The Poughkeepsie Journal published an article today about the ruins of the Beekman Meeting House, built in 1809 by an orthodox Quaker society in Lagrange (Dutchess County). Much of the house has collapsed but one standing section can still be seen. The article written by Anthony Musso is part of his weekly column highlighting lesser-known historic sites.
The link to the article is:
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20110713/NEWS01/107130323/Meeting-house-once-flourished-LaGrange
I just returned from a week in Sicily with the Smith College Alumnae Chorus. (I’m not an alumnus of course but my girlfriend is.) With an Italian chorus and orchestra, the group performed Mozart’s Requiem at cathedrals in Acireale, Siracusa (Ortigia) and Catania. We stayed overnight in Palermo and Catania, the two largest cities on Sicily, and at a beach resort in Giardini di Naxos, near Catania. Day trips took us to Agrigento’s Valley of the Temples, Mount Etna, and the Archaeological Park at Siracusa. I’ve probably got over 2,500 image files to sort through, and that will take a long time, but I picked out a few highlights for now. Enjoy.
At the restaurant Kursaal Kalhesa, located in Palermo’s city wall. We had our first dinner in the courtyard here.
The Ceiling of the Cathedral at Monreale outside Palermo.
Monreale again
Inside an abandoned palazzo or villa in Palermo, which Ed and I discovered on our evening walk while the group rehearsed. There are numerous vacant-looking buildings here, and many buildings show signs of devastation from World War II. Apparently rebuilding efforts have only begun more recently.
The Temple of Juno at the Valley of the Temples, Agrigento.
In early evening, grandparents keep a lookout from the front door while kids play soccer and ride scooters in the street. We found our own foray into the back streets of Catania to be more authentic than the group walking tour of the shopping district.
The courtyard of an abandoned university building in Catania. The inside wasn’t much to see though I explored for a few minutes while Dan kept a lookout at the open doorway.
View across the street from the same building.
The chorus rehearsed at Chiesa di Santa Teresa in Catania.
During rehearsal I wandered Catania by myself one night, down alleys and up side streets. I found Via Crociferi and its ridiculously Baroque cathedrals and abandoned religious buildings. This might be my new favorite street to visit in the world.
The Greek Odeon in Catania.
Walking back after practice, Maeve spotted this gargoyle across the street from the Katane Palace hotel in Catania.
Maeve and I watched Mt. Etna let off a little steam while we posed for self portraits at the Greek Theater in the mountaintop village of Taormina.
The Greek Theater was great, but I just as much enjoyed the solitude of the smaller and not-so-well-promoted Roman Odeon behind Chiesa Santa Caterina.
The Roman Amphitheater at the Archaeological Park in Siracusa. I would like to have explored this overgrown ruin but visitors are not allowed in.
Running late for the show in Ortigia, the Smith crew stormed through a wedding photo shoot ;)
Ghostly Dan rounding up the crew in the square after the show in Ortigia.
I walked the west side avenues in midtown last Friday and photographed a few abandoned buildings. New Yorkers like to sneer at other cities and their derelict structures, but abandoned buildings seem largely to go unnoticed in Manhattan, except by the explorers that have documented the city’s vacant gems.
The most fantastic of midtown’s abandoned buildings is the Windermere (below), located across the street from a small park where these people gathered to talk on this hot June day. Can we imagine these folks, perhaps wealthy retirees, pushing their pooches in baby strollers and having a picnic outside of Detroit’s Michigan Central Station?
Here’s a few more from midtown.
Not really an abandoned building, but a vacant storefront.
This next one I shot a few years ago on 3rd Avenue, farther downtown. The shadow is from one of the iconic water tanks.
And some more images from the rest of the day:
A car park with five-level lift. I’d like to see one of these things operate.
Back at the park across from the Windermere, this bird seemed to be looking over this gentleman’s shoulder, perhaps offering some clues to the crossword puzzle.
These kids climbed a huge rock in Central Park. Upon reaching the top they let out a loud exclamation when they observed the wonders below on the other side.
This dog intently followed both a kickball game and a softball game. I wonder if he imagined chasing down the balls himself.
Demolition of the Texaco Beacon Research Laboratory is expected to begin immediately. One of the first structures to be razed is a historic textile mill. The site was developed as a woolen mill in the 1820s. Texaco acquired the mill in 1931 and constructed new buildings on the property. The lab closed in 2003.
