So many dates feature prominently during a walk of the church and property of Trinity Episcopal Church in Saugerties, N.Y. A large Bible from 1857, with delicate pages, is behind the church pulpit. A lectern contains four intricately carved wooden images of the evangelists such as St. Mark as a wooden lion and John as […]
Entries Tagged as 'Hudson Valley'
Trinity Episcopal’s Storied History
August 31st, 2022 · 4 Comments · Beyond Gotham
Tags: architecture·art·historic preservation·Hudson Valley·spiritual places
Slavery in Ulster County: A Fuller Story
February 21st, 2022 · No Comments · Beyond Gotham
The Covid pandemic is exacting a horrible toll, yet history shows us perseverance and purpose. The pandemic has been a brutally difficult time, provoking much suffering and death, and it continues to do so. We each know of precious ones lost; a doctor, nurse, or other health care worker enduring deaths and illnesses among their […]
Tags: Hudson Valley·landmarks·new york·women
On View: Lewis Hine’s Power and Vision
June 30th, 2021 · 2 Comments · Beyond Gotham
Lewis Hine sought to save innocent children who toiled for long, brutal hours in factories, mills, mines, canneries, and farms, and in the streets, using a singular device: his camera. Working her fifth season, Ann Parion, 13, carried 60 pounds of berries from the fields to the sheds at Newton’s farm in Delaware. At age […]
Tags: art·Hudson Valley
Preservation Triumphs of 2018
January 26th, 2019 · No Comments · Explore New York
The beautifully proportioned, sand-colored, two-story Beaux Arts building at 236 President Place in Brooklyn is not as grand as the larger structures of this style one finds in New York City. Yet its purpose was great and historic, in its own way, as those places, and its stateliness reflects that higher good. The late 19th […]
Tags: architecture·Brooklyn·historic preservation·Hudson Valley·landmarks·manhattan
Rondout Walks: Listen to the Stories
July 7th, 2018 · 2 Comments · Beyond Gotham
A look around Kingston’s Rondout neighborhood reveals many signs of the buildings’ lives. Walk past a storefront or home and you can see how well-tended and cared for many places are. The signs, shapes, materials, or features convey a structure’s past as well as its present life. What isn’t visible as often to the eye […]
Tags: architecture·art·historic preservation·Hudson Valley·stone
Join in Walks of Kingston’s Rondout
October 10th, 2017 · 4 Comments · Beyond Gotham
If one personified Kingston’s Rondout neighborhood as a storyteller, you might well be inclined to pull up a chair and listen for many hours. In this compact Hudson Valley neighborhood of city blocks and winding streets, hills and paths, architectural gems and eye-catching details, and waterfront setting, you can see, sense, and discover a microcosm […]
Tags: architecture·art·historic preservation·Hudson Valley·stone
Speak Up on the Hudson River Barge Plan
December 5th, 2016 · 4 Comments · Beyond Gotham
The Hudson River is a bucolic, beautiful, and mighty river. Yet at various times, human activities have threatened the natural balance, splendor, and sustainability of this vital treasure. This is one of those times to speak up for the river. The shipping industry is proposing that the Coast Guard construct sites on the Hudson River […]
Tags: Hudson Valley·nature·new york
A Newburgh Church Embodies Resilience
August 26th, 2016 · No Comments · Beyond Gotham
In the center of Newburgh is the oldest church building in the city. In good times and bad, particularly through the turmoil of the 1960s and the demolition of more than a thousand buildings in the city for so-called urban renewal in the early 1970s, St. George’s Episcopal Church on Grand Street has remained steadfast. […]
Tags: architecture·historic preservation·Hudson Valley·spiritual places·stone
Art Deco’s Wisdom of the Ages, Part II
January 29th, 2016 · 4 Comments · Explore New York
How many schoolchildren over the decades glanced above the doorway to see a woman reading to a boy while a girl nearby is working on an abacus? It is a simple, beautifully sculpted panel, attentive to detail, as the architectural historian William Rhoads writes, “down to the shoelaces.” The scene is one of two on […]
Tags: architecture·art deco·Hudson Valley·manhattan·new york
The Lessons of LG Sparing the Palisades
July 3rd, 2015 · No Comments · Beyond Gotham
