary Park (photos). We found it quite accidentally, after walking at the nearby riverfront beach portion of Kingston Point Park. As we were leaving, my friend spotted the wrought iron gate with the words “Kingston Point Park 1897|1992.” Intrigued, we walked through the gate and along a path down to the park, discovering a small pedestrian bridge, cookout area, benches, and trails, much of it with a view of the Hudson River. Heaven!

On the spring day we spent here, it took me back to my childhood, exploring tracks, woods, and paths along the river. It would make an excellent four-season landscape to watch the varied signs of the seasons. As we walked across the pedestrian bridge on our early-spring visit, the trees along the trolley tracks and river were feathery with new bright-green leaves. On one, brilliant yellow-green shoots were just emerging out of the tender reddish buds, all the more blazing in front of a blue sky.

Panoramic Wonder

The trolley tracks run along the river and then turn west to connect with Kingston’s Rondout area and the Trolley Museum (more on this below). The trolley runs on a weekend schedule from Memorial Day Weekend until mid-autumn. When the trolley isn’t running, you can gain a wondrous vantage point of the river scene on a walk along the tracks. The shoreline hills and town of Rhinecliff are across the Hudson. To the south is the Rondout Lighthouse, where the Rondout Creek flows into the Hudson River. Beyond the lighthouse the Hudson stretches out heading downriver, flanked by soft hills. Near the tracks, a father and son were on the riverbank, fishing. Every once in a while the tooting horn of an Amtrak across the river punctuated the quiet.

Walking alongside the river, I often think of 19^th century landscapes and of the Hudson River School painters, especially their antipathy toward the encroachment of industrialization upon the natural world. Here, we were tramping on a small patch of green that has gone in varied lives from natural to built-up to neglected back to more natural. With so few others around on the day we were there, the distant hills, the sight of a town across the river, the river’s expanse, the trees with spring’s burst of green all created a timeless scene of beauty.

Not that it’s a perfectly tidy place. Along the shoreline near the tracks, we spotted girders and wide chunks of concrete, left over from past lives. To someone who grew up playing around the railroad tracks, river, and quarry of a small Western Pennsylvania town, this created even more fun and discovery in the walking.

Once a Playland

More than anything, Rotary Park invited contemplation. Consider how different this small park is on a quiet spring day in the early 21^st century than when it was a Victorian-era destination for crowds arriving from New York City. Then, boatloads of passengers came to Kingston Point for the fun and diversion of its many attractions. They arrived on the Hudson River Day Line, which was a prominent steamboat line carrying passengers between New York and Albany from 1863 to 1948.

The Day Line first bypassed the Kingston Point landing. But it became a Day Line stop in 1896, in large part because a transportation baron and industrialist, Samuel Decker Coykendall, made it happen, according to the Hudson River Maritime Museum. Coykendall was the president of the Cornell Steamboat Company and the Ulster & Delaware Railroad, which ran from Kingston to the Catskill Mountains, and he operated the Kingston trolley system.

Sensing a dollar-gushing opportunity, Coykendall extended the U&D’s tracks out to Kingston Point and built a passenger boat wharf, so excursionists could get off the Day Line steamboat and hop on a train that would take them to the Catskills, according to the book King of Steam: Thomas Cornell and the Cornell Steamboat Company. He linked the trolley line out to Kingston Point as well.

Meantime, Coykendall also developed the Kingston Point Park, filling in a swamp and constructing amusements, lagoons, bridges, and a dance hall. A hotel, the Oriental Hotel, opened at the site. Old photos show the boat landing, pavilion, the hotel, and a gazebo with rowboats surrounding it. The hotel allowed drinking so many men would head there while the women took the children through the arcades. On the grounds where we walked, ladies in long skirts and frilly blouses once strolled and children lined up for the carousel. During its heyday at the turn of the 20^th century, the riverfront park amusement area drew hundreds of thousands of visitors, both on the steamboats plying the Hudson and on the trolley from Kingston.

In 1922, the Oriental Hotel burned down. The amusement park fell into decline and its buildings were demolished. For many years, the area was neglected and unkempt until the Rotary Club of Kingston adopted the site in the early 1990s, cleaning it up and reclaiming it. Today, the City of Kingston owns the park, and the Rotary Club continues its reclamation and maintenance.

Some lands lie fallow for generations and never come back after they’ve been abandoned, but this one is different. Taking in the view of the river and lighthouse without any sense of time passing, playfully walking from rail tie to rail tie on the tracks, watching the birds, and enjoying a rich spring day, I felt gratitude to those who have resurrected this lovely – and low-key – green gem along the Hudson.

What Else To See Near Kingston Point

• The Trolley Museum of New York, Kingston: Open on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays from Memorial Day weekend to Columbus Day, the Trolley Museum explores the history of rail transportation and the role it played in the Hudson Valley. Located on East Strand Street, it offers a display of trolley, subway, and rapid transit cars. The museum’s trolley excursion ride runs from the foot of Broadway to Kingston Point during the museum’s season, Memorial Day weekend to Columbus Day, as well.

• The Hudson River Maritime Museum, Kingston: The Hudson River Maritime Museum is the only museum in New York State preserving the history of the Hudson River. It has indoor and outdoor exhibits on Hudson River maritime history, waterfront special events, a gift shop, and boat rides to the Rondout Lighthouse. It is open daily from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Note: A special thank you to my friend Gretchen Behl, who has a vast knowledge and love of the Hudson Valley. My companion on this walk, she is the one who turned me on to the history of the Hudson River Day Line steamboats and who later found the amazing vintage-postcard and other photographs of Kingston Point Park.