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Highlands Current Audio Stories

Highlands Current Audio Stories

Written by: Highlands Current
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 The Highlands Current is a nonprofit weekly newspaper and daily website that covers Beacon, Cold Spring, Garrison, Nelsonville and Philipstown, New York, in the Hudson Highlands. This podcast includes select stories read aloud. Art Politics & Government
Episodes
  • Looking Back in Beacon

    Looking Back in Beacon
    Jan 24 2026
    Editor's note: Beacon was created in 1913 from Matteawan and Fishkill Landing.
    150 Years Ago (January 1876)
    A resident reported that the new year in Matteawan was greeted with the ringing of bells, firing of shotguns, crowing of roosters, burning of bonfires of stolen beer barrels and fence rails and "yelling and hooting of the factory hoodlums."
    A burglar stole hams and whiskey from William Murray's grocery store in Fishkill Landing.
    A resident in Fishkill Landing reported finding a grasshopper on New Year's Day, when the temperature reached 48 degrees.
    One of the Methodist pastor's children was sitting at his father's writing desk in the parsonage at Fishkill Landing, reading by the light of a lamp, when he tried to refill the oil by lifting the reservoir cap. A fire burst startled him, and the lamp fell to the floor. Passersby extinguished the flames.
    Pat Murphy, the proprietor of a saloon on the Matteawan road, fell down a set of stone steps at his home and broke his collarbone.
    A Kingston firm had constructed 30 dwellings for A.T. Stewart in Glenham, with the men laying 50,000 bricks per day.
    The Hudson River Railroad Co. drew stone for the foundation of a brick depot at Fishkill Landing, a short distance north of the old depot.
    William Ager of Fishkill Landing had surgery at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, during which half of his upper jaw was replaced with a silver plate.
    William Ott, a brakeman on the Dutchess and Columbia Railroad, lost a finger while uncoupling cars at Dutchess Junction.
    The railroad's new bridge at Glenham passed a quality-control test when three locomotives weighing 50 tons each passed over and it didn't collapse.
    Congregants at the Methodist Episcopal Church in Matteawan presented their pastor, the Rev. C.W. Millard, with a gold watch and chain and $100 [about $3,000 today].
    A farmer's wife in Glenham, Mrs. Walter Cromwell, 35, hanged herself, apparently because of depression following a decision against her in a lawsuit involving her mother's estate. She had suffered a bout of melancholy about a year earlier, but her husband thought she had recovered.
    100 Years Ago (January 1926)
    The Public Service Commission authorized Central Hudson Gas and Electric Co. to buy the Citizens Railroad, Light and Power Co., the Fishkill Electric Railway Co. of Beacon and the Southern Dutchess Gas and Electric Co.
    The Mase Five quit the Hudson River League to play basketball as an independent. Eugene Cadmus, the manager, said the quintet had not been able to secure a consistent home court, had to travel too far and believed they could draw more paying spectators on their own.
    Philip VanBuren died. Many years earlier, he opened the Cozy Lunch on Main Street after leaving his job as a foreman at a local silk company.
    Philip Hoyt, 37, a Beacon native, was appointed as a deputy commissioner of the New York Police Department. The Princeton graduate spent 10 years as a reporter for The New York Times before joining the city finance department.
    Beatrice McClintock Ward of Beacon served her husband, George Ward, with divorce papers. After reaching George Ward by "long-distance telephone" at his office in New York City, the Poughkeepsie Eagle-News said he provided this statement: "For practically the last year, Mrs. Ward has been seeking to gain her freedom from the contract in which she entered in August 1923. She has consistently refused to move to Boston or New York, where I have been employed [by the Hearst Corp.] since last summer, and she has exhibited a constant desire to return to her artwork, which in my opinion precludes any chance of maintaining home life." Mrs. Ward sought custody of their infant son.
    James Murray, 63, died after falling down a flight of stairs at his residence on Willow Street. "He suffered a broken hip and, because of his advanced age, little hope had been held for his recovery," the Eagle-News reported. Dr. George Jennings, who responded, suffered a hemorrhage while he struggled to lif...
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    12 mins
  • State Finalizes Fjord Trail Review

    State Finalizes Fjord Trail Review
    Jan 23 2026
    Report included responses to comments
    New York State finalized its environmental review on Tuesday (Jan. 20) of the proposed Hudson Highlands Fjord Trail, summarizing the findings of a report released two weeks earlier.
    The findings statement concludes that the trail "will achieve a balance between the protection of the environment and the need to accommodate social and economic considerations" and that "the project is consistent with the coastal policies identified in the City of Beacon's approved Local Waterfront Revitalization Program to the maximum extent practicable."
    Notably, it does not mention Cold Spring's Local Waterfront Revitalization Strategy. The environmental group Riverkeeper, which serves on the HHFT's ecological working group, believes the project conflicts with both Beacon's and Cold Spring's strategies.
    That conclusion is unlikely to placate residents who believe that instead of mitigating overtourism, the 7.5-mile linear park between Cold Spring and Beacon will make the problem worse. Cold Spring has requested a public hearing to discuss the final environmental report.
    The parks department received over 650 public comments on the draft environmental review. The 12th and final appendix of the review issued two weeks ago, at 957 pages, includes agency replies to nearly every comment, some of which were hundreds of pages long and not reproduced in full.

