This Small Town That Has It All — And It’s Just an Hour from NYC
For the family or the couple who can’t decide between an outdoor adventure or a cultural destination, one small town in upstate New York has it all.
Beacon, NY is renowned as the site where the Dia Art Foundation turned an abandoned factory into a temple of minimalist art, but few venture beyond the hallowed grounds of the museum to explore the vast array of activities in this tiny jewel of a town. There’s so much to do in Beacon, it’s more than just a day trip.
FROM FARMS TO FACTORIES
Beacon was originally two small towns: the busy port of Fishkill Landing, and Matteawan, a manufacturing center. The area was “bought” from the Wappinger natives in 1683 by former New York City mayor Francis Rombout, who died shortly afterwards and left the 85,000 acre estate to his four-year old daughter, Catheryna. Upon coming of age and inheriting the land, she single-handedly developed the area, carving out farmland, building a major grist mill on Fishkill Creek, and creating the first produce cooperative in the Hudson River highlands.
During the Revolutionary War, Beacon was a stronghold for the Continental Army. It grew into a major manufacturing center in the 1800s, with factories producing paper clips, biscuit wrappers, coats, air brakes, and especially hats and bricks. There were purportedly over 500 hat factories in Beacon at one time. Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building were both built with bricks from Beacon.
In 1913, the town was about to be incorporated as “Melzingah,” after a Native American place name. New York City newspapers mocked the name, declaring “it has a flavor of the Arabian Nights mixed with a nightmare dream after a feast of welsh rarebit, mince pie, cream cake, and hard cider.” Chastened, the townspeople settled on “Beacon” after the signal fires that were lit on the mountain to warn the Continental Army of British troop movements during the Revolutionary War.
After World War II, the factories began to close and the town went into sharp decline until Dia: Beacon opened in 2003. Since then, it’s become known as an arts destination, but the town is much more than that.
A CONVENIENT DAY OR WEEKEND TRIP FROM NEW YORK
The Metro North runs a train to Beacon every hour from Grand Central Station in New York City. A round trip ticket costs $30–40 depending on whether you are traveling on peak times. There’s also the option of a ticket package that includes admission to Dia: Beacon. At just 80 minutes long, the train ride is a perfect beginning to a weekend away from city life.
Sit on the left side of the train to enjoy the Hudson River view and watch for Bannerman Island floating past with its dreamy abandoned castle. It’s actually an Edwardian military surplus warehouse, built by Francis Bannerman VI, an eccentric businessman who bought and sold surplus military ammunition. Bannerman designed the castle himself and continued to improve upon it until he died in 1918. After an accidental explosion and a catastrophic fire, the island was abandoned for decades until the Bannerman Castle Trust formed to save the castle and open the island to the public. Now, you can book a cruise and a walking tour on the island.
From the train station, it’s just a five minute walk to Dia: Beacon, housed in a former Nabisco box printing plant. The Dia Art Foundation was one of the first art organizations to realize that abandoned industrial buildings are ideal for showcasing large-scale work. They improved upon the abandoned factory with sawtooth skylights and tailored each room to the monumental work of a single artist. Highlights include Louise Bourgeois’ iconic spider sculptures, Michael Heizer’s cavernous holes in the floor, and Richard Serra’s hulking Torqued Ellipses. Plan at least three hours to explore the museum and its grounds.
Up the hill on Main Street, you’ll find a dozen blocks of antique stores, boutiques, restaurants, and bars. On Sundays, there’s even an outdoor flea market. After shopping and stopping for lunch, continue past Main Street to Bob Mountain Grocery, where the trail for Mount Beacon begins.
Back in 1902, a casino and hotel were built on top of Mount Beacon. For the next 70 years, visitors were brought to the casino on an incline railway built by Otis Elevator. It was the steepest funicular railway in the world, going up 1,540 feet on a 74 percent grade. The railway ran until 1978 when it closed due to a financial difficulties. A few years later, a suspicious fire swept the mountain and destroyed the railway from top to bottom. Now, hikers can follow the route of the old incline railway to the ruins of the powerhouse at the top of Mount Beacon where they can enjoy a stupendous view.
If a hike up the mountain isn’t enough outdoor activity for you, there’s also the option of volunteering on a replica of a 19th century sloop once owned by folk musician Pete Seeger.
In the 1960s, the Hudson River was polluted from a hundred years of factories dumping their waste water, chemicals, and other contaminants. Lamenting the sad state of the river, Pete Seeger and his wife Toshi built the Woody Guthrie, a wooden topsail sloop, and turned it into a floating grassroots campaign. They sailed up and down the Hudson, asking commercial fishermen to work with them to bring the river back. They brought locals on board the ship and created the Clearwater Festival along the riverbank. Seeger even wrote a song, Sailing Up My Dirty Stream, “Someday, though maybe not this year / My Hudson river will once again run clear.”
In the 1980s, the Environmental Protection Agency designated the 200-mile stretch of the Hudson as a clean-up site. They are still dredging the river bottom for PCPs. Visitors to Beacon can see for themselves how much cleaner the river is by booking a sail aboard Seeger’s sloop from Beacon Harbor adjacent to the train station.
After working up an appetite hiking or sailing, you can end your evening with dinner at one of Beacon’s many restaurants. In the past decade, many New Yorkers fleeing the city for the greener pastures of upstate life have turned this tiny town into a culinary and cocktail destination.
There are plenty of choices for a fabulous night out. Go for a cocktail at the art deco Wonderbar, attached to an independent movie house in a 1930s building. Meet the locals at Dogwood, a lively pub that often has live music. Swoon over the waterfall view at The Roundhouse, the most upscale restaurant in Beacon, which boasts a large patio decorated with fairy lights on Fishkill Creek. There are even rooms upstairs of The Roundhouse so you can turn a day trip into a weekend if you haven’t finished taking in all that Beacon offers.
