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This newsletter is the second of two delivered this year to all of our Patron and Guardian members as a special benefit for your generous support. Senior Editor Leonard Sparks revisits a special report that he and Michael Turton did in 2023 to provide background on their reporting about the ongoing opioid addiction crisis. The story was a follow-up to a series we published in 2017.
The resurgence of opioid overdose deaths in New York state after a downturn in 2019 is not just embodied in statistics, but also in obituaries.
Libby Funeral Home in Beacon posted Jonathan Bateman's obituary soon after his death on Oct. 8, 2022. Because he lived in East Fishkill, I did not include his family's tribute in the obits I compile each Friday for our website. But some of the usual "tells" - a young age (30 in this case) and died "suddenly" and "at home" - identified him as a possible overdose victim.
A year later, as I searched online for local people who had lost someone to an overdose, an interview that Yvonne Bateman gave to Spectrum News about her son's death appeared. I found two non-working numbers in her name during an online search, then learned on Facebook that she volunteered for Fareground, the Beacon organization that stocks tiny pantries and community refrigerators with free food.
Someone from the organization passed along to Yvonne my request for an interview. Within two weeks, I stood in her living room, taking the photo that appeared with our story and scanning a wall filled with pictures from Jonathan's too-short life. Those images - spanning childhood to adulthood - deepened his family's tragedy and the scale of loss that is worsening as fentanyl spreads and new poisons like xylazine emerge.
When Yvonne told me about her strolls with Jonathan along the Walkway Over the Hudson, I decided to begin the article with that image. Those moments seemed, for both of them, an island of hope after so much struggle. Jonathan's death months later says a lot about the nature of addiction and the lethality of fentanyl.
What is the solution? I prefer "What are the solutions?" Too many people believe that abstinence is the solution, or that addiction medications are the solution. It's OK to have more than one, as well as an open-minded approach to a problem as complicated as the humans it afflicts.
Seeking the perspective of someone with years of recovery, I read about the struggles of Terasina Hanna, the program manager at the Walter Hoving Home in Garrison, in her online bio. She agreed to a phone interview, and I drove to Walter Hoving several days later to photograph the California native and tour the program's central building, a Tudor mansion.
Many of her full answers from our interview had to be condensed or left out of the article, like when I asked Hanna to describe addiction. "It was a constant of trying to get clean and failing," she said. "And then there's this shame that goes on you because you keep failing and you can't stop."
I've interviewed many recovering addicts and alcoholics. I usually ask about the moment that changed their lives - the one where they decided to seek help. Sometimes they credit moments of introspection in jails or prisons, and other times, sudden flashes of reality when it's clear that death is the only outcome and the pain of getting sober is less than the pain of continuing.
Hanna, now sober eight years, began her journey after another stint in jail, when she decided to try Walter Hoving's program in Pasadena. "You just have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired," she said.
During the tour, I followed her up upstairs, where she showed me offices and then a room with rows of computers. Before the screens, women tapped away on keyboards doing their treatment assignments. For them, treatment is not an end in itself but a first stop on a long journey. Staying sober and rebuilding lives depends on the decisions people make when they leave treatment.
One of the most important, said Hanna, is d... -
County executives dispute federal designation
Officials from Dutchess and Putnam counties say they should not be listed with New York State and other localities, including Beacon, on a roster of jurisdictions the Department of Homeland Security accuses of "obstructing" the Trump administration's effort to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.
The list, released on Thursday (May 29) to comply with a presidential order, includes more than 500 jurisdictions, including New York state, 15 of its counties and 12 of its cities, identifying them as "sanctuaries" for immigrants who live in the country without authorization.
Those states and municipalities, including Orange and Westchester counties and Newburgh and Poughkeepsie, are accused by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) of "deliberately and shamefully obstructing" federal immigration enforcement and protecting "dangerous criminal aliens."
The agency demands that they "immediately review and revise their policies to align with federal immigration laws," but also cautions that the list is subject to change and "no one should act on this information without conducting their own evaluation" of the municipalities.
On Friday (May 30), Kevin Byrne, the Putnam County executive, said: "Let's set the record straight: Putnam County is not a sanctuary county and never will be on my watch as county executive. We have consistently worked with our partners in law enforcement and encourage the continued collaboration and sharing of information with all federal, state and local law enforcement."
Despite Putnam being named by DHS as a sanctuary jurisdiction, Byrne also on Friday posted on Facebook a video in which he accuses "liberal journalists at the Wall Street Journal," which published a story about the agency's announcement, of "inaccurately" adding Putnam to the list "before gathering all the facts." He added that "the bias media is wrong and needs to get the facts straight."
In Dutchess, County Executive Sue Serino said on Friday that the county has contacted its federal representatives - Sens. Kirsten Gillebrand and Chuck Schumer and U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan - "for further clarity" and help getting the county removed from the list.
"It is unclear how this list was developed, as DHS has not contacted us with any concerns, and the Dutchess County Legislature has never adopted any resolution relating to sanctuary jurisdiction," said Serino.
Neither Dutchess or Putnam has approved policies limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities, and Dutchess sued New York City in 2023 when it began contracting with hotels in the Hudson Valley to house immigrants.
That same year, Byrne and the Putnam Legislature adopted a resolution declaring the county a "rule of law" jurisdiction and pledging cooperation with federal immigration officers to identify "arrested felons and gang-associated" individuals suspected of being in the country illegally.
Beacon restricted its role in immigration enforcement during the first Trump administration, when the City Council in April 2017 unanimously passed a resolution declaring the city to be "welcoming, safe and inclusive."
Its resolution deliberately avoided the word sanctuary (Trump had threatened to withhold funding from "sanctuary cities") but said that city employees and officials will not "stop, question, interrogate, investigate or arrest an individual based solely on actual or suspected immigration or citizenship status" or "inquire about the immigration status of an individual, including a crime victim, a witness, or a person who calls or approaches the police seeking assistance, unless necessary to investigate criminal activity by that individual."
In Newburgh, where 51 percent of residents are Latino, a 2017 resolution largely precludes police and city employees from cooperating with ICE.
One city not on the list is Peekskill, where Mayor Vivian McKenzie said the police department "is not going to be working with ICE unless it is a cr... -
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Recovery from crash called 'miracle'
Laura Timmons always believed that her teenage daughter would recover from the traumatic brain injury she suffered in the car accident on Route 9 that killed another Haldane High School student in December 2023.
During Theresa Timmons' 15-month rehabilitation at Blythedale Children's Hospital in Valhalla, Laura Timmons chronicled each "big thing" in her daughter's recovery: the first time she swallowed drinks and food; the first time she responded to questions with gestures; and progressing to writing and talking.
"I knew in my heart we would get there, and I never felt any negative," said Laura Timmons, whose family owns Homestyle Bakery in Nelsonville and Peekskill.
Her faith received another reward on Thursday (May 29) when Theresa, wearing a shirt filled with signatures from well-wishers and supported on one side by a cane and the other by Laura's boyfriend, Mike Raguso, walked across Blythdale's lobby on her way home for the first time since the accident.
A gauntlet of family, friends and Blythedale staff and patients clapped and cheered as Theresa headed through the front door. Outside, Theresa began crying as staff assembled around her to take pictures and say goodbye. First responders from the Continental Village Fire Department, Cortlandt-Peekskill Paramedics and the state police assembled to escort the ambulance carrying her home to Garrison.
"Awesome," said Theresa, now 17, when asked about Thursday's sendoff and returning home. "I felt like someone famous."
Katherine Ingrasci and Mary Kate Filos used the word "miracle."
Ingrasci, a speech-language pathologist at Blythedale, said that Theresa could not eat or talk, and breathed using a tracheostomy tube inserted in her neck when she arrived at Blythedale. Theresa had "a lot of things to overcome" during the hospitalization and made tremendous progress from initially communicating solely through gestures, said Ingrasci.
