copyright 2016 Lisa LaMonica/Hudson Magazine
excerpt from Feb/March issue
hudsonmagazine.us
Subscriptions available
Imagine living in a lighthouse,
in the middle of
the Hudson River; during
summer intense thunderstorms,
or winter blizzards.
There was a time when the
Hudson River could completely
freeze over. People were able
to walk from Hudson to Catskill
or Athens across the surface
of the frozen river; something
hard to imagine today. The
Hudson-Athens Lighthouse, on
its granite base, is also known
as Stepping Stones Lighthouse.This 1958 image shows three
men in a boat appearing to
be leaving the lighthouse. It
is now listed in the National
Register of Historic Places
and is also now a museum
chartered by the State of New
York. The navigation light, now
solar-powered, still serves to
warn of a nearby island called
The Flats where shipwrecks
have occurred with losses of
life. Managed and lived in by
a lighthouse keeper and his
family until 1936, the
Empire–style building has
eight ample rooms. The fog
bell mechanism at the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse would ring every 20
seconds for hours, warning of
thick fog. The bell alerted ships
to orientation and limited visibility
when the lighthouse light
was not enough. The Hudson-
Athens Lighthouse graced
the cover of the December 28,
1948, issue of The Saturday
Evening Post, with a drawing
of Emil Brunner, the last civilian
lighthouse keeper, and his
children, who all lived there.
The Hudson-Athens Ferry was portrayed
in the 2005 Tom Cruise
film War of the Worlds, in which
Martians attacked the town,the ferry, and refugees from
New York City who attempted
to flee across the Hudson River.
The Rip Van Winkle Bridge,
spanning the Hudson River
between Hudson and Catskill,
opened on July 2, 1935, at a
cost of $2.4 million.
The bridge was
named after a short story of the
same name written by Washington
Irving, in which Rip Van
Winkle fell asleep for 20 years
in the Catskill Mountains after
an encounter with the ghost
of Henry Hudson and his men.
and most beloved folktales.
In 17th-century Dutch times,
Kaatskill, as it was then known,
meant “Cat Creek.” Catamounts,
as they were then known, were
the mountain lions inhabiting
the region. These views of the
Rip Van Winkle Bridge, showing
portions of Catskill, Greene
County, and the Hudson River,
as well as Hudson, Columbia
County, and the Taconics and
Berkshire Mountains in the far
distance is courtesy New York
State Bridge Authority.
Reprinted with permission
from Images of America:
Hudson, by Lisa LaMonica.
www.arcadiapublishing.com
and also available at local bookstores.
Images:
Hudson Athens Lighthouse in fall and winter, courtesy Paul Abitabile, Columbia County Photo Club
1958 B/W Image courtesy Library of Congress
Rip Van Winkle Bridge images courtesy NYS Bridge Authority
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