Episodios

  • Living Affordably in Beacon

    Living Affordably in Beacon
    Jul 18 2025
    Dozens benefit from workforce program
    Denise Lahey's roots in Beacon are decades deep.
    Her grandfather, Dennis Lahey, served 62 years with the Beacon Fire Department; her father, Dennis Lahey Jr., is the assistant chief and her sister, Kari, became the city's first full-time female firefighter in 2020.
    However, those ties to the city were no match for the rental prices Lahey faced in 2019, when a relationship ended, along with half the rent for the two-bedroom unit she shared at Hudson View with her then-boyfriend and son.
    There were plenty of good reasons to stay in Beacon, she said: keeping her son in the city's schools and staying close to her family and job as a mail carrier in White Plains rather than moving farther away to Poughkeepsie or Wappingers.
    "I was stuck," said Lahey. "Luckily, this happened."
    What happened: a $1,400-a-month one-bedroom found through Beacon's Workforce Housing Program, which has rescued dozens of residents from rental purgatory: They earn what are generally considered to be decent salaries, but too little to comfortably afford rents that have skyrocketed in Beacon, particularly since the pandemic fomented a wave of transplants from New York City.
    Adopted by the City Council in 2017 as a revision to Beacon's affordable housing law, the program requires new housing developments with 10 or more rental units to set aside 10 percent at below-market rates for households earning up to 90 percent of the Dutchess County median household income, which is about $97,000 annually. For condos and townhouses for sale, it's up to 110 percent of the median income.
    Priority is given to volunteer emergency responders who have served five years or longer, as well as municipal and school district employees. Hudson River Housing manages the list of people who have been approved for the program, which so far has created 46 units for rent and nine condos and townhouses that have been purchased, said Chris White, Beacon's city administrator.
    Rents range from $1,412 to $2,809 depending on the complex, the size of the household and the number of bedrooms. Lahey's apartment at the Beacon HIP Lofts, where a studio starts at $2,100, has "made everything easier," she said. Her son, now a teenager, has the upstairs and its dedicated bathroom as his domain and Lahey has a bedroom and bathroom downstairs.
    Amanda Caputo, Beacon's clerk, pays $1,350 for a one-bedroom apartment at The Beacon at 445 Main St., which houses the Beacon Theater along with the rental units. The apartment is a launching pad for walks to work, the riverfront and Mount Beacon, or strolls along Main Street, where friends work.
    "It's helped me grow in my position and stay in the community," she said.

    Caputo and Lahey's rents were calculated, based on Beacon's guidelines and the area median income for Dutchess County, by Lashonda Denson, the director of homeownership and education for Hudson River Housing.
    When units become available, Denson consults the list of people who have expressed interest and met the income guidelines. If the units are available, the applicants contact the property managers or landlords directly, she said.
    People call Hudson River Housing daily looking for Beacon housing through the program, said Denson. "This is one of the few programs that offers some kind of reduction in the rent," she said. "Some people have been waiting for a couple of years, and then it happens."
    White described the program as "critical to ensuring that new construction provides opportunities for those who cannot afford the escalating rental costs." In addition to the HIP Lofts, and The Beacon, units exist at 7 Creek Drive, 344 Main, 121 Rombout Ave., The Arno beside Fishkill Creek and the Edgewater complex on the city's waterfront.
    Dozens of units are awaiting Planning Board approval or completing construction, said White. Such projects "help to ensure that the city remains home to people of all incomes and backgrounds," he said.
    Caputo, a SUNY New Paltz gra...
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    6 m
  • Whole Lotta Shakers Going On

    Whole Lotta Shakers Going On
    Jul 18 2025
    'Folk opera' in Beacon examines early conflict
    A taut thread connects Jean-Marc Superville Sovak's prolific artistic output and prodigious advocacy work: exposing hidden histories.
    "I closely identify with past events that are erased or suppressed," he says. "And it's no coincidence that is often the case with people of African descent."
    A sculptor, visual artist and activist, Superville Sovak is bringing There Are NO Black Shakers: A Contemporary Folk Opera to The Yard in Beacon on Thursday (July 24) for the work's second staging following its premiere in September at the Shaker Heritage Society in Albany.