One day, "I walked in and she looked up at me and said a full, beautiful sentence," said Ingrasci.
That progress owed much to Theresa, who Filos described as a "fighter" and hard worker. Filos also credited the family and friends who supported Theresa's recovery by donating money, visiting and sending cards and gifts.
"They had somebody at the bedside around the clock; Theresa was never alone," said Filos. "So we bonded not just with mom, not just with dad, but with so many extended family members and friends."
Also attending the sendoff were some of the Continental Village firefighters and paramedics who responded to the tragedy: a Dec. 15, 2023, car crash on Route 9 that claimed the life of Vlad Saban, a 17-year-old Haldane High School senior, and left Theresa, then 16 and a junior at the school, in critical condition.
Chief Joseph Maffettone said in September 2024 that firefighters responding to the accident found "complete wreckage." Attacking the doors and bottom of the wreck with cutting tools, they found Vlad already deceased and Theresa in the rear - unconscious and laying on her left side, protected in a "cocoon," according to Maffettone.
"There was a complete tunnel around her," said Maffettone, whose family has been buying baked goods from Homestyle for years and knew the Timmons family. "How she was positioned, it was amazing."
Jennifer Hunt, a paramedic with Cortlandt-Peekskill Paramedics, described Theresa's physical condition as "multi-system" trauma.
"She had anything and everything that could possibly be wrong with a patient going on," said Hunt last September. "We had a lot of decisions to make in a very short timeframe."
Hunt said that she and a colleague, Richard Blackley, sedated Theresa and inserted an endotracheal tube, which is used when patients cannot breathe unaided. With her breathing stabilized, they decided to drive Theresa to Westchester Medical Center rather than wait for a helicopter that had been standing by.
By February 2024, Theresa was responding to commands... -
Writer to discuss 'walking memoir' in Beacon
Craig Mod's first book tour across America has so far been a resounding success, much to the confusion of bookstore owners.
"All the bookstore people have been freaked out," he said a few days after his stop in San Francisco had a line all the way down the street an hour before the event began. "Booking this tour has been difficult, because in their experience, if they don't recognize the name of the author, they're going to get seven people."
Mod will finish up his tour promoting Things Become Other Things: A Walking Memoir at Binnacle Books in Beacon on June 7, in conversation with Beacon resident Sam Anderson, a reporter for The New York Times Magazine. Although this is his first title for a major publisher, Mod has built a following with his lavishly designed, self-published books, online newsletters, photography and travel writing about Japan.
"I have absolutely no sense of who's out there reading my stuff since I'm kind of alone and isolated on the other side of the world," he said. "People are shaking as they bring me books to sign. It's bizarre, but everyone has been so sweet."
Mod grew up in a Pacific Northwest town that was slowly being hollowed out with drugs and violence in the wake of local factories closing. Once he graduated high school, he knew he needed to get as far away as possible. With scholarships, homestays and the exchange rate at the turn of the millennium, Tokyo was the cheapest option at the time.
Mod found in Japan what he'd been missing back in America. "There was an overwhelming shock of seeing people being taken care of by a greater whole," he said. After buying a used camera, Mod fell into two of the central tenets of his work: photography and exploring Japan on foot.
He began with long, late-night walks throughout Tokyo. "I'd be in this kind of romantic haze of listening to all these lives and these families functioning," he said. "Tokyo is so transparent. If you walk in certain neighborhoods, you just hear everything."
He befriended John McBride, an older Westerner with an encyclopedic knowledge of local history. Accompanying McBride on walks led to Mod making longer journeys across the county on his own. Things Become Other Things recounts in words and photographs one walk in 2021, during the pandemic, when he traced the historic 300-mile Kumano Kodo pilgrimage routes across the Kii peninsula south of Kyoto, with McBride emailing him historic details along the way.
"Most of the inns I stayed at, I was the only one there," Mod recalled. "It felt like the end of the world."
The rainy, lush and desolate landscape of the Kii peninsula reminded Mod of his hometown, both filled with poverty, loneliness, trash-strewn yards and hostile dogs. But Japan's safety net and tight-knit society means that the people Mod encounters don't fall through the cracks. Central to this is yoyū, which is often translated to mean "breathing room." In Things Become Other Things, Mod defines it as "the excess provided when surrounded by a generous abundance. It can be applied to hearts, wallets, Sunday afternoons and more."
Mod said he began to truly understand the term when he started walking with McBride. "It's the space in your heart to be able to accept someone or something else without being stressed out by it," said Mod. "John is a person of essentially infinite yoyū.
"As the political climate has changed in America, it feels increasingly like folks are being pressed against the wall," Mod said. "Political decisions are being made from this lack of openness or empathy. It emphasized what it meant to feel yoyū in the Japanese countryside. It's hard for folks who don't live in a place that has that to imagine what it feels like to look around at everyone you pass by, and know that if some medical calamity hits them, they can't fall that far."
Binnacle Books is located at 321 Main St. in Beacon. The event begins at 7 p.m. -
Clutter moves Five Points from Brooklyn to Beacon
After Miranda O'Brien and Josh Kimberg moved to Beacon from Brooklyn in 2011, they opened Clutter Gallery at 163 Main St., named for a glossy magazine O'Brien founded in England 21 years ago that ceased publication in 2017.
Clutter is the only gallery in the country dedicated to weird and wonderful designer toys for adults, says Kimberg. Earlier this year, the couple moved from their Main Street space, a popular gathering spot on Second Saturdays, to the KuBe Art Center, where they plan to add an art toy museum operated by a newly created nonprofit, the Designer Toy Foundation.
At the same time, the couple is transplanting their annual Five Points Festival of "designer toys, indie art, weird monsters and underground culture" - scheduled for June 7 and 8 - from Greenpoint in Brooklyn to The Yard in Beacon.
Jesse DeStasio, a Philipstown resident who hosts his own festival, Toy Pizza Expo, which met at the Happy Valley Arcade Bar in Beacon and merged this year with Five Points, will be there with Knights of the Slice, an action-figure line he created in 2015. Ron English of Beacon, a longtime toy designer and muralist under his Popaganda umbrella, created the event poster.
"This town takeover goes against the grain," says Kimberg. "We put together a roster of complete weirdos and fans of the bizarre."
Five Points, which began in 2017, attracted 6,000 people in Greenpoint last year. The first Beacon event will include live music, painting, tattooing and promised "oddities." The Beacon Theater will show sci-fi flick Dune (1982), the original Godzilla (1954) and Ghidohra (1964), the "three-headed monster."
Inspired in part by Japanese manga and anime, collectible designer items range from $20 to hundreds of thousands of dollars, says Kimberg. Made mainly with resin and soft vinyl, the irreverent totems stem from street and underground art. Though some small runs are handcrafted or 3-D printed in people's basements and garages, most items are imported.
Small-batch, handmade toys created by popular artists are obviously more cherished than a run of 500 made in China, says Kimberg: "What's most important is the name value, not a brand or even what the figure depicts. It's like Andy Warhol's silkscreens and Toulouse Lautrec with the printing press, creating multiple copies of works with a mechanical means of production and building a reputation."
Some artists in the free-for-all subculture create original designs and others reference pop culture, a la Warhol. Homer Simpson is a popular subject, but almost all designer toy representations of familiar figures distort and take liberties with the original form, signifying that the work is unlicensed.
"There is a conversation over whether this is fair use, and thus legal," says Kimberg, who once received a cease-and-desist letter but rebutted it with a 20-page reply. "We outlined the work's transformative nature, and they went away," he said. -
A young woman chronicles her battle with anorexia
In January 2017, Sandra Slokenbergs wrote in her journal: "I have a sickening feeling my daughter is dying."
Her fears were well-founded. A week later, her daughter Lidija, 17, a Haldane junior, was rushed to a hospital, suffering from severe anorexia.
Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder which, if not treated, can cause serious medical conditions associated with starvation. Anorexia is second only to opioid overdoses in deaths tied to mental illness, including by suicide. Its causes are not fully understood but are thought to involve genetics, psychological and social factors and major life transitions.
In a newly published book, Hold My Hand, Sandra and Lidija tell their story in detail from each of their perspectives.
By age 16, Lidija had experienced more life changes than most. When she was 6 and about to enter the first grade at Haldane, she and her family moved to Latvia. Both sets of her grandparents had emigrated to the U.S.; her parents were born in New York, but Latvian was spoken in their Cold Spring home.
During the 10 years they spent in Latvia, Lidija changed schools five times. Although Latvia became independent from Russia in 1990, many schools still followed the rigid Soviet system, with multiple daily tests, teachers calling out students' grades, waiting for permission to sit and an intense level of competition.
"I didn't feel I could keep up," she recalled. "I knew I was smart, but I was made to feel stupid a lot of the time."
Lidija loved to dance but was told at age 12 by her ballet instructor that she danced "like a bear." She came home crying, feeling "intimidated, ridiculed and never good enough." There were cultural differences, as well. Although Lidija spoke fluent Latvian, it was with an accent. She was "the American," an outsider.
The Slokenbergs returned to Cold Spring each summer. Lidija said that was "paradise": swimming in her grandparents' pool, her July 3 birthday parties, camp and ice cream. Although she loved Latvia and had friends there, returning was always difficult. Sandra remembers the end of the summers as full of "anxiety, sadness and dread" for her daughter.
Red flags began to appear by the time Lidija was 14. Once, she stood by her bedroom mirror in Latvia sobbing, unable to decide what to wear to a birthday party. Sandra coaxed her to go, but it was a struggle. For a yoga class where everyone wore a T-shirt and leggings, Lidija agonized, rejecting one combination after another.
Sandra noticed her daughter's movements had become less natural. She had begun to dislike aspects of her body. "Clearly, self-esteem was seeping out of her," Sandra said. Lidija developed an uncharacteristic interest in Sandra's treadmill and worked out on it obsessively for several weeks. She later admitted hating every minute of it.
Ironically, a permanent return to Cold Spring in 2016 fueled what would soon be diagnosed as anorexia. "I was happy because I'd have two years left at Haldane," Lidija said. But other thoughts were troubling. "I felt I had the chance to reinvent myself, to become someone I liked more, someone who was smarter and prettier," she said. "I had been holding in a lot of stress, a perfect time for anorexia to swoop in."
Anorexia, she said, makes many false promises: "You'll be happy if you lose a bit of weight. You'll be happy if you control your food more. You'll be happy if you get to the desired weight."
Lidija's 16th birthday included a trip to Dairy Queen and an ice cream cake. It would be the last time Lidija ate without feeling the need to greatly restrict food. After eating leftover cake the next morning, she obsessed over the thought that she had already consumed more calories than she should for an entire day. She vowed to take control, to get skinnier, to be prettier. She thought, "Maybe I'll feel better then." Her mother recalled: "I saw her change into someone I didn't recognize."
Lidija became obsessive-compulsive... -
Final summer of shows before new theater debuts
Beyond the new theater rising on a ridge above the river, things are percolating as the acting company now known as Hudson Valley Shakespeare prepares for its 38th and final season under the tent.
After a rebrand, the "festival" suffix moved down the road. "We're more permanent than ever," says Davis McCallum, the artistic director, explaining the change. "Festivals are associated with a defined time period and then they head off, like the circus, but we still want to have that celebratory, freewheeling exuberance."
The Samuel H. Scripps Theater Center is part of a $58 million project that includes the ecological restoration of the former golf course that is now the Hudson Valley Shakespeare campus and the addition of actor housing.
This season, the company's full-production plays include Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors, opening June 6, and The Matchmaker (June 8), by Thornton Wilder, which evolved into the Broadway musical Hello, Dolly! and the 1968 film shot in part at Garrison's Landing.
Will and Wilder alternate through Aug. 3. Then Octet, written by Beacon resident Dave Malloy, takes over the tent from Aug. 11 to Sept. 7. McCallum pursued the rights to the Tony-nominated play for five years; Hudson Valley Shakespeare is the first company to mount a full production after the show's Off-Broadway run in 2019.
"The original rights-holders planned a commercial Broadway production and a film, but COVID hit, and it's only been shown twice since then in limited productions," says McCallum.
Malloy's local ties extend to writing the music for Beowulf - A Thousand Years of Baggage, the greatest hit so far by local house-party hosts Jason Craig and Jessica Jelliffe at Banana, Bag & Bodice productions. The following year, 2011, Malloy collaborated with Craig on Beardo, a rock musical about Rasputin. Hudson Valley Shakespeare recently commissioned a work from Banana, Bag & Bodice that's about halfway completed, says McCallum.
Octet is billed as a "chamber choir musical" that references tarot cards and explores internet addiction and human alienation in the digital age through dialogue and an eight-part acapella harmony score. Only three of the troupe's regulars could pull off the singing-and-speaking task, so McCallum imported "ringers," he says.
When the tent goes dark for a week to prepare the production, the company will roll out HVS Cabaret, which transforms The Valley restaurant into a 45-seat cabaret (Aug. 6 to 9). Performances include a solo work-in-progress musical, Fathertime: Birth, Death and Songs, the return of former troupe member Bebe Nicole Simpson and a performance by composer Alex Bechtel.
In addition, a new production of Julius Caesar plays Sept. 9 and 10 for students and the public, with a stripped-down version moving to Bannerman Castle Trust on the island (Sept. 11 to 13).
For the first time, the Shakespeare company will send teaching artists and actors to nearby schools for three weeks in September instead of in the spring. Next year, after the Scripps Theater opens, the company will continue to visit schools and, for the first time, bring students to the grounds.
McCallum, who worked on The Matchmaker 30 years ago in London, considers Wilder to be "the best American playwright. He won two Pulitzers for drama and another one for a novel - the only American author who achieved that."
For The Matchmaker, wife-and-husband team Nance Williamson and Kurt Rhoads, who live in Philipstown, star as Dolly Levi and Horace Vandergelder. Although overshadowed by the Broadway and movie adaptations, the original play complements The Comedy of Errors, McCallum says.
"It's uncanny how much these two farces share structure, energy and momentum," he says. "Our actors are feeding off each other as they go back and forth working on them."
Hudson Valley Shakespeare is located at 2015 Route 9 in Philipstown. For a schedule and tickets, which range from $10 to $100, see hvshakespear... -
World War II radio operator interred in Wappingers Falls
As the World War II bomber Heaven Can Wait was hit by enemy fire off the Pacific island of New Guinea on March 11, 1944, the co-pilot managed a final salute to flyers in an adjacent plane before crashing into the water.
All 11 men aboard were killed. Their remains, deep below the vast sea, were designated as non-recoverable.
Yet four crew members' remains are beginning to return to their hometowns after a remarkable investigation by family members and a recovery mission involving elite Navy divers who descended 200 feet in a pressurized bell to reach the sea floor.
Staff Sgt. Eugene Darrigan, the 26-year-old the radio operator, was buried with military honors and community support on Saturday (May 24) at the Church of St. Mary in his hometown of Wappingers Falls, more than eight decades after leaving behind his wife and baby son.
The bombardier, 2nd Lt. Thomas "Toby" Kelly, was buried Monday in Livermore, California, where he grew up in a ranching family. The remains of the pilot, 1st Lt. Herbert Tennyson, and navigator, 2nd Lt. Donald Sheppick, will be interred in the coming months.
The ceremonies are happening 12 years after one of Kelly's relatives, Scott Althaus, set out to solve the mystery of where exactly the plane went down.
"I'm just so grateful," he said. "It's been an impossible journey - just should never have been able to get to this day. And here we are, 81 years later."
