America’s First Female Real Estate Tycoon: Catheryna Rombout Brett
The life of Catheryna Rombout Brett — namesake of Scenic Hudson’s Madam Brett Park in Beacon — reads like fiction: A young woman forsakes the big city for the wilderness, carves out a life for herself and young sons following...
#HudsonInspired: Artist Jean-Marc Superville Sovak Contends With Valley’s Social Dynamics
Jean-Marc Superville Sovak was born in Montreal, the child of one parent from Trinidad and another from the Czech Republic. With this geographic span in his identity, he thinks a great deal about place in his art. And since attending art school at...
Gearing Up For Amphibians’ “Big Night”
If you think amphibians’ winter-survival strategy is impressive — species like spring peepers freeze solid, with no heartbeat for months, then thaw out within hours — you’ll be amazed by the moves they make as temperatures warm. On a wet-enough...
#WildlifeLove: 9 Wild Facts about Porcupines
Arguably, the porcupine — technically, the North American porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum) — is the Hudson Valley’s oddest-looking creature. Everybody knows about their quills, but we discovered there’s lots more to learn about these elusive mammals, including unusual calls and smells and...
The Coast Guard’s Icebreakers Are Back at Work
It’s almost unbelievable now to imagine that there was a point during the early 20th century when cars could zip across the solid surface of the frozen river from Nyack to Tarrytown with ease. While the river probably won’t freeze...
Iroquois Pipeline Expansion Opposition Gets More Time
On Jan. 19, the then-chair of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, James Danly, called an extraordinary session of the commission, which reviews new fracked gas initiatives nationwide. On the agenda was an expansion of the Iroquois Pipeline, a project that...
Get Inspired at These 10 Powerful Sites of the Valley’s Black History
Black Americans have been making important contributions to life in the Hudson Valley since the 17th century, but only in recent decades have their contributions been publicly recognized and celebrated. To continue appreciating Black history well beyond February, explore these 10...
The Glory Days of Hudson Valley Ice Harvesting
Block ice was once a can’t-live-without-it piece of American culture. For about a century beginning in the 1830s, keeping food and beverages cold in and around New York City depended on this ice — and on harvesting it from the...