    After writing the libretto, he took hymns from the radical religious commune to Beacon violinist Gwen Laster, asking if it would be possible to "bluesify them," he says. "She said, 'Anything can be bluesified.'"
    Other Beacon residents performing the work, which is punctuated with spoken-word interludes, include Damon Banks on bass, vocalist Melvin Tunstall III and Patrick Jones on banjo and guitar. Superville Sovak lived in the city for 11 years before moving to Plattekill in 2020.
    The story centers on a strange and obscure legal case from 1810 that he discovered while visiting a friend's art exhibit at the Shaker Heritage Society. When he asked director Johanna Batman if the group ever had Black members, "she harrumphed and showed me a picture of Phebe Lane as an elderly woman," he says. "The whole story about her sister Betty is well-known among Shakers, but they don't like to advertise or talk about it."

    That's surprising because the event makes the religious commune, which stood against slavery and claimed to uphold egalitarian values, look pretty good. The opera's title refers to the community's ideal, which viewed Black and women members as peers first, and everything else second, he says, so they adhered to their creed in many ways.
    Controversial upon their transplantation from England in the late 1700s, the Shaker movement reached its peak in the mid-1800s, with more than a dozen self-contained compounds, some of which are now museums. One practitioner hangs on at Sabbathday Shaker Village in Maine.
    The Shakers are the "longest-lasting, self-sustaining religious or utopian society in American history," says Superville Sovak.
    Beyond their anti-slavery stance, the Shaking Quakers, named for their fervid mode of worship, put the covenant above everything. "Once you signed that document, you handed over all your property and lost your identity," he says. "They opposed private property and the nuclear family, so their value system questioned what made America, America."

    The backstory of the court case dates to 1802, when Prime Lane, father of Betty and Phebe, relocated his family to a Shaker village at Watervliet, across the river from Albany. He left the fold eight years later, but the daughters, ages 25 and 23, decided to stay.
    Prime sued the Shakers to return Betty, referring to her as his slave. Under New York law at the time, children born to an enslaved woman inherited the condition of bondage, and anyone harboring someone else's human property had an obligation to return the person or be fined.
    Betty somewhat fit the bill. Phebe did not, because Prime had emancipated her mother, Hannah, before Phebe was born.
    Why the father left the commune and initiated a lawsuit remains a mystery, says Superville Sovak. Eventually, the court ruled in favor of the religious order, and the daughters stayed with them for the rest of their lives.
    Lane v. Shakers "busts binaries when we think of history, which is so nuanced," he says. "It helps us look at things in a way that is not simplistic and is a truer version of what the messy past is really like."
    The Yard is located at 4 Hanna Lane in Beacon; tickets are $25 at dub.sh/black-shakers. The actors for the July 24 performance, which begins at 7 p.m., are Aviva Jaye (Phebe), Onome (Betty) and Melvin Tunstall III (Prime). Superville Sovak and Alison McNulty are the narrators,...
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    4 m
  • Dutchess Mall Plan Delayed Again

    Dutchess Mall Plan Delayed Again
    Jul 18 2025
    Owner seeks more time for approvals
    The long-awaited demolition and reconstruction of the dilapidated Dutchess Mall building along Route 9 in Fishkill will have to wait at least six more months.
    On July 10, the Fishkill Planning Board approved two new 90-day extensions requested by Hudson Properties LLC as it works to meet conditions imposed more than two years ago, in February 2023, in the board's preliminary approval of the project. Hudson Properties would like to demolish the mall's remnants and construct a 350,000-square-foot distribution facility.