March 11, 1944
The Army Air Forces plane nicknamed Heaven Can Wait was a B-24 with a cartoon pin-up angel painted on its nose. It was on a mission to bomb Japanese targets. Other flyers on the mission were not able to spot survivors.
Their wives, parents and siblings were of a generation that tended to be tight-lipped in their grief. But the men were sorely missed.
Sheppick, 26, and Tennyson, 24, each left behind pregnant wives who would sometimes write them two or three letters a day. Darrigan also was married, and had been able to attend his son's baptism while on leave. A photo shows him in uniform, smiling as he holds the boy.
Darrigan's wife, Florence, remarried but quietly held on to photos of her late husband, as well as a telegram informing her of his death.
Tennyson's wife, Jean, lived until age 96 and never remarried. "She never stopped believing that he was going to come home," said her grandson, Scott Jefferson.
Memorial Day 2013
As Memorial Day approached 12 years ago, Althaus asked his mother for names of relatives who died in World War II.
Althaus, a political science and communications professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, became curious while researching World War II casualties for work. His mother gave him the name of her cousin Thomas Kelly, who was 21 when he was reported missing in action.
Althaus recalled that as a boy, he visited Kelly's memorial stone, which has a bomber engraved on it. He began reading up on the lost plane.
"It was a mystery that I discovered really mattered to my extended family," he said.
With help from other relatives, he analyzed historical documents, photos and eyewitness recollections. They weighed sometimes conflicting accounts of where the plane went down. After a four-year investigation, Althaus wrote a report concluding that the bomber likely crashed off Awar Point in what is now Papua New Guinea.
The report was shared with Project Recover, a nonprofit committed to finding and repatriating missing American service members and a partner of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA). A team from Project Recover, led by researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, located the debris field in 2017 after searching nearly 10 square miles of seafloor.
The DPAA launched its deepest-ever underwater recovery mission in 2023. A Navy dive team recovered dog tags, including Darrigan's, partially corroded with the name of his wife, Florence, as an emergency contact. Kelly's ring was recovered. The stone was gone, but... -
Take time today to remember those who sacrificed
Memorial Day is a U.S. holiday that's supposed to be about mourning the nation's fallen service members, but it's come to anchor the unofficial start of summer and a long weekend of travel and discounts on anything from mattresses to lawn mowers.
Iraq War veteran Edmundo Eugenio Martinez Jr. said the day has lost so much meaning that many Americans "conflate and mix up Veterans Day, Memorial Day, Armed Forces Day, July Fourth." Social media posts pay tribute to "everyone" who has served, when Memorial Day is about those who died.
For him, it's about honoring 17 U.S. service members he knew who lost their lives.
"I was either there when they died or they were soldiers of mine, buddies of mine," said Martinez, 48, an Army veteran who lives in Katy, Texas, west of Houston. "Some of them lost the battle after the war."
Steve Merando, who has marched in Cold Spring's Memorial Day parade since he was 10 years old, agreed. "People forget that Memorial Day is supposed to be a memorial to those who were killed in action while serving their country," said Merando, who served with the U.S. Navy Seabees from 1969 to 1973, including in Vietnam and Thailand. He played Little League baseball with Keith Livermore, one of three Philipstown residents killed in the Vietnam War.
In Memoriam: Philipstown and Beacon
Here is a look at the holiday and how it has evolved:
When is Memorial Day?
It falls on the last Monday of May, which this year is May 26.
In Cold Spring, a parade will begin at 9 a.m. at Stone and Main streets and progress to Cold Spring Cemetery in Nelsonville for a ceremony. Hot dogs and refreshments will follow at the American Legion. Rain or shine.
In Beacon, a ceremony will be held at 11 a.m. at 413 Main St. It will include the dedication of a plaque to mark the 100th anniversary of the Veterans Memorial Building, which was completed in 1925.
Why is Memorial Day celebrated?
It's a day of reflection and remembrance of those who died while serving in the U.S. military. The holiday is observed in part by the National Moment of Remembrance, which encourages all Americans to pause at 3 p.m. for a moment of silence.
What are the origins of Memorial Day?
The holiday's origins can be traced to the American Civil War, which killed more than 600,000 service members - both Union and Confederate - between 1861 and 1865.
The first national observance of what was then called Decoration Day occurred on May 30, 1868, after an organization of Union veterans called for decorating war graves with flowers, which were in bloom.
The practice was already widespread. Waterloo, New York, in Seneca County, began a formal observance on May 5, 1866, and was later proclaimed to be the holiday's birthplace.
Yet Boalsburg, Pennsylvania, traced its first observance to October 1864. And women in some Confederate states were decorating graves before the war's end.
David Blight, a Yale history professor, points to May 1, 1865, when as many as 10,000 people, many of them Black, held a parade, heard speeches and dedicated the graves of Union dead in Charleston, South Carolina.
A total of 267 Union troops had died at a Confederate prison and were buried in a mass grave. After the war, members of Black churches buried them in individual graves.
"What happened in Charleston does have the right to claim to be first, if that matters," Blight told the Associated Press in 2011.
When did Memorial Day become a source of contention?
As early as 1869, The New York Times wrote that the holiday could become "sacrilegious" and no longer "sacred" if it focused more on pomp, dinners and oratory.
In an 1871 Decoration Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery, abolitionist Frederick Douglass said he feared Americans were forgetting the Civil War's impetus: enslavement.
"We must never forget that the loyal soldiers who rest beneath this sod flung themselves between the nation and the nation's destroyers," Douglass said.
His concern... -
Protestors gather at academy gates, Garrison's Landing
President Donald Trump used the first service academy commencement address of his second term on Saturday (May 25) to laud graduating West Point cadets for their accomplishments and career choice while also veering sharply into a campaign-style recitation of political boasts and long-held grievances.
"In a few moments, you'll become graduates of the most elite and storied military academy in human history," Trump said at the ceremony at Michie Stadium. "And you will become officers of the greatest and most powerful army the world has ever known. And I know, because I rebuilt that army, and I rebuilt the military. And we rebuilt it like nobody has ever rebuilt it before in my first term."
Wearing a red "Make America Great Again" hat, the Republican president told the 1,002 members of the class of 2025 at the U.S. Military Academy that the U.S. is the "hottest country in the world" and underscored an "America First" ethos for the military.
"We're getting rid of distractions and we're focusing our military on its core mission: crushing America's adversaries, killing America's enemies and defending our great American flag like it has never been defended before," Trump said. He later said that "the job of the U.S. armed forces is not to host drag shows or transform foreign cultures," a reference to drag shows on military bases that Democratic President Joe Biden's administration halted after Republican criticism.
Trump said the cadets were graduating at a "defining moment" in Army history as he accused political leaders in the past of sending soldiers into "nation-building crusades to nations that wanted nothing to do with us." He said he was clearing the military of transgender ideas, "critical race theory" and types of training he called divisive and political.
Past administrations, he said, "subjected the armed forces to all manner of social projects and political causes while leaving our borders undefended and depleting our arsenals to fight other countries' wars."
At times, his remarks were indistinguishable from those heard in a political speech, from his assessment of the country when he left office in January 2021 to his review of November's victory over Democrat Kamala Harris, arguing that voters gave him a "great mandate" and "it gives us the right to do what we want to do."
Frequently turning the focus on himself, he reprised some of his campaign rally one-liners, including the claim that he has faced more investigations than mobster Al Capone.
At one point the crowd listened as Trump, known for his off-message digressions, referred to "trophy wives" and yachts during an anecdote about the late real estate developer William Levitt, a billionaire friend who Trump said lost momentum.
But the president also took time to acknowledge the achievements of individual graduates.
