October 2023

One month in the Hudson Valley

I've been wanting to visit this area for some time, to see the landscapes that artists like Cole, Church, Barstow, and Bierstadt painted. Now that a friend generously offered me to stay at her house, I'm exploring the villages and trails along the Hudson River, in the state of New York.

My base of operations is Yonkers (approximately 210,000 people), to the North of New York City. There are a few interesting attractions here. The Untermyer Park is a large and beautiful area with a walled garden inspired by Persian architecture and a round pagan temple built on top of a rock formation, among other things. The Hudson River Museum is small but hosts works by some surprising artists like Georgia O'Keeffe and Andy Warhol, together with the expected luminaries of the Hudson River School: Cole, Church, Durand, Cropsey, Bierstadt, and others. The Philipse Manor Hall is a historic house museum built around 1682 by a merchant named Frederick Philipse, who at the time owned all the lands that are today Yonkers. I also climbed the stairs of the Yonkers City Hall like Bobby Axelrod did in the tv series Billions.

Untermyer Park, in Yonkers

In Irvington (approximately 6,500 people), I visited Sunnyside, a historic house museum where Washington Irving lived from 1835 until his death in 1859 (with an interval in which he lived in Spain as the American ambassador). Irving, of course, is the famous author of stories like Rip Van Winkle (1819) and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820), so famous that the village was renamed Irvington in his honor while he was still living there.

In Tarrytown (approximately 12,000 people), I visited Lyndhurst, the sumptuous Gothic mansion that was railroad tycoon Jay Gould's country house from 1880 to his death in 1892. People who watched the tv series The Gilded Age will recognize the house, as many scenes were filmed there.

Lyndhurst

In Sleepy Hollow (approximately 10,000 people), I visited the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, where Washington Irving is buried. The cemetery is very large and contains the Old Dutch Church described in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and also a bridge built like the one in the same story (the original bridge no longer exits). The village was actually called North Tarrytown until 1996, when the name was changed because of Irving's short story and its famous Headless Horseman.

Pocantico River, in Sleepy Hollow

Across the Hudson River, I visited Nyack (approximately 7,000 people), where one of my favorite artists, Edward Hopper, was born and lived for almost three decades. His house is still there and is now a museum. I also went to the Oak Hill Cemetery, where Hopper is buried, and found the grave of another artist that I like very much, Joseph Cornell, who was also born in Nyack.

Edward Hopper's House

Much to the North, I visited Hudson (approximately 6,000 people) and Catskill (approximately 4,000 people), one on each side of the river. Catskill is the setting for Irving's short story Rip Van Winkle, and there's a statue of the character on the main street. But the major attraction for me was the house where Thomas Cole lived and painted. He was the founder of the Hudson River School art movement and creator of beautiful landscape paintings inspired by this region. On the other side of the river (and I crossed the 1.5 km of the Rip Van Winkle Bridge on foot), I visited the spectacular Olana State, which was home to Frederic Church, student of Thomas Cole and one of the most important painters in the Hudson River School. The mansion, designed by Church himself, is a mix of Victorian and Moorish architecture, and impressive on its own. But the landscape, also designed by Church, is what makes the place a work of art. He moved trees and hills and lakes as if he was working on canvas, shaping the scenery to his taste.

View from my window in Catskill

You went to all those places and didn't go to New York City?

Of course I went to New York City, several times. I visited the New York Public Library, the new Museum of Broadway, the Museum of the City of New York, the Grafitti Hall of Fame, and watched the musical Sweeney Todd at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. I also went to the New York Comic Con, where I talked briefly with Charles Soule (Eight Billion Genies), Jesse Lonergan (Miss Truesdale), Terry Moore (Stranger than Paradise), and saw legends Chris Claremont (X-Men) and Jim Steranko (Nick Fury).

Finally, I visited the Edgar Allan Poe Cottage, in the Bronx, the only Poe residence I had not seen yet. I had already been to the ones in Richmond, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, so now the series is complete.

And the food?

Since I'm in the USA, I ate what Americans eat: Mexican food, Italian food, Puerto Rican food, Greek food, Cuban food, Chinese food, even Brazilian food.

Puerto Rican food: mofongo con churrasco

Greek food: beef souvlaki

Next destination?

Later this week I move to Porto, in Portugal. But that, of course, is a story for later.

Até a próxima! (That's "until next time" in Portuguese.)

Tarrytown Lake