This is the story of five towns located in New York’s Hudson River Valley that met their demise as quickly as they were established. From the icehouses of Rockland Lake to the Ashokan Reservoir towns to the brick quarries of Roseton, only traces of these once vibrant settlements can now be found. Camp Shanks, one of World War II’s most significant military compounds, was erected in 1942 but was quickly abandoned at the war’s end. “Last Stop USA,” as it was known, played host to over one million soldiers and welcomed patriotic visitors like Frank Sinatra and Shirley Temple. In this collection of images, local authors Wesley and Barbara Gottlock revive the spirits of these bygone communities and celebrate a lost way of life.

An elegant homage to the many deserted buildings along the Hudson River--and a plea for their preservation.

The cities, towns, and villages along the banks of the Hudson River are the lifeblood of a region bursting with historic sites, cultural attractions, and natural beauty. Hudson River Towns pairs the spectacular work of renowned Hudson Valley photographer Hardie Truesdale with the vivid descriptions of Joanne Michaels, one of the region's most experienced travel writers. Together they document, in words and photographs, the dynamic nature of the river's population centers, offering readers a captivating personal journey down the Hudson River. Although Main Street continues to struggle across America, there has been a movement afoot in the Hudson Valley to support local enterprise, and many of the region's communities are currently enjoying a renaissance. Newburgh, for instance, has a beautiful waterfront and a new crop of businesses emerging in the inner city. Poughkeepsie's "Walkway Over the Hudson" has drawn thousands of visitors since its opening in 2009, turning the city's Mount Carmel neighborhood, once a sleepy Italian enclave, into a tourist destination. And Kingston was recently named one of the top ten most desirable—and affordable—cities in America for artists. Festivals, parks, and recreational activities are part of the fabric of contemporary Hudson Valley life, and they are represented in these pages as well. The journey begins in the Upper Hudson River region, stopping in Albany, Coxsackie, Athens, Hudson, and Catskill; continues through the Mid-Hudson River region, featuring Saugerties, Kingston, Poughkeepsie, Newburgh, Beacon, Cold Spring, and Garrison; and culminates in the Lower Hudson River towns of Peekskill, Nyack, Tarrytown, and Piermont. With more than 120 full-color photographs that lavishly display the dramatic faces of these cities, towns, and villages, Hudson River Towns reveals a dimension of the region unseen by most travelers and local residents, who will be inspired to think differently about their surroundings after taking this armchair journey through one of America's most beautiful and historic regions.

A historical tour of fun and frolic in the five boroughs—including photos from the good old days. Coney Island is an iconic symbol of turn-of-the-century New York—but many other amusement parks have thrilled the residents of the five boroughs. Strategically placed at the end of trolley lines, railways, public beaches, and waterways, these playgrounds for the rich and poor alike first appeared in 1767. From humble beginnings, they developed into huge sites like Fort George, Manhattan’s massive amusement complex. Each park was influenced by the culture and eclectic tastes of its owners and patrons—from the wooden coasters at Staten Island’s Midland Beach to beer gardens on Queens’ North Beach and fireworks blasting from the Bronx’s Starlight Park. As real estate became more valuable, these parks disappeared. With this historical tour, you can rediscover the thrills of the past from the lost amusement parks of New York City.

The cultural landscape of the Hudson River Valley is crowded with ghosts--the ghosts of Native Americans and Dutch colonists, of Revolutionary War soldiers and spies, of presidents, slaves, priests, and laborers. Possessions asks why this region just outside New York City became the locus for so many ghostly tales, and shows how these hauntings came to operate as a peculiar type of social memory whereby things lost, forgotten, or marginalized returned to claim possession of imaginations and territories. Reading Washington Irving's stories along with a diverse array of narratives from local folklore and regional writings, Judith Richardson explores the causes and consequences of Hudson Valley hauntings to reveal how ghosts both evolve from specific historical contexts and are conjured to serve the present needs of those they haunt. These tales of haunting, Richardson argues, are no mere echoes of the past but function in an ongoing, contentious politics of place. Through its tight geographical focus, Possessions illuminates problems of belonging and possessing that haunt the nation as a whole. Table of Contents: Introduction 1. "How Comes theHudson to this Unique Heritage?" 2. Irving's Web 3. The Colorful Career of a Ghost from Leeds 4. Local Characters 5. Possessing High Tor Mountain Epilogue: Hauntings without End Notes Index Reviews of this book: The author traces changing versions of several ghostly tales that mutated over time to reflect local conditions and controversies as well as national political issues like abolitionism. Richardson shows that, thanks to the Hudson Valley's long history of settlement, the 'legendizing impetus' created by Washington Irving, and the area's established position as a tourist destination, it inspired at least three sometimes overlapping traditions of hauntings: the 'aboriginal' Dutch and Indian hauntings, the Revolutionary War hauntings, and industrial hauntings, which are traced in Maxwell Anderson's High Tor (1937) and T. Coraghessan Boyle's World's End (1987). --J. J. Benardete, Choice Possessions is a rare and brilliant book that seamlessly combines history and literature--revealing how richly they can support one another. It is a great pleasure to read: both fluent and profound. --Alan Taylor, author of American Colonies and William Cooper's Town This is a lively, well-written, and engaging interdisciplinary study. Richardson pursues two main goals: probing in considerable detail a body of early national folklore and its modern revivals and testing some more general notions about the uses to which such lore is put in the periods when it is recovered, reshaped, and reinvigorated. It is smart without being condescending, locally inflected without exhibiting the least bit of piety - and, I think, quite suggestive for scholars looking at other domains far beyond the Hudson Valley. She gives us a way of understanding how the "local" has figured in the cultural construction of Americanness. --Wayne Franklin, author of Discoverers, Explorers, Settlers and The New World of James Fenimore Cooper

Rediscover the simple pleasures of a day trip with Day Trips Hudson Valley. This guide is packed with hundreds of exciting things for locals and vacationers to do, see, and discover within a two-hour drive to and from many top New York destinations. With full trip-planning information, Day Trips Hudson Valley helps makes the most of a brief getaway.

Features 55 historic sites throughout the Hudson Valley region of New York State that, while not mainstream tourist attractions, boast significant ties to local and national history.