He summoned Chris Verdugo to the stage and noted that he completed an 18.5-mile march on a freezing night in January in just two hours and 30 minutes. Trump had the nationally ranked men's lacrosse team, which held the No. 1 spot for a time in the 2024 season, stand and be recognized. Trump also brought Army's star quarterback, Bryson Daily, to the lectern, where the president praised Daily's "steel"-like shoulder. Trump later used Daily as an example to make a case against transgender women participating in women's athletics.
In a nod to presidential tradition, Trump also pardoned about half a dozen cadets who had faced disciplinary infractions.
He told graduates that "you could have done anything you wanted, you could have gone anywhere." and that "writing your own ticket to top jobs on Wall Street or Silicon Valley wouldn't be bad. But I think what you're doing is better."
His advice to them included doing what they love, thinking big, working hard, holding on to their culture, keeping faith in America and taking risks.
"This is a time of incredible change and we do not need an officer corps o... -
Voters also approve $98,150 annually for Butterfield Library
Haldane
Voters approved the Haldane Central School District's proposed $30.2 million budget by a vote of 474-125, or 79 percent. Turnout was 13 percent.
Voters also approved spending $205,000 on school buses (476-120) and increasing the maximum amount held in the Facilities Improvement Reserve Fund to $3 million and its duration by 10 years (480-117).
In addition, the ballot included a proposition to support the Butterfield Library with $98,150 in taxes annually, which was approved, 508-86. Voters approved referendums in 2015 to provide $73,150 annually to the library and in 2006 to provide $276,000 annually.
The Haldane spending includes a 2.8 percent tax-levy increase. Using the state's tax-cap formula, the district could have asked for a 3.38 levy increase. Board members debated this spring whether to go "to cap" but opted to forgo about $132,000 in revenue after voters last year approved an increase of 6.95 percent over three years to pay for $28.4 million in capital improvements. State aid for 2025-26 will be $4.55 million, an increase of $73,000 (1.6 percent).
The budget includes funding for a science-of-reading curriculum; software to improve student outcomes; a new pre-K program; special education funding for out-of-district placements; increased field trip spending; a softball field dugout; classroom air conditioners to comply with New York state's maximum temperature requirement; auditorium stage and performing arts equipment; and a transportation system analysis.
The district estimates taxes on a home valued at $500,000 will rise by $197 annually.
Sean McNall and Ezra Clementson ran unopposed to retain their seats on the five-member school board. Clementson will serve his second, 3-year term and McNall his third.
Garrison
Garrison district voters approved its proposed $14.7 million by a vote of 210-64, or 77 percent. Turnout was 12.5 percent.
By a 232-41 vote, district residents also approved a proposition that allows the district to enter into a contract for two to five years to continue sending high school students to Putnam Valley. Garrison includes grades K-8; its older students can attend Putnam Valley, Haldane or O'Neill.
There were two open seats on the seven-member board, and two incumbent candidates. Sarah Tormey was elected to her third, 3-year term and Kent Schacht to his second full term after being elected in 2021 to fill a vacancy.
The tax-levy increase of 3.58 percent was far below the 5.78 percent allowed for the district under the state's tax-cap formula. To avoid raising the levy further, Garrison administrators proposed paying for two pilot programs - an armed police officer and a lunch program - with $1.4 million in savings. State aid will be $1.23 million, an increase of $51,000 (4.4 percent).
With the budget approval, the district will hire a Special Patrol Officer, a retired police officer whose role would be limited to security. (A School Resource Officer, or SRO, which Haldane has, is a sheriff's deputy who also teaches classes on topics such as personal safety, cyberbullying and drug awareness.)
Student lunches will be available Monday through Thursday; on Fridays, the school will continue to sell pizza as a fundraiser.
The district estimates that a Philipstown home assessed at $300,250 will see its taxes rise by $306 annually.
$1.4 million in savings. State aid will be $1.23 million, an increase of $51,000 (4.4 percent).
With the budget approval, the district will hire a Special Patrol Officer, a retired police officer whose role would be limited to security. (A School Resource Officer, or SRO, which Haldane has, is a sheriff's deputy who also teaches classes on topics such as personal safety, cyberbullying and drug awareness.)
Student lunches would be available Monday through Thursday; on Fridays, the school will continue to sell pizza as a fundraiser.
The district estimates that a Philipstown home assessed at $300,250 will s... -
Voters approve 5.09 percent tax-levy increase
Voters on Tuesday (May 20) approved $87.7 million in spending for the Beacon City School District for the 2025-26 academic year by a wide margin. The vote was 805-240, or 77 percent approval. Turnout was about 6 percent.
The budget includes a 5.09 percent tax-levy increase, just under the maximum allowed for the district by New York State. The levy will generate more than $50 million in property taxes.
At $31.6 million - an increase of $572,000 (1.9 percent) - state aid makes up the bulk of the remaining revenue. The district will spend $2.5 million of its savings in 2025-26, an increase of $500,000 over this year.
District officials say the budget will allow them to maintain improvements made in recent years, including smaller elementary class sizes, increased mental health support for students and a full-day pre-K program. For the first time, the district will launch a summer workshop program for incoming high school students and create an in-school mental health clinic at Rombout Middle School. It also will add teachers for elementary students struggling in math and reading and hire a part-time elementary speech instructor.
While the proposed levy increase is more than 5 percent, the addition of new households to the tax rolls means homeowners' bills may not go up by the same percentage. The district estimates that the owner of a $420,200 home (the median value) in Beacon will see their taxes increase by $240 annually.
In addition, voters returned Meredith Heuer and Semra Ercin to the nine-member board. Heuer will begin her fourth, 3-year term, while Ercin will serve her first full term after being elected in 2023 to complete the final two years of a vacated seat. The seat held by Alena Kush, who did not run for a second term, will be filled by Catherine Buscemi, who also ran unopposed. -
Beacon fifth graders help restock trout
If you saw 37 fifth graders marching with fish signs down Churchill Street in Beacon on May 16, they were off to release 60 trout friends into Fishkill Creek.
The children, who attend South Avenue Elementary, had given the 3-inch brown trout names like Holiday, Jeremy, Jeff, Billy Bigback, Patricia Felicia Petunia, Little Jim Bob and Li'l Shoddy.
It was the culmination of an eight-month school project about trout, their habitat and conservation, and the importance of caring about nature.
"Why would you care about the environment if you're not connected to it in any way?" asked Aaron Burke, the school librarian who runs the project. "This is a way to help make that connection. Every time they drive over that bridge, they'll think, 'I wonder if Fred is in there.' "
Students in 5,000 schools nationwide and more than 350 in New York are conducting similar releases as part of Trout in the Classroom, a program organized each spring for more than 30 years by the conservation group Trout Unlimited.
"The big goal of the program is to create this connection with students in their watershed and their drinking water," said Cecily Nordstrom, the nonprofit's stream education manager.
Burke has worked with Trout in the Classroom for five years and starts each fall with a small jar of trout eggs hatched in an aquarium in the school library. He gets the eggs from the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The DEC uses the same stock in hatcheries that annually produce 2 million trout to stock streams and lakes.
The state adds 6,100 brown trout each spring to Fishkill Creek, which starts in Union Vale and flows 33 miles through Dutchess County before passing through Beacon and emptying into the Hudson River. About 90 percent of those trout are 9-inch yearlings. Starting in 2020, about 10 percent of stocked trout were 13-inch two-year-olds, giving anglers "a shot at catching one of those nice larger fish," said Fred Henson, the DEC's cold water fisheries leader.
Photos by Ross Corsair
Henson explained that Fishkill Creek is a "put-and-take" fishery, which means the fish are put in the stream and quickly taken out by anglers fishing in places like Madam Brett Park off Tioronda Avenue. Stocked trout rarely survive to reproduce.
Without stocking in Fishkill Creek, Henson said, "you wouldn't have a fishery."
Development along streams like Fishkill Creek undermines the clean, cold water needed for trout to thrive, he said. As with many waterways in developed areas, stormwater runoff pollutes the creek and fewer trees leads to rising water temperatures.