A spokesperson for the demolition project stated that developers interested in purchasing the property could not reuse the buildings, since they have not been heated since 2003, and that they are not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Such smokescreen excuses, easily corrected if true, are often tossed about, and casually accepted without debate from town leaders or residents, but in truth hold no weight.
Long-vacant mills like the Texaco lab frequently have been adaptively-reused, including many right here in the Hudson Valley. The Garner Dye Works in West Haverstraw, currently home of an artists’ collective, the Harmony Mills in Cohoes, now an apartment building, and the DIA Beacon art gallery all testify to the feasibility of historic preservation of once-disused mill buildings.
Hudson Valley Demolition Alert – Texaco Beacon Research Laboratory
Also on the Demo Alert page, the Brick Tavern in Columbia County was demolished recently after part of its roof collapsed this past winter.
This past Saturday I gave my first couple of tours of the year at Bannerman’s Island Arsenal. Already the Bannerman family summer residence has been stabilized by the bracing of the walls and the installations of floors and a roof. A staircase was installed to the second floor.
The residence, named Crag Inch (“rocky island”) Lodge by the Bannermans, was a fine ruin in itself, and I will miss it as such. But it was pretty cool to finally walk “inside,” to go upstairs, and to see just how big (or small, rather) the rooms in the house were.
Follow this link for more photos:
http://www.hudsonvalleyruins.org/yasinsac/bannerman/bannerman9.html .
For information about tours of Bannerman’s Island, visit the Bannerman Castle Trust website.
By the way, public tours don’t go inside the castle or the residence. But visitors do get as close to the building exteriors as seen in the photos on my website, linked above.
Last Thursday I attended Scott Craven’s lecture about the Icons of Route 9, presented by the Croton Friends of History. Scott told us about the stories behind things we pass every day but might not think about.
The tank at the entrance to Camp Smith in Peekskill? It’s named the Countess Lucille VI, placed at Camp Smith in honor of a National Guard soldier who served in World War II and had five tanks all named after his wife Lucille.
That 400+ foot tall tower atop the Palisades? A broadcast tower built 1937-1938 by Edwin Armstrong, inventor of FM radio, across the Hudson from his boyhood home in Yonkers. Armstrong received little compensation for his invention and he fought and lost legal battles to recoup cost and credit. He took his own life in 1954. His tower played an important role in transmitting television signals after September 11, 2001.
A cannon at Nelson Park in Ossining? A genuine Hudson River artifact, it was cast at the West Point Foundry in Cold Spring, served in the Civil War, was partly buried at the Newburgh waterfront, relocated to Fort Ontario at Oswego, and brought to Ossining in the 1980s by Peter Carpenter (a high school boy scout at the time) to replace a World War I cannon that was melted down for scrap during World War II. Near this cannon is one of Benjamin Franklin’s Albany Post Road milestones. Another nearby memorial commemorates a young girl who was killed by a car while crossing Route 9 to get to Nelson Park. Sadly Route 9 is a very dangerous road, and little to no concessions are made for pedestrians, even where parks are located across from several apartment buildings. We sacrifice safety for speed.
Scott asked that we take note of the things we pass by daily and think about them. Chances are, they all have a story to tell.
New York State Historical Marker signifying the Scarborough birthplace of John L. Worden, Civil War commander of the ironclad Monitor.
Most people think Route 9’s southern end point is in New York City. It is in Delaware. Scott also told us that Route 6 stretches from Massachusetts to California. Road trip, anyone?
Scott will deliver the second of three presentations at the Shattemuc Yacht Club in Ossining, Friday June 10. This talk will cover the history of Croton Point and the Croton River.
It was great to see Carl Oeschner and his group again. The Friends of History have great lectures and a nice website. I also met with Mark Jelley (land steward at Doodletown) for the first time in a while, and through him met David Steinberg, author of Hiking The Road To Ruins.
Rob Marchant of The Journal News wrote an article yesterday about Wes Pomeroy, a Buchanan native who is researching Reusen’s Farm / Long View estate in Oscawana (Town of Cortlandt). The property (they call it the “McAndrews estate”) is now a Westchester County park and includes some ruins and foundations, and a racetrack for horses.
The son of the last owner will lead Pomeroy and others on a tour of the site Sunday afternoon.
The link to the story is:
http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011106020399.
The racetrack
A ruin at the racetrack.
