New businesses illustrate Newburgh renewal. By A. Alfano.

Growing up in the outskirts of the City of Newburgh has allowed me to observe the urban renewal that has occurred in my hometown. In particular, I have been able to witness the renewal of downtown Historic Liberty Street, at one time a nearly commercially vacant street, now bustling with numerous small businesses.

The city of Newburgh, located on the western side of the Hudson River 60 miles north of New York City, is home to about 30,000 people. Settled in the early 18th century and a brief home to George Washington during the Revolutionary War, Newburgh grew into a bustling city during the 1950s. The city’s prosperous decades can be attributed to various industries, the remnants of which can be found throughout the city. As businesses began to move outside of the city’s limits and into shopping plazas in the town of Newburgh in the 1960s, the city’s economic decline led to increasing rates of poverty and crime.

While renewal efforts began in the early 1970s, major commercial results did not appear until the late 1990s when the Newburgh waterfront was revitalized into a street and sidewalk along the banks of the Hudson, now home to half a dozen or so upscale restaurants.

It was during this time, the early 2000s, where my personal memory kicks in. As a student in one of the few elementary schools within the city limits, I grew up surrounded by the urban reality of Newburgh. In 4th grade, my friends and I first learned what a ‘dime bag’ was after finding them lying around our school’s playground.

Although my father and his parents were born and raised in the city, I rarely found myself in downtown Newburgh during my childhood, with the exception of attending school or going to the public library. We had no reason to go; there were few restaurants that we frequented and hardly entertainment or activities. This trend continued throughout much of my adolescence and into my high school years. It is this urban fear and subsequent lack of consumer traffic that has prevented many investors and business owners from contributing to Newburgh’s economy.

However, this began to change in recent years. Historic Liberty Street, a downtown street that runs parallel to the river, and host to Washington’s State Headquarters Historic Site, draws a limited number of tourists and student groups regularly. In recent years, this historic street has become a shining example of urban renewal in Newburgh. “Liberty Street is becoming very well-known for its efforts in revitalization,” said Rick Milton, owner of Newburgh Based Mesh-Realty. The street, previously lacking commercial businesses, now hosts a variety, including restaurants, cafes, a florist, and more.

During my senior year of high-school, I had heard about a café that had opened in the city, but I hardly considered it and continued to foster my teenage caffeine addiction at a Starbucks in the more affluent Town of Newburgh. On a whim, two friends and I (bored of the typical suburban mall hang-out) decided to venture to this new café. We were incredibly surprised by its sidewalk seating, well-decorated interior, eclectic menu, and most importantly, location. In an area we thought we would have never otherwise set foot in, we found ourselves enjoying hibiscus iced teas and paninis.

Closed storefronts reflect the need for economic revitalization. By A. Alfanso.

My interest in urban renewal and gentrification in the City of Newburgh really took off,  on that spring afternoon at Caffé Macchiato. While the location is still very gritty in comparison to the manicured waterfront, it has a historic, city-like feel. Various committees have been established in Newburgh to promote the preservation of the street as well as encourage and fiscally support small businesses trying to open. “A number of the storefronts that have been vacant for years are now occupied,” said Mr. Milton.

The addition of the Newburgh branch of Orange County Community College should bring an increase in foot traffic to the area in upcoming years. The opening of the OCC extension will hopefully add a youthful liveliness to the area, as well. Mr. Milton estimates that currently, there is a 60/40 ratio of city residents/visitors patronizing Liberty Street.

How have people heard about Liberty Street’s revival? The same way I did— through word of mouth. Visitors are beginning to visit Newburgh from other cities such as Beacon and Poughkeepsie, said Mr. Milton.

The renewal effort on Liberty Street is just getting started. Of all the small businesses opening on Liberty Street in the past few years, Mr. Milton can only recall one failing, a remarkable statistic in today’s economy. With the help of advisory boards, dedicated small business owners, and local residents seeking to patronize local establishments, Liberty Street’s future looks promising.

Alyssa Alfano grew up in Newburgh and attended high school in Poughkeepsie. She is an undergraduate at Seton Hall University.

PART IV: In a series on the MNRRA

The Ford Parkway Bridge spans the Mississippi River in Minneapolis.

This is the fourth and final installment in a series of articles on the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area (MNRRA), a National Park designation that has been referenced as a potential model for Congressman Maurice Hinchey’s Hudson River Valley Special Resource Study Act (H.R. 4003).  This post focuses on the essential content and management goals of MNRRA’s Comprehensive Management Plan (CMP).