Henson said that the state reduced stocking last year in Beacon's section of Fishkill Creek to 400 trout because fewer property owners allow fishing. Until 2023, the state was stocking the section with 1,100 brown trout, he said.
"As more and more large properties are subdivided and development increases in the Hudson Valley and in Dutchess County, we're limited by landowners who are unwilling to let the public access trout streams for recreation," said Henson.
The South Avenue Elementary release was at a public greenway behind the Hudson Valley Brewery. Burke had a tabletop model of a watershed to show how development impacts a waterway. Teachers led scavenger hunts while children took turns releasing trout.
Mark Jones, a board member of the Mid-Hudson chapter of Trout Unlimited, was there to teach fly casting. While most of its members are anglers, Jones emphasized that his chapter's mission is "to show the importance of stream preservation." On Fishkill Creek, he said the chapter has done clean-ups and tree plantings that reduce bank erosion.
April Stark, another member of the Mid-Hudson chapter, demonstrated fly tying and explained that a river with healthy bugs produces healthy trout. "Trout only live in good, clean water," she said. "So, when you see trout who are able to thrive wi... -
Mase buyer expected to soon sign contract
The Beacon City Council has approved the sale of the 114-year-old Mase Hook & Ladder fire station, although city officials said the buyer and price won't be revealed until the contract is finalized.
The council voted, 6-0, on Monday (May 19), with Jeff Domanski of Ward 2 abstaining. He said that while City Attorney Nick Ward-Willis had moments earlier provided an "excellent explanation" of the sale process and council members' responsibility to seek the highest return, he felt "that could have been communicated earlier; it might have allayed a lot of concerns."
City Administrator Chris White said Wednesday that he was hopeful the sale would be finalized next week.
Earlier this month, a real-estate agency hired by the city listed Mase, at 425 Main St., for $1.95 million and the former Beacon Engine Co. firehouse at 57 East Main St. for $1.75 million. Both properties became surplus after a $14.7 million centralized fire station opened near City Hall last fall.
On Monday, Ward-Willis explained that state law allows a municipality to withhold details of a sale until a contract has been signed. "Similar to a private deal, you don't negotiate in public, especially on the financial terms," he said.
The council's vote authorized White to move forward with the sale and acknowledged that an ownership transfer would not negatively impact the environment. If the new owner, as expected, submits plans to redevelop the three-story brick building, they will be subject to Planning Board review, including for environmental impacts.
At the Monday meeting, Beacon resident Theresa Kraft criticized the pending sale, saying a council member voting "yes" could be labeled "a traitor, a crook, a pawn in a larger game."
"It's like pawning your grandfather's gold watch to pay a bill," she said. "The bills keep piling up, and once the watch is gone, you lose a cherished family heirloom." She asked the council to call for a public referendum before proceeding with a sale.
Ward-Willis responded later, noting that state law permits only certain situations, such as the issuance of bonds or a change to the city charter, to go to voters. As elected representatives, he said, the council must decide most matters.
"With the sale of a property or the purchase of a snowplow, you're not allowed to go to the public and do a poll," he said. "You don't have the authority to send it to the public. You've been elected and you need to do your job."
Addressing other suggestions made recently, Ward-Willis said the city had considered repurposing the building but a law that requires multiple contractors for public construction projects made conversion impractical. Modern accessibility codes also do not apply to the building as long as it is a fire station, but "when you kick it over to a different use, whether it's a community center, whether it's a city hall, that triggers a whole set of rules which the city has to comply with," he said.
The city received multiple offers for the former station, Ward-Willis said. Charlotte Guernsey, the owner of Gate House Compass Realty, the city's broker, recommended the pending offer as "the highest and best," he said.
The decommissioned Mase and Beacon Engine stations are both part of Beacon's protected historic district. City officials said both former firehouses would be sold with covenants that restrict renaming the properties or altering or defacing their historical features. Any changes to the exterior of the buildings will require a "certificate of appropriateness" from the Planning Board.
While a sale is pending at Mase, Beacon Engine's ownership has been challenged. State Judge Thomas Davis on Tuesday (May 20) recused himself from litigation brought against the city by retired members of the volunteer fire company that used the station as its headquarters for 136 years. Davis, who presided over the lawsuit filed in 2023 by St. Andrew & St. Luke Episcopal Church over a city-owned parkin... -
Tony Moore mounts show of works by friends and neighbors
After more than a year of curation, Tony Moore is poised to open his remote Philipstown gallery space and its lush grounds to display his work and that of 14 other artists whom he admires and calls friends.
The show, Destination Earth, contains over 70 pieces spread across the wooded property and inside the light and roomy interior spaces. The main upstairs gallery seems like an airy treehouse, with vistas complementing the art.
Moore and his wife, Cynthia Ligenza, met in New York City nearly 30 years ago at a gathering for people wanting to imbue their lives with health, art and sharing. Two years later, they moved to a 5-acre property on a ridge abutting Fahnestock State Park.
The two married that summer under tall oaks, and the expansive surroundings continue to nurture creativity. "We are living in paradise," says Ligenza. Crediting her husband's vision and efforts, she says "every inch of our property is curated, and it brings me to tears to look at it because it's so beautiful."
Moore has been producing beauty since childhood, even before his grandfather recognized his interests and gave him woodworking tools. Born in the midlands of England, Moore went to art school in the U.K. and Yale University. After graduating with an MFA, he installed exhibits at the Guggenheim, which would later acquire four of his works. The Brooklyn Museum owns two.
Ligenza became a physician, with a practice in Cold Spring, while maintaining a lifelong devotion to music. The Ligenza Moore Gallery has hosted recitals featuring Ligenza on violin and with other musicians.
Art beckons as one approaches the show, which explores "where we are, how we got here, what may endure, and what is to come." When coming from the plateau below the buildings, a ceramic platter by Jeff Shapiro sits before ascending stairs. Kurt Steger's wood-and-steel abstraction is adjacent to the gallery sign. More Steger pieces pepper the grounds.
"Vipassana," by David Provan
"Reverb," by Don Voisine
"Summer Walk," by Katherine Bradford
Sculptures by Kurt Steger and David Provan
"The Thousand-Eyed Present (from Ralph Waldo Emerson)," by Meg Hitchcock
Once inside the vestibule, there are graphic etchings and collages by Judy Pfaff, who attended Yale with Moore. Entering the upstairs space, Moore's dark painting on paper features a bright blue hand, echoing the hand imagery in Pfaff's work.
On the landing leading to the main gallery, the shapes in each work mimic others in proximity. "The works start talking to each other," Moore says. "As a curator, you try to foster that conversation. I've spent a great deal of time moving things around in the gallery to try to achieve that balance and harmony."
Moore's work in the show includes a mysterious painting that suggests a chrysalis or womb; a wall of pictorial ceramics he calls "fire paintings;" wood-fired ceramics with surface and interior interest; an early wood-fired ceramic wall tile; and one bronze and one ceramic-and-steel sculpture placed outside that shift in appearance depending on weather and light.
"I'm not a figurative artist," Moore says. But he is also not an abstract artist such as his friend David Provan, who died last year. Instead, evocative imagery and forms with a spiritual component mark his work, which he suggests might be characterized as "symbolic abstraction."
The gallery also has three small acrylics by Katherine Bradford, whose swimmers, while figurative, respect formal principles and abstract composition, with faces that are nothing more than slabs of color. Perhaps the most traditional art in the show is by Moore's neighbor, Simeon Lagodich, who is completing a series of Hudson Valley plein air paintings. An iguana poses with an adorned woman painted by Garry Nichols, and around her is a ceramic piece by Moore that might look like a pair of animals - dogs, bunnies?
On a lawn behind the gallery and near the sheltered Anagama-Noborigam... -
My first experience growing plants in containers was in a rooftop garden in Brooklyn. The previous tenant left behind troughs and pots, and I was delighted to make use of them. I grew sweet corn, 8-foot sunflowers in clay pots and herbs of all flavors.
