Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Ice House bike-hike


I rode my bike up to the historic Scott ice house ruin this morning, an idyllic little spot on the river about ten miles north of Hudson, in the town of Stuyvesant.



More specifically, Newton Hook, right off Route 9J.




 (Please forgive the lame photos; can you even see the ice house in this next photo? It's right there, square tower in the center.)


 Turns out there's an ongoing controversy about this area,


 on Ferry Road, which involves the railroad crossing, historic properties, eminent domain, DOT, protected wetlands, etc, etc.   (For the moment it seems "lack of funding" has spared beautiful Ferry Road, but who knows---  if the economy turns around it could be threatened again.)

I've always used the (hard-to-find) unmarked wooded trail off Ferry Road to get to the ice house (look for the cut log  along the right side of the road); today I realized there is also "Ice House Road" (duh) just to the north, which isn't as adventurous, but has much less poison ivy.
(can you see the ice house in this pic? It's there!)




 Both trails are kind of magical,  but the southern one is longer and winding and wooded and hilly, and follows the river's edge right before you get to the ice house ---- then the ice house takes you by surprise when you sort of stumble on it suddenly, and it towers over you.

Unfortunately, they put black chain-link fencing in all the window openings,


 which diminishes the appeal of the ruin pretty significantly, but


the patch of land on the north side of the building is kept mowed and there are two picnic tables right near the river's edge, so it's an ideal spot for a quiet lunch

(bring a plastic tablecloth; the tables don't get enough sun and are rotting).   It's also very likely you'll have the whole place to yourself, I don't think it gets a lot of visitors.


Here's a google earth shot of Nutten Hooke---the ruin is in the woods at the left.  Plenty of parking at the end of Ferry Road, where you can also launch a kayak or just take in the wide, wonderful Hudson River views.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Falk Ties from the Falk Building


According to word-on-the-street,
this past 4th of July weekend marked the sale of the Falk building at 543 Warren.


and the end of the "Fresh Farmer" business, which was housed in the building for as long as anyone can remember.

The Fresh Farmer was a unique hybrid of convenience store, junk shop, and farm stand. A one-stop shop for lottery tickets, cigarettes, tomatoes and bananas,  antique Christmas ornaments, trucker hats & fanny packs, obsolete electronics (laser disc player, anyone?), old magazines, faded Michael Jackson memorabilia, brick-a-brack, 7 gazillion Ty Beanie Babies, and battery-operated coughing ashtrays.


Not much for me--- but a few years back, I did buy a boxful of wonderful old silk neckties, ascots, and bow ties here,        


many bearing beautiful old labels.

              " W.C Falk     Hudson, N.Y."

These ties had been stashed in the basement of the building for what must have been nearly a hundred years.  The box also had many random silk scraps, and ties that had been chopped off with scissors, leading me to believe they might have been also manufacturing the ties here at one time.

When I went into the shop the other day, another boxful of ties had emerged from the basement --this one full of cotton summer ties, stiff antique collars, and linen bow tie-like contraptions I had never seen before.  

                                               Some appeared to be unsold store stock
                                                
 while others were bundled in old twine, as if they were just tie parts, not ever finished being assembled.  

As a lover of textiles, a vintage clothing dealer, and Hudson memorabilia collector, I have to say this tie stash has been one of my favorite finds in my many years of treasure hunting.








Saturday, May 21, 2011

"...she was incorrigible ..."

Was pleasantly surprised this morning to stumble on a garage sale that had lots of truly old stuff, including a small stash of early 1920s ephemera from the Hudson Training School for Girls  (now the correctional facility on the south edge of town).  Admission forms,  progress reports, letters, newspaper clippings, and photos.  Unfortunatly I don't have time today to get too immersed in it all, but here are a few quick pics.  More later.





Monday, March 7, 2011

The Warren Movie Theatre

Piggy-backing off of Carole's Back in the Day blog post yesterday, which mentions the adaptive reuse of a movie theatre into a motel (The Warren Inn) in 1958:

If you go into the motel today, this framed picture hangs on the wall behind the counter.
   The movie posters over the doors and far left and right are for John Barrymore's "The Great Man Votes", which was released in 1939.   The sign projecting out from the second floor seems to read "Reade's Warren".

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Hudson Beach Combing part 3: Metal


(february...the month for tying up loose ends.  This blog entry should have been posted last summer...)

The metals can be divided into two simple sub-categories: the junk I bring home in my bike basket,




and the junk I must leave behind for future archeologists, like this portable typewriter




and this extreeeemly heavy rusty bucket of railroad spikes.




which was buried deep down in the sand when I discovered it.

Of all my metal finds, my favorite things are these little mystery trinkets:
which appear to be once-molten bits of aluminum (though they feel heavier than aluminum).  Some of them have a sort of liquidy, art nouveau feel to them. (click to enlarge)


I like to pretend the one pictured at right here 
was perhaps once a tiny pocket saint carried off to sea with some WWII sailor, and found its way back up the Hudson over the years.