The CMP provides a framework to balance natural, cultural, and economic resource protection, visitor use, and sustainable development activities. Land management is a focal point of the plan.  The plan “will minimize adverse effects on the river corridor and conflicts between users while providing for a broad spectrum of land and water uses and managed growth. It will protect fish and wildlife resources and emphasize the importance of biological diversity in the corridor.”

Corridor management policies protect and restore the most significant visual resources, including historic structures and landscapes, and “the river corridor will have continuous public or private open space along the shoreline to the maximum extent practical, and it will be connected to the downtowns and neighborhoods by open space and trails.”

Additional public and private open space is a critically important resource in the corridor that will be stressed in plan implementation. “Such space will be provided through a continued local land and easement acquisition program. The goal will be to provide a continuous linear open space and trail along the riverfront in most of the corridor while protecting natural, cultural, and economic resources.”

While open space is encouraged in the CMP, the plan also recognizes the importance of economic activities and provides for the commercial use of the corridor consistent with the MNRRA legislation.  “Economic activity has the ability to preserve nationally significant historic and economic resources, and this is encouraged by the plan. However, this document is not an economic development plan for the corridor.”

Therefore, except in existing commercial and industrial developments, downtown areas, and historic districts, and the riverfront and bluff area, it is a vision of the CMP for the corridor to appear mostly natural from the river and its shoreline areas.  “In downtown areas and historic districts, development will be more visible, but still complement the aesthetics of the river corridor, appealing to area residents and serving as an attraction to visitors to the metropolitan area. Where the natural appearance has been altered in other areas, design guidelines and programs will be established to encourage shoreline restoration to a more natural appearance.”

The following is a summary table of the main issues the CMP addresses, based on the guidance provided by legislative direction and NPS policy.

From Hodgson's Farm Website

There’s no better place than the Hudson Valley to Find and Eat Your Colors.

From sun-ripened peaches and autumn berries to heirloom beans and tomatoes, the Hudson Valley’s fruit and veggie harvest peaks this month. Find your nearest farm stand, farmers market, or community garden and put these local delights on your must-do list before the growing season draws to a close. Call before you go to find out what’s available for picking that day.

Kick off your local food exploration September 11-12 at the  Hudson Valley Food & Wine Festival, held at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds in Rhinebeck. The event features a Gourmet Food Showcase, as well as live music and food/wine tastings.

From Hudson Valley Food & Wine Festival

Buy a dozen freestone peaches and bake a cobbler or pie. Smith Farms in Hudson grows Flame Prince (large yellow) and White Lady (white) peaches on dwarf trees for $1/pound, as well as Red Gold and Fantasia nectarines and Fuji, Honey Crisp, and Gala apples for $0.70/pound (200 White Birch Rd, Hudson, 518-828-1228, www.smithfarmshudson.com). Next year, visit earlier in the summer to pick sweet Skeena cherries and Autumn Britten or Polana raspberries for eating, making jam, or freezing.

Taste the difference between morning- and afternoon-picked white sweet corn. Visit Dykeman Farm, which offers an honor system after hours. A full menu of veggies are available in the family’s farm market (West Dover Road, Pawling,845-832-6068, www.dykemanfarm.com).

From Hudson Valley Garlic Festival

Learn about hardneck garlic at the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival. Head to Saugerties on September 25-26 for a day of creative food, demonstrations, and crafts. Visit the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival event site for details.

In business since 1916, Mead Orchards grows berries, apples, peaches, pumpkins, and vegetables on 185 acres. Pick your own peaches and apples this month (15 Scism Road, Tivoli, 845-756-5641, www.meadorchards.com).

Flavor a soup with Pine Island onions. Nearly 30 percent of all onions sold in the United States are grown here. The Rogowski Farm plants yellow, spring, and red onions, plus 250 kinds of produce, from kohlrabi and okra to fingerling potatoes and sugar snap peas. (327-329 Glenwood Road, Pine Island, 845-258-4574, www.rogowskifarm.com) Learn more about the historic Black Dirt Region at the Pine Island Onion Festival, which takes place at the Pavilion in Pine Island on September 5.

Stew a flat of Roma tomatoes to make your own tomato sauce. Hodgson’s Farm & Garden Center sells its own tomatoes, peppers and eggplants but it is also a full-service garden center where you can pick up new plants, herbs, or even a kit to build a pond (2290 Albany Post Road, Walden, 845-778-1432).