I learned from my farmer uncle that corn had to be planted in two rows, not a single line, because it's wind-pollinated. I staggered a row of five in a curving line. That doesn't yield a lot of corn, but I liked the way it looked, and it felt grounding to have these sturdy, waving stalks among the industrialness of the neighborhood.
The sunflowers were cheerful and untouched by the squirrels and chipmunks that keep me from growing them in Philipstown. At the end of the season, I would lop off the heads and give them to my neighbors, who kept chickens in an empty lot on the corner. The herbs were a sensory blast and sometimes used for cooking among the people who shared the space.
The setup dictated the growing conditions. The rooftop was accessible after many stairs and walking through the kitchen and a bedroom. Lugging heavy bags of soil or other materials was a drag. I improvised compost and filler with leaves I collected in the street for mulch.
There wasn't any shade, and the black tar paper under the containers was blazing hot. Setting the pots on stands helped. Water came from a hose that ran up the fire ladder from the courtyard below and had to be turned on and off at ground level. Getting that parkour workout was a bonus.
Now I'm a flatlander, with acres of greenery and containers that form a border to keep people from falling off the patio. It was useful when my daughter was learning to walk. All were inherited from a previous owner or repurposed.
I appreciate having herbs like chives and basil nearby for cooking and dill to attract caterpillars that become butterflies. I grow lettuce because it's close to the kitchen and easy to gather for salads. Sun-warmed cherry tomatoes, a summer luxury, are close at hand because everyone likes to grab one for a quick snack.
I have two window boxes to plant - a gift handmade and installed by my husband. I considered how nice they would look on the stone wall of our house but realized I don't want to block the view from inside. I'm planning a low-growing mix with creeping thyme and stonecrop plants.
A few things to address when planting containers:
For vegetables, look for plants labeled "patio," which are bred to grow in small spaces.
Watering is the most demanding part of container gardening. Larger pots allow for more soil volume that will dry out less quickly.
Metal containers heat up fast and hold heat. Pottery is more stable temperature-wise but porous. Plastic is relatively stable, but it's got all the relative issues of being plastic; it's better to repurpose or acquire used plastic pots. Wood is a fine material.
Commit to watering and set up a rain collection system nearby if possible. Monitor the soil daily if it isn't raining.
Think about layers and maximize space by using tall, medium and shorter plants to fill out the container.
If you enjoy fresh mint, grow it in a container to avoid its inevitable colonization of a flowerbed. The same is true for other vigorous plants.
Soil sold in bags labeled as "potting mixes" is blended to maximize nutrients and drainage. Avoid using garden soil or topsoil, which are denser.
I've never used mulch in container gardening but in larger troughs or with bare soil it could help with water retention.
It's a myth that a layer of rocks at the bottom of a pot will help drainage. It makes it worse. Fill it with soil and make it snug around the plants to avoid air pockets.
Mix perennials and annuals to lighten your workload. You don't have to start from scratch every year.
Many pollinator-attracting plants will happily grow in pots. A few of my favorites are butterflyweed (Asclepias tuberosa), foxglove beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis) and little bluestem, a native grass (Schizachyrium ... -
Beacon artist opens studio to beginners
Not too long ago, Beacon High School offered woodworking classes in a space now occupied by Rexhill Studio. An old sign outside one of the warren of rooms in the KuBe Art Center reads: "GO4 Wood Shop."
Today, students can access a Construction Trade curriculum that includes some woodworking instruction through Dutchess BOCES. Two are enrolled.
Exemplifying the decline of practical manual arts education, studio co-owner Justin King attended the Oregon College of Art and Craft, which shuttered in 2019 after 112 years.
To fill the instructive void, King launched an eight-week introduction to the basics, Woodshop Beacon, which sold out fast and wrapped up on Wednesday (May 21).
"We have fewer places to do this kind of thing," he says. "With YouTube and other videos, you're starting in the middle and backtracking to the beginning, so this helps plug in the knowledge gap."
The endgame for the class is a handmade square box, a task that requires several basic skills. A model jewel case that King created is shaped to near perfection, with seamless joints; the top tray nestles inside with zero wiggle room. Press a button in the back and out pops a hidden drawer.
"Boxes can be simple, but they require time, dedication and ability," says King. The name Rexhill, incorporating the Latin word for his last name, harks to the family farm in Ohio. After making his way to Portland, he met his wife, Paula, who plays an instrumental role at the studio.
The couple drifted east with stopovers because there are lots of woodworkers in the Pacific Northwest and she grew up in New Jersey. In 2006, when they settled in Beacon, "it was pretty rough," she says. "But you could feel a change in the air."
Justin King's first love is fine furniture, and he makes tables and credenzas with artistic and technical flair. The studio also devises custom installations in collaboration with architects, homeowners, contractors and interior designers.
For the Woodshop Beacon class, students began by "playing around with planing," according to the curriculum. They progressed to joinery and working with machines, taking advantage of hands-on shop time on Saturday mornings.
Building the box requires choosing the type of wood and assembling, sanding and completing the project. "Even if a finished piece is functional, it is art because no two designs are alike," says King, who worried about filling up seats and was comforted by the response.
Dylan Assael, a friend, jumped at the chance to attend. "I thought, 'How great would it be to acquire this skill and level up my abilities?' " he says. Assael also took a sewing class and creates flags that mesh with the decor at boat and yacht clubs.
Though woodworking presents inherent danger, he faced his fears. "Those tools can maim and injure and that scares the shit out of me, so I'm glad to get instruction from a pro and keep my digits intact," he says. "Sifting through videos is frustrating; it's so much easier to talk to a human being and get instant feedback."
Rexhill Studio is located at 211 Fishkill Ave., Suite GO1 & 4B, in Beacon. See rexhillstudio.com or call 503-490-7280. -
Roni Horn exhibit elevates her work at Beacon museum
Memo to visitors at Dia Beacon's Roni Horn exhibition: Keep your heads up to avoid tripping or stubbing a toe. "Objects of Constancy," which weighs in at 300 pounds and looks like an oversized stick of licorice (or seven strands of intertwined rebar), rests in the middle of a walkway.
Other dense works, made of cast lead, are tucked into a nook and also placed on the floor by the artist. "Mass Removal II" and "Mass Removal III," created with hand-hammering and a pneumatic drill, resemble elongated clamshells with scuffed-up interiors.
The tops of four rocks-from-another-planet, an excerpt from the eight-piece Space Buttress series, look like petrified wood (one of which conveys the illusion of a knot). In contrast, the sides evoke moss-covered stone.
"Things That Happen Again," another floor-based sculpture, consists of two shiny 1,752-pound copper cylinders placed at 90-degree angles. In a separate room, the cast iron pieces that make up "Post Work 3" resemble textured loudspeakers on poles and hint at an Easter Island vibe.
"Vertical sculptures generally suggest the human form, just as horizontal works are often associated with landscapes," says curator Donna De Salvo.
"Object of Consistency" (1980)
"Post Work 3" (1986)
"Things That Happen Again" (1986/90)
"Space Buttress I" (1984-85)
More than a sculptor, Horn installed this long-term exhibit that elevates her work into the pantheon of artists occupying permanent and semi-permanent spaces in the massive museum, like Donald Judd, Richard Serra and Andy Warhol.
"Horn was friends with Serra, and Judd arranged for the permanent install of another version of 'Things That Happen Again' at Marfa [his 45,000-acre ranch and gallery in Texas], so she fits right in," says De Salvo.
Of the exhibit's 23 works, nine are owned by Dia; the abstract color and texture studies hanging on the walls are on loan from the artist and her gallery.
These framed works date to the mid-1980s. Horn deployed similar motifs and techniques in later, larger creations, says De Salvo. Building on a back-mounted sheet of paper, she created a second layer with smaller fragments of thicker, mottled paper arranged in a collage style covered with colorful, slate-like shapes seemingly outlined in black.