    After getting a 90-day extension in March, Hudson Properties completed the requirements of the board's conditional approval to subdivide the property, said Christopher Fisher, an attorney for the project, in a June 25 letter to the board.
    With that extension expiring on July 28, the company had not completed a set of conditions from its site plan, including a stormwater-management agreement with the town and a letter of credit for $15 million in site work, such as grading, erosion control and sidewalks.
    Hudson Properties, which initially had until February 2024 to obtain a building permit, has been "working diligently" on the remaining conditions, said Fisher.
    "We look forward to getting that project underway," Jonathan Kanter, the Planning Board chair, said on July 10 after its members approved the latest extension.
    As approved, Hudson Properties' plan called for partnering with commercial developer Crow Holdings Industrial to build the warehouse on 28.9 acres of a 39.3-acre parcel along the south side of Home Depot. The facility would include 209 standard parking spaces, 78 loading docks and parking for 30 tractor-trailers. Under the partnership, Hudson Properties would retain ownership of the remaining 10.4-acre lot, which fronts the property on Route 9.
    The board required that Hudson Properties, by August 2023, obtain approvals from the state Department of Transportation for a new entrance and other upgrades along Route 9; the Dutchess County Department of Health for sewer and water upgrades; and the state Department of Environmental Conservation to build near wetlands. As that date approached, Hudson Properties notified the board that Crow Holdings had backed out and requested the first of what would become multiple extensions.
    Redeveloping the property has been a priority for the town. Dutchess Mall opened in 1974 as the county's first indoor shopping center. Tenants included Jamesway, Lucky Platt and Mays department stores, RadioShack and Waldenbooks. But the opening of the Poughkeepsie Galleria and other retail centers along Route 9 siphoned customers, and the mall closed in 2001.
    Home Depot opened in 2006. Seven years later, Dutchess Marketplace, an indoor/outdoor flea market, opened in the former department store space north of Home Depot but shut down in 2019. Two years later, Dutchess Community College opened its Fishkill campus in the building.
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    3 m
  • The Next Generation of Gaming

    The Next Generation of Gaming
    Jul 18 2025
    Beacon-based group wants more control for creators
    Many video game developers and players believe the industry nickel-and-dimes its customers and creates too many buggy, lackluster products.
    Valley Arcade Games, affiliated with Happy Valley Arcade Bar at 296 Main St. in Beacon, hopes to carve out its own ecosystem on Web3, shorthand for the next evolution of the internet. A group of rebels has been meeting at the arcade this summer to hash out the details. The first gathering in May drew four people but about 20 showed up in June.
    "Gaming is fun, but we've lost our way," says Johnny Coughlin, who co-owns Happy Valley and co-founded its Web3 venture. "We're including a practical component as we experiment with the future and try to right the ship."

    Here is the vision: In the next iteration of online interaction, the internet will fragment into fiefdoms that reject the marketing and surveillance juggernaut that the social media-driven Web 2.0 has become.
    Blockchain security, cryptocurrency democratization and the open-source programming language Linux make this alternative network possible. As players compete, high scorers accrue digital purses they can take into the real world if the folks behind the venture build enough critical mass.
    "At the core, we're minting money," says Jeff Werner, a strategic advisor with The Field Group, who lives in Philipstown. "If people recognize its value, we win. If not, we disappear."
    Coughlin and his partners have developed a prototype, the Valley Web3 Arcade Cabinet, one of which stands near a bend in the bar at Happy Valley. It contains eight games developed by Coughlin's company and its partners with names like Flutter, Mine All Mine, Spinfire, Mole Patrol and Death by Darkness (see valley-arcade.com/games).

    Coughlin's brother, Billy, composes soundtracks with virtual MIDI, instruments and "crazy vocals," Coughlin says. "The music is too weird for a band, but it's usually just right for a game."
    Cabinet players earn rewards at a rate 5.3 times higher than they could receive on their computers or cellphones, he said. Four more cabinets will be installed around the New York City metropolitan area later this summer. They retail for $5,500.
    The content is plugged into the web and began livestreaming in June at twitch.tv/valleyarcade. So far this year, its games have been played nearly 190,000 times, mostly by users in North America and Southeast Asia. The blockchain assures verification of high scores and the global leaderboard's integrity, Coughlin said.
    "It's the world's first Web3 professional cabinet, and it cannot be manipulated," he says. "In some games, you can buy a stronger sword than other players and gain an unfair advantage. We want a level playing field for everyone, and that's going to be a big selling point."