Pick antique apples by the bushel and simmer a pot of applesauce on the stove. Dozens of varieties of tree-ripe peaches, plums, and apples will be ready soon at Love Apple Farms (1421 Route 9H, Ghent, 518-828-5048, www.loveapplefarm.com). Homemade pies, donuts and preserves are an added treat.

Fishkill Farms started picking its Paulareds and Jonamacs in August, about two weeks ahead of schedule, due to the unusually warm spring weather. Sign up for the farm’s Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) program and enjoy fresh veggies all summer long. (9 Fishkill Farms Road, Hopewell Junction, 845-897-4377, www.fishkillfarms.com).

In Orange County, Apple Ridge Orchards is open for picking September–November with Mutsu, Honeycrisp, and Winesap apples among its 16 varities. Bring the kids for pony rides and a petting zoo. (101 Jessup Road, Warwick, 845-987-7717, www.appleridgeorchards.com).

Take the kids to a pumpkin patch. V&R Saulpaugh & Sons (2329 Route 9, Livingston, 518-537-6494) lets you pick your own from mid-September to mid-October.

Make strawberry shortcake (next year). The fifth-generation of the Thompson-Finch Farm claims the area’s largest (4.5 acres) pick-your-own organic strawberry farm. The season closed in July, but raspberries are ripening now for picking in September and October. Veggies and apples are for sale at the farm stand June–October. (750 Wiltsie Bridge Road, Ancram, 518-329-7578, www.thompsonfinch.com).

Save the date in 2011 for Cheery Weekend with the extended Brown family at Cherry Ridge Farms. Pick black sour cherries while they last. (4150 Route 23, Hudson, 518-828-7018, www.facebook.com/pages/Hudson-NY/Cherry-Ridge-Farms/72500819118).

Check your local market year-round for simple treats made close to home: maple syrup, honey, cheese, yogurt, wine, bread, and ice cream. Then wait for asparagus, fiddleheads, wild mushrooms, and peas to arrive in spring—and the cycle begins once again.

Nikki Goth Itoi is the author of Moon: Hudson River Valley, a travel guidebook covering must-see sights from Westchester County to Saratoga Springs. A Poughkeepsie native, she enjoys making maple syrup in the Catskills and eating fresh, local foods. Her writing has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Budget Travel Online, and other publications.

Olana announces the opening of a new exhibition, In the Footsteps of Frederic Church: Photos by Larry Lederman.

The recently restored Olana Coachman’s House is now the home to an exciting exhibition featuring photos by Larry Lederman.  Lederman’s photographs of the New York Botanical Garden have been the source for the Garden’s highly regarded calendar for the last six years. The Olana exhibition features photos by Lederman of a number of sites that renowned Hudson River School artist Frederic E. Church painted and seek to explore his art and evoke his artistic vision. The images Lederman has selected for the exhibition are a representative selection of the range of Church’s subject matter and affirm for the viewer that many of the wilderness enclaves Church painted still exist, preserved as part of our heritage because of the beauty that he and other nineteenth century painters captured. The sites represented include, Mount Desert Island, Maine; Newfoundland; Niagara Falls, and scenes from Olana.

Church chose to paint wilderness to reflect the eternal. He shows wilderness as essential to nature, but reflects inevitable change. The photographs, in their ability to stop time and telescope distance show aspects that Church could not see, but they affirm his faithfulness to nature. What he saw as eternal still resonates with us, despite the changes that time and industrial development have wrought. And we, like Church, have come to recognize the fragility of our environment. The grandeur of nature and awe for it are what he brought to us to stir our souls. His paintings still do. The photographs are meant to do the same.

The coachman’s house is connected to the historic carriage barn and both are located near the main house atop the hill at Olana.  These were important structures during Church’s life.  The first buildings constructed in this location,served as the “bunk house” for workers during construction of the house between 1870 and 1874. Upon completion of the house the buildings were converted to farm use and housed John McKenna, the Churches longtime coachman and gardener and his family. Today the complex serves as the Museum Store, Orientation Center, and now home to this year’s photography exhibition.  The Coachman’s house is located just steps from the main parking lot at Olana. The exhibition is free and open Tuesday through Sunday from 10AM-5PM through October 31.

Signed copies of the photos from the exhibition are available for sale in the Olana museum store and online with proceeds dedicated to the preservation of Olana. A sampling of work from this exhibit can be viewed in the photos section of OurHudson.org.

Flux Quartet playing at Bargemusic on Brooklyn waterfront.