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings,” wrote the pioneering conservationist John Muir in his 1901 book, Our National Parks. On Tuesday, June 23, the mountains – that is to say, the cliffs of the Palisades – were the focus of good tidings for all of us and for future generations. LG Electronics, the […]
Tags: historic preservation·Hudson Valley·landmarks·New Jersey·new york
Autumn’s Cure for Nature Deprivation
November 20th, 2014 · No Comments · Beyond Gotham
Nature is grand both in big spaces, such as mountain cliffs and ocean horizons, and in small patches, as in one leaf, a square foot of roadside, or a plant curled around a building column. Nature rewards the attentive. From the time he was a boy, Richard Louv has known this as much as anyone […]
A Sweet Statement of Deco in Newburgh
October 1st, 2014 · 2 Comments · Beyond Gotham
Buildings have a way of speaking to people. Such expression can come through their design, materials, condition, or decorative elements – and ultimately in their presence. In the middle of the long, wide expanse of Broadway in Newburgh, 121-123 Broadway is a forgotten but beautiful small building. Its Art Deco elements and design suddenly draw […]
Tags: architecture·art deco·historic preservation·Hudson Valley
What You Can Do to Save the Palisades
August 16th, 2014 · No Comments · Be a Mindful Activist
Fast forward several years and picture that you are on the east side of the Hudson River, looking across at the steep ledges of the Palisades north of the George Washington Bridge. But where once over many years the cliffs stood out boldly, etched against the skies, now a large office tower protrudes above the […]
Tags: historic preservation·Hudson Valley·landmarks·New Jersey·new york
The Child Who Became Sojourner Truth
October 14th, 2013 · 2 Comments · Beyond Gotham
In her strong legs and the bare, vulnerable feet; in a long, deep gash on her back; in the upright posture and gaze; and in the sight of the two large jugs she is carrying are the visual reality that children lived as slaves in the United States. This statue is sure to inspire many […]
Town to Unveil Sojourner Truth Statue
September 16th, 2013 · No Comments · Beyond Gotham
History will never be able to restore Sojourner Truth’s childhood to her. When she was a young girl known as Isabella, growing up as a slave in the Hudson Valley, she worked day in and day out for several owners, sustained terrible beatings, and lost almost all her brothers and sisters because slave owners sold […]
Silhouettes, Shadows, and the Solstice
December 27th, 2012 · 16 Comments · Beyond Gotham
Perhaps the days of shortest daylight create a more intense desire to savor the play of light and shadow. We have just passed the winter solstice on Dec. 21, experiencing the shortest time of daylight for each day. It’s our all-too-human tendency to not appreciate something when we have it in abundance, say, when a […]
Statue to Show Sojourner Truth as a Child
October 24th, 2012 · No Comments · Beyond Gotham
Sojourner Truth knew the importance and the power of the visual. One day, as an orator and crusader against slavery, she faced a hostile group of northern students who jeered her. Truth chose a very powerful visual proof of slavery’s horror to confront them. She opened her dress collar and bared her skin to show […]
Tracing Sojourner Truth’s Escape Route
July 31st, 2012 · 10 Comments · Beyond Gotham
Like the guiding light of daybreak that accompanied Sojourner Truth as she walked from her slave owner’s home to escape to freedom, much more illumination now reveals the early days of her life. Named Isabella when she was born into slavery, the abolitionist and champion of human rights spent the first 32 years of her […]
In Sojourner Truth’s Footsteps
May 31st, 2012 · 7 Comments · Beyond Gotham
She never knew most of her 11 brothers and sisters. She hoed corn and lugged bottles of molasses or liquor for one slave owner when she was barely a teen. She endured merciless and unrelenting beatings at the hands of another slaveholder. Long before she changed her name, Sojourner Truth was Isabella, a slave in […]
Redeemer Lutheran’s Staying Power
October 5th, 2011 · 16 Comments · Beyond Gotham
When we behold a beautiful historic house of worship, we may well find a sturdy and durable congregation that has also withstood the test of time. Both materials and people become a study in resilience. Redeemer Lutheran Church in Kingston is a sweet and brightly warm church set within the Rondout neighborhood of this Hudson […]
Tags: architecture·art·historic preservation·Hudson Valley·spiritual places·stone
