New for 2016, a completely updated guide to the Heritage Sites of the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area Traveling down the Hudson River, named by Native Americans the river that flows both ways, you discover people, places, and events that made American history. The cultural, historic, and scenic resources of the Hudson Valley are so numerous, so varied, and so compelling that it’s no wonder Congress recognized the Hudson River Valley as a National Heritage Area in 1996. The National Park Service called the region the “landscape that defined America” and characterized the valley as “an exceptionally scenic landscape that has provided the setting and inspiration for new currents of American thought, art, and history.” Its political importance was demonstrated early in our history when the river played a critical role in the Revolutionary War. The many streams and waterfalls of the tributaries of the Hudson River powered early sawmills and gristmills. The river and its landscapes inspired the Hudson River school of painters. Sublime and picturesque paintings by Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, and Asher Durand depicted this unique American landscape for the world to witness. Industrialists and commercial leaders like William and John D. Rockefeller, Frederick Vanderbilt, J. P. Morgan, and Ogden Mills built their great estates along the Hudson River. The second edition includes completely updated user-friendly design and vibrant photography; heritage site pages that include brief descriptions, contact information, and accessibility site characteristics; and National Park Service Passport Stamp locations with new cancellation stamp pages for your collection. Heritage sites in this guidebook are associated with areas of interest and categorized as must see, best bet, or special interest to make it easy to explore the stories of the Hudson River Valley. Heritage sites are also organized by geography and proximity to make it easy to find heritage sites nearby.

A newly updated and revised edition of the classic and definitive guide to the best of the Hudson River Valley. For the last 20 years this has been the most trusted guide to exploring the Hudson River Valley's myriad attractions and providing everything the visitor?and resident?needs to know to enjoy this newly designated National Heritage Area that has been called ?America's Rhine.? Visit presidential homes ? great estates built by founding fathers and 19th-century tycoons ? a remarkable assortment of art museums with Old Master paintings and contemporary masterpieces ? the battlements of West Point and the site of the most important struggle of the Revolution ? the homes, studios and painting sites of Hudson River School artistsperforming arts centers ? the oldest and most famous horse-racing track in the country ? wineries ? lighthouses ? arboretums ? hot-air ballooning, river tubing, and bird watching for bald eagles ? historic districts ? antiquarian bookstores, antiques

The Hudson River Valley was the first iconic American landscape. Beginning as early as the 1820s, artists and writers found new ways of thinking about the human relationship with the natural world along the Hudson. Here, amid the most dramatic river and mountain scenery in the eastern United States, Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper created a distinctly American literature, grounded in folklore and history, that contributed to the emergence of a sense of place in the valley. Painters, led by Thomas Cole, founded the Hudson River School, widely recognized as the first truly national style of art. As the century advanced and as landscape and history became increasingly intertwined in the national consciousness, an aesthetic identity took shape in the region through literature, art, memory, and folklore-even gardens and domestic architecture. In Sanctified Landscape, David Schuyler recounts this story of America's idealization of the Hudson Valley during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Schuyler's story unfolds during a time of great change in American history. At the very moment when artists and writers were exploring the aesthetic potential of the Hudson Valley, the transportation revolution and the rise of industrial capitalism were transforming the region. The first generation of American tourists traveled from New York City to Cozzens Hotel and the Catskill Mountain House in search of the picturesque. Those who could afford to live some distance from jobs in the city built suburban homes or country estates. Given these momentous changes, it is not surprising that historic preservation emerged in the Hudson Valley: the first building in the United States preserved for its historic significance is Washington's Headquarters in Newburgh. Schuyler also finds the seeds of the modern environmental movement in the transformation of the Hudson Valley landscape. Richly illustrated and compellingly written, Sanctified Landscape makes for rewarding reading. Schuyler expertly ties local history to national developments, revealing why the Hudson River Valley was so important to nineteenth-century Americans-and why it is still beloved today.

The Hudson River Valley, which George Washington referred to as the "Key to the Northern Country," played a central role in the American Revolution. From 1776 to 1780, with major battles fought at Saratoga, Fort Montgomery, and Stony Point, the region was a central battleground of the Revolution. In addition, it witnessed some of the most dramatic and memorable aspects of the war, such as Benedict Arnold's failed conspiracy at West Point, the burning of New York's capital at Kingston, and the more than six-hundred-mile march of Washington and the Continental Army and Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, and his French Expeditionary Corps to Yorktown, Virginia. Compiled from essays that appeared in the Hudson Valley Regional Review and the Hudson River Valley Review, published by the Hudson River Valley Institute, the book illustrates the richly textured history of this supremely important time and place.

Lighthouses were built on the Hudson River in New York between 1826 to 1921 to help guide freight and passenger traffic. One of the most famous was the iconic Statue of Liberty. This fascinating history with photos will bring the time of traffic along the river alive. Set against the backdrop of purple mountains, lush hillsides, and tidal wetlands, the lighthouses of the Hudson River were built between 1826 and 1921 to improve navigational safety on a river teeming with freight and passenger traffic. Unlike the towering beacons of the seacoasts, these river lighthouses were architecturally diverse, ranging from short conical towers to elaborate Victorian houses. Operated by men and women who at times risked and lost their lives in service of safe navigation, these beacons have overseen more than a century of extraordinary technological and social change. Of the dozens of historic lighthouses and beacons that once dotted the Hudson River, just eight remain, including the iconic Statue of Liberty, New York Harbor's great monument to freedom and immigration, which served as an official lighthouse between 1886 and 1902. Hudson River Lighthouses invites readers to explore these unique icons and their fascinating stories.

Experience first-hand the unparalleled year-round beauty and charm of this region, spanning from the magical snowy mountaintops of the Adirondacksto the glass and steel of Manhattan. In over 200 breath-taking photographs, The Hudson River follows the course of this great natural beauty, exploring its picturesque banks, historic riverfront towns and stately old mansions, and magnificent public parks and wilderness. Paired with these images are inspired writings by 19th- and 20th-century authors such as Washington Irving and Robert Caro. The source of the mighty Hudson is a small misted pond high atop Mount March in the heart of Adirondack Park: Lake Tear of the Clouds. Flowing more than 300 miles before reaching the Atlantic Ocean, the Hudson River is truly the main artery of New York State. It has witnessed four centuries of transformation in New York, from early English and Dutch trading settlements and mansions of the Guilded Age to the skyscrapers of the world?s greatest city.

An elegant homage to the many deserted buildings along the Hudson River--and a plea for their preservation.