Summer used to be an off time for classical music and jazz.  Now, the summer festivals that dot America’s countryside between June and Labor Day are cornerstones of the musical year.  Many jazz musicians earn half or more of their incomes at summer fests.   The crunch plaguing jazz clubs is balanced by summer’s tents and amphitheaters.  European summers have enjoyed a busy classical music scene since the eighteenth century.  In the twentieth century, busy summers became part and parcel of America’s rising international eminence in classical music.

The Hudson Valley, and the wider surrounding watershed feeding the Hudson River, was the pioneering American region, and still the national leader of this intensive summer music-making.

Let’s start with what’s literally the southern anchor of performing arts venues along the Hudson River and its estuary: Bargemusic, at the mouth of Inner New York City Harbor.  This renovated old coffee barge, tied up along a Brooklyn pier, is an eminent year-round national venue for chamber music.  The pace picks up even more during the summer, with daily concerts and a free noon series for children that builds classical music audiences for the future.

In terms of local economic development, Bargemusic is a shining instance of the role an arts project can play in revitalizing neighborhoods that fall on hard times.  When the renovated barge anchored itself to the old pier in DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) 33 years ago, the area was in sorry shape.  The increasing flow of chamber music enthusiasts to this unusual venue was an important catalyst in fostering the restaurants, high tech offices, arts workshops and residential buildings that increasingly line DUMBO’s streets.

The northern Valley anchor, in terms of a major venue, is the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.  SPAC has two centerpieces: first, the country’s major dance ensemble, the New York City Ballet; second, the summer residency of the Philadelphia Orchestra, which looks forward to many good years with its newly appointed young conductor, Montréal’s brilliant Yannick Nézét-Séguin.

Special mention goes to the northern musical presence closest to the Hudson’s source in Lake Tear of the Clouds: opera and musicals at the Seagle Music Colony in Schroon Lake.

Glimmerglass Opera, photo by Claire McAdams

The eastern anchor, Tanglewood, synergizes the great Boston Symphony Orchestra, a premier program for training young professionals and networks of complimentary  Berkshire cultural organizations established in Tanglewood’s wake.

The western anchor, Cooperstown, hosts America’s premier summer opera venue, Glimmerglass.  Cooperstown, strictly speaking, lies shortly west of the Hudson River watershed boundary.  In terms of arts demographics, it is part of a vibrant Greater Albany cultural region, and a regular destination for people from Greater New York and Greater Boston.

Artistically, Glimmerglass played and plays a double role: in addition to the standard repertoire that continues to fill opera houses, it takes interesting risks by featuring new opera and also re-acquaints people with the glories of early era opera.  Like Tanglewood, Glimmerglass created a ranking program for training young professionals, both as singers and in the backstage crafts necessary to make opera work.

The Mid-Hudson anchor is the Bard Music Festival, now entering its twenty-first year as a major event of the New York music season, summer or winter.   The outstanding acoustics in the Fisher Center’s concert hall match the unique imagination of the Center’s internationally acclaimed architect, Frank Gehry.  That’s no accident: Gehry’s passion for music runs deep.  He pays as much attention to how his halls sound as how they look — glorious.

From the jazz angle, there’s another surprising new Mid-Hudson anchor: a class-A jazz club, The Falcon, sitting in the small village of Marlboro north of Newburgh.  Top-of-the-line jazz musicians from the Big Apple have fallen in love with Tony Falco’s audacious startup of a jazz club in a building that began life as a 19^th century button factory.   The original wooden floors and cathedral ceiling create warm and pleasing acoustics.

Hudson Valley resident Roswell Rudd, winner of 2010 Downbeat Critics Poll as top jazz trombonist, at the Caramoor Jazz Festival.

The Caramoor Festival in northern Westchester County is the Lower Hudson’s musical anchor before arriving, of course, in America’s musical nerve center, Manhattan.  Bucolic Caramoor is the summer home for Carnegie Hall’s Orchestra of St. Luke’s, a Bel Canto era opera and exceptional jazz festival in the ambience of a grand early 20th century estate that was, after the entrepreneur-owner’s son perished in the trench slaughter of World War I, deeded to a non-profit arts foundation.

“New York’s Sixth Borough” is the nickname that musicians have attached to the Hudson Valley north of the city proper.  The selected highlights above are just that: the peaks of a wide musical landscape.  A significant fraction of New York’s musical talent now live in the greater Hudson Valley and its watershed, and commute into the city during the regular music season.  When things heat up during summer, however, more of the performance scene shifts to the countryside and small towns of the Valley.

Professor Philip Ehrensaft taught at l’Université du Québec à Montréal before moving to the Hudson Valley to direct Metro Countryside Research and pursue a parallel career in music journalism.