Three works titled "Brooklyn Red" are accompanied by a couple of Brooklyn whites, Hamilton reds and Brooklyn grays. Some of the shapes seem three-dimensional, especially in "This 1," where the colored blotch looks bent like a butterfly wing.
Horn enjoys pairing subjects, like the paper work "Untitled (Hamilton)," which looks like a couple of nuclear reactors. The objects in "Double I I' " and "Double N N' " seem more risque.
In 2001 and 2002, as her international renown began to grow, Horn held two solo shows at the Dia Center for the Arts in Manhattan. Now, she's on the same level at Dia Beacon as Robert Ryman, Gerhard Richter and Louise Bourgeois. It's rare for a living artist to achieve such recognition (she is 69).
"We've had a real commitment to her for more than 20 years," says De Salvo. "She's one of the major figures of her generation and there's a dialogue with our other artists on view."
Dia Beacon, at 3 Beekman St., is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday to Monday. Admission is $20 ($18 seniors, $12 students and disabled visitors, $5 ages 5 to 11, free for members, ages 5 and younger and Beacon and Newburgh residents). See diaart.org. -
Proposal also would steer revenue to towns, villages
Four Putnam legislators who supported lowering the county's sales tax rate acquiesced on Monday (May 19), endorsing state legislation that will maintain the current 4 percent rate and send some proceeds to Cold Spring, Nelsonville, Philipstown and six other towns and villages.
Convening for a special session, the Legislature voted 7-1 to support bills introduced by state Sen. Pete Harckham and Assembly Member Matt Slater, whose districts include eastern Putnam, that would extend the 4 percent sales tax rate for another two years. Without the bill, the rate will return to 3 percent. Consumers pay a total of 8.375 percent on eligible purchases, which includes portions that go the state (4 percent) and Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District (0.375 percent).
The state legislation also requires that one-ninth of 1 percent of Putnam's sales tax revenue be shared with the county's nine municipalities.
State lawmakers first approved the increase from 3 percent to 4 percent in 2007, at the county's request, and a series of extensions have kept it in place. The most recent extension expires Nov. 30. In April, five county legislators voted to lower Putnam's tax to 3.75 percent as a give-back to taxpayers amid a $90 million surplus in unrestricted reserves.
But County Executive Kevin Byrne vetoed the reduction and announced an agreement to share with the towns and villages proceeds from the 1 percent increase if it were extended. Municipalities can spend the money on infrastructure projects, with each receiving an amount tied to its population and each guaranteed at least $50,000.
Harckham and Slater endorsed the agreement, which would take effect Dec. 1 and last through Nov. 30, 2027, if their bills pass the Legislature and become law. In addition to enabling what Byrne calls "a first-of-its-kind sales tax-sharing arrangement," the extension will fund a $1 million reduction in the property-tax levy for the 2026 budget that he said would be the largest in county history.
"The alternative was allowing the county's sales tax rate to drop, immediately creating a revenue shortfall of tens of millions of dollars, forcing the county to borrow, raise property taxes or both," Byrne said.
Facing those same pressures, Putnam's municipalities have for years demanded a share of the sales tax revenue, something that 50 of New York's 62 counties do with their cities, towns and villages, according to the state Comptroller's Office. Dutchess' 2025 budget includes $46 million in sales tax distributions, with an estimated $6.1 million for Beacon.
If the proposed revenue-sharing agreement had been in place in 2024, Putnam would have distributed $2.4 million to the towns and three villages on a per capita basis, Byrne said during a news conference last month.
"I haven't heard a single constituent ask us to lower the sales tax," said Nancy Montgomery, who represents Philipstown and part of Putnam Valley as the Legislature's sole Democrat, on Monday. "What I have heard loud and clear is stop the back and forth, stop the chaos and work together."
Legislator Dan Birmingham, who led the effort to lower the sales tax rate, did not participate in the vote because his law firm represents three of the municipalities that would benefit from the revenue-sharing agreement. Another supporter of the cut, Paul Jonke, was the only legislator voting against endorsing Harckham and Slater's legislation, which must pass the state Legislature before its session concludes on June 12.
Amid that pressure, legislators who voted for the vetoed sales tax cut last month endorsed maintaining the current rate. But they complained about being sidelined while Byrne and the municipal officials reached a revenue-sharing agreement and secured backing from Harckham and Slater.
Legislator Toni Addonizio, who had voted for the cut, was among those who did not agree with how the revenue-sharing agreement was crafted. She had proposed... -
Known for its bread, bakery relocates from Peekskill
There's something in the air in Garrison - the smell of fresh bread.
Signal Fire Bread opened a new, wood-fired bakery on Thursday (May 15) on Route 9D in Garrison just south of the post office.
Its co-owners, Erin Detrick and Liz Rauch, are both experienced in the art of baking. Detrick baked professionally in New York City before establishing Signal Fire Bread in 2018. Rauch operated a home-based bakery before joining Detrick at the Sparrowbush Bakery in Hudson. They joined forces in 2019 and two years later moved the bakery to Peekskill.
Rauch said their goal in Peekskill was to run a manufacturing plant for bread, but local zoning required them to include a retail component. "We were able to establish a strong business there, but the retail space was makeshift." Detrick said. "We didn't have great visibility, and we couldn't grow it."
They were not actively looking for a new home but said they couldn't resist when the Garrison location became available. "The space came to us," Rauch said. "We considered it for a while, and it was like, 'Yes, this is what we imagined we'd like to be.'" They closed the Peekskill facility in late 2024 to focus on the move.
Signal Fire's initial retail selection will include 12 to 15 types of bread, from baguettes, spelt, brioche and miche, to East Mountain levain, Ammerland rye and honey whole wheat. There will also be scones, muffins, cookies, biscuits, galettes and rolls.
"We'll add pizzas, sandwiches and salads eventually and, hopefully, soups by the fall," Detrick said. "We want to add more breakfast and lunch items as we get our legs and train staff." Coffee + Beer in Ossining will supply coffee. Signal Fire will continue to have a booth on Saturdays at the Cold Spring Farmers' Market, where it has a loyal following.
Rauch and Detrick are aware that the building, which began life as a gas station, has seen a succession of short-lived cafes and restaurants. "That was an early concern, but we're already well-known in this community and feeling so much support everywhere we go here," Detrick said.
Grain and the flour derived from it are the raw materials that fuel a bakery. Signal Fire works with Farmer Ground Flour, which grows organic grain on five farms in the Finger Lakes region and grinds it into flour using pink granite millstones.
That process mills together the grain's three elements - bran, germ and endosperm - to maximize flavor and nutrient value. "It can be sifted if you want a lighter wheat, or left whole," Detrick said. They sometimes source flour from New Jersey and Maine, as well.
Rauch said 90 percent of what they bake uses natural wild yeast. "Sourdough is natural wild yeast; it's in the air," she said. They mix flour, water and yeast twice a day. "We've been maintaining that culture since we opened; it's a constant process of keeping it healthy and happy."
The name Signal Fire is tied to the region's geography and history. Signal fires were lit on mountaintops in the Highlands as a means of communication, both during the Revolutionary War and probably earlier by Native Americans. "I loved that image of fires burning on the mountaintops," Detrick said.
Both bakers admitted to a slight case of the jitters as opening day approached. "We've been prepping for a year," Detrick said. "It's a blend of excitement, nerves and curiosity about what's going to actually happen when people come through the door."
Rauch added: "I'm feeling positive and optimistic. I'm also nervous because we've never run an operation like this. We're jumping off the diving board!"
Signal Fire Bread, at 1135 Route 9D in Garrison, will be open today (May 16), Saturday and Sunday from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Beginning May 22, it will be open daily except Wednesday. See signalfirebread.com. - Visa fler