    If a commentator praised the trail, the state typically replied, "comment noted." For those who raised concerns, the parks department often cross-referenced responses because many grievances were common. Here's a look at some of the common concerns and responses:
    More specifics
    Some commenters argued that a Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) was not right for the project, which needed a more-specific Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). "Unlike an EIS, a GEIS may be broader, analyze impacts generally and include assessment of site-specific impacts only if they are available, and be based on conceptual information," wrote the law firm Whiteman, Osterman & Hanna, representing Protect the Highlands, which opposes the project.
    The Philipstown Town Board wrote that "the proposal as presented is conceptual in nature and certain thresholds must be met when the final design of the project is complete. … However, the document is vague at best about the particulars. … It is not possible to fully evaluate the extent of potential impacts or assess whether proposed mitigation measures will be effective."
    State response: The parks department replied that, even with a conceptual design, a GEIS was "appropriate to evaluate this action." HHFT must continue to check in with the state during the process, it said, and the agency "will determine whether any design modifications would warrant supplemental environmental review."
    Avoiding Cold Spring
    Many Philipstown commenters said the trail should end at Little Stony Point or Breakneck rather than connecting to Cold Spring. "We believe that the HHFT could be successful if its limits were from the City of Beacon to the Breakneck Ridge train station, where pedestrians could use the train to return to Beacon or points south," wrote the Town of Philipstown Conservation Board. "Allowing the HHFT into Philipstown would only exacerbate vehicular and pedestrian traffic."
    State response: The parks department replied that a Beacon-to-Breakneck trail would defeat the project's purpose, which is to "address increasing visitation to [Hudson Highlands State Park Preserve] and the surrounding communities and related public safety, quality of life and maintenance concerns arising from such increased visitation" as well as "reduce pedestrian crowding in Cold Spring by offering a more direct route" from the Metro-North station to the trailhead at Dockside Park.
    With the trail starting at Dockside, visitors arriving by train would be encouraged to walk through the lower village instead of Main Street, the state said. Otherwise, they w...
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    11 mins
  • Former Texaco Property Cleanup Taking Shape

    Former Texaco Property Cleanup Taking Shape
    Jan 23 2026
    Feedback sought on first parcel of land
    The state Department of Environmental Conservation is accepting public comments through Jan. 31 on a proposal to remediate a small portion of the abandoned Texaco Research Center site just outside of Beacon.
    The DEC has broken the 153-acre property, now called Glenham Mills, into nine pieces, or "operable units," that correspond with Town of Fishkill tax parcels. Each will have its own remediation strategy. The first parcel under consideration is also the smallest — a 0.67-acre wooded patch north of Washington Avenue.
    The Glenham Mills property was the home of a textile mill in the early 1800s. After Texaco purchased the land in 1931, it built a complex where more than 1,000 employees researched and developed aviation gasolines and other petroleum products. By the time the center closed in 2003, Fishkill Creek, which divides the property, had been heavily polluted with petroleum, coal products and solvents.

    The state has assessed the impact of that pollution on fish and wildlife, the soil and human health. Remedial measures have included decommissioning storage tanks, excavating soil, repairing dams and sparging, in which pressurized air is injected below the water table, forcing gasoline or solvents into the soil, where they are extracted. The groundwater has been tested annually since 2009.
    "It may look like nothing has been going on, but work has been performed for decades now," said Greta Kowalski, a DEC geologist.
    Once remediation of Glenham Mills is complete, years from now, DEC will retain oversight through a site-management plan and environmental easements. "It's like the Hotel California," Kowalski said. "You can check out, but you can never leave."
    Chevron, which merged with Texaco in 2003, has sent proposals to the DEC to remediate most of the operable units. Once a plan is set for the first unit, known as OU-3, Kowalski said the next candidates could be OU-1B, a 15-acre parcel that once had a church, or OU-1E, a 93-acre segment south of Washington Avenue and Fishkill Creek known as the Back 93, which Texaco used for worker recreation.

    The Back 93 is probably the most attractive parcel for development; a 2021 Chevron report identified two sludge lagoons, three chemical burial sites, a disposal pit and a container disposal site as "areas of interest." More than 26,000 tons of material were removed from the Back 93 in the 1980s.
    Chevron's proposal for the 0.67-acre OU-3 is to excavate a 225-square-foot area where soil samples revealed semi-volatile organic compounds 6 inches below ground. Volatile chemicals can move from below ground into buildings, but nearby residences on Washington Avenue and Belvedere Road have not been contaminated, the company said.
    How to Comment
    Email Greta Kowalski at greta.kowalski@dec.ny.gov.
    For more information, see Chevron's site at glenhammills.com.
    Chevron has been trying to sell Glenham Mills since 2020, and there has been a renewed effort recently to market the site to "brownfield" developers, said Alex Cheramie, a company representative. An online flyer does not list a sale price but notes that the property offers an "excellent redevelopment opportunity" due to its proximity to Interstate 84 and Route 52. It is zoned for offices, laboratories and industrial or manufacturing uses.
    Chevron would like to restore the land to "restricted residential" status, a classification that the DEC says would be appropriate for a public park. During a Jan. 13 public meeting at Fishkill Town Hall, an audience member asked Kristin Kulow, a representative from the state Department of Health, whether she would feel safe living in a house in OU-3 once it is remediated. "Yes, I would, absolutely," she said.
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    4 mins
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