    Another plus is that individuals and independent gaming firms can publish on the platform and receive royalties. Onboarding is seamless compared to other portals that require complicated 15-character passwords, says Coughlin.
    The ambitious goal is to be one of the first dominoes that topple giants such as Amazon and Google, bringing "power to the people" by designing networks that will run even if Amazon Web Services (AWS) goes down, says Werner.
    "A key question for Web3 is, who owns the content?" asks Kyn Chaturvedi, a business advisor visiting from Estonia. "In our world, users and developers do."
    Beyond combating corporate and individual greed and seceding from the mainstream internet, the principals and their partners are trying to create a sticky, lucrative online community with creative tools available to everyone.
    So prevalent is game designing that it's a form of pop art, says developer Joe Lang, who is creating a game called Alien Influencer for the cabinet. "It's an open canvas, but we're not using paint and brushes," he says. "Inventing a game takes skill."
    Jennifer Menjivar, another developer and high-performing gamer, chimed in to note that "the best games ...
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    5 m
  • Notes from the Philipstown Town Board

    Notes from the Philipstown Town Board
    Jul 18 2025
    Help sought for Cortlandt Lake bacteria
    Philipstown Supervisor John Van Tassel agreed on July 10 to help arrange a meeting with Cortlandt and Putnam Valley officials over the fecal coliform levels that have forced the closure of the beach at Cortlandt Lake in Continental Village.
    Putnam County announced last month the closure of beaches at Cortlandt Lake and 13 other water bodies due to the presence of bacteria and harmful algal blooms. Most of Cortlandt Lake is located in Philipstown and Cortlandt, with a small section in Putnam Valley.
    Jesse Lubbers, a member of the Continental Village Park District board, told the Town Board that the Putnam Department of Health, during testing before Memorial Day, found fecal coliform levels at 30 times the limit considered safe for recreational use.
    Water discharging into Cortlandt Lake from Canopus Creek and Spy Pond also tested high for fecal coliform, at 10 times the limit, but the contamination "was concentrated at the beach where people go," said Lubbers.
    Health officials believe that Cortlandt Lake's bacteria levels are caused by failing septic systems at homes around the lake, said Lubbers. Many of those homes were built as summer cottages but are now used year-round, he said.
    "I have been soliciting advice from the Hudson Highlands Land Trust and others to see if we can get in a room" to discuss the source of the contamination and how it can be fixed, he said.
    Hudson Highlands Reserve
    The Town Board held off on giving its consent to the Hudson Highlands Reserve Sewage Works Corp., a private entity created to operate the sewer system serving 23 residences and a community space at the development off Route 9.
    Philipstown's consent is required under state law. Van Tassel said he wanted the town engineer, Ron Gainer, to review the plans. The town attorney, Steve Gaba, noted that private systems are often "set up to fail and the town winds up having to go in and take over a water system or a sewer system. That's an expensive and difficult proposition."
    Horton Road LLC, the developer, received Planning Board approval in March to construct homes on a 210-acre property located between Horton Road and East Mountain Road North, with 79 percent of the land set aside as open space. The homes will be clustered on 31 acres, along with two existing residences, and will be accessed from a new road.
    Route 9D sidewalks
    Van Tassel said he met with state and local officials about adding sidewalks to Route 9D between the Village of Cold Spring line and Little Stony Point Park. He noted the blacktop that begins north of Haldane's tennis courts is in "rough shape."
    One of the agencies represented at the meeting, the state Department of Transportation, said it lacks funding, and Van Tassel said the response from a state parks representative "disappointed" him. The Hudson Highlands Fjord Trail was invited but no one attended, he said. "We did get some ideas for grants, but solutions are a long way off," he said.
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    3 m
  • Looking Back in Philipstown

    Looking Back in Philipstown
    Jul 18 2025

    250 Years Ago (July 1775)
    Benjamin Franklin wrote to William Strahan in England: "You are a member of Parliament, and of that majority which has doomed my country to destruction. You have begun to burn our towns and murder our people. Look upon your hands! They are stained with the blood of your relations! You and I were long friends; You are now my enemy, and I am yours."
    The mayor of London and the Common Council petitioned King George to end military operations in the colonies.
    The Continental Congress requested that each colony establish minutemen units.
    Maj. Gen. Philip Schuyler, arriving at 10 p.m. on July 18 to take command at Lake George in the Adirondacks, found a single sentry on duty. On seeing the general, the soldier quickly tried to awaken the three other guards.
    Patriots in New York City raided royal stores in Turtle Bay (East 42nd Street) for supplies, which were sent to Boston and Lake Champlain.
    New York observed a day of fasting and devotion, as requested by the Continental Congress.
    150 Years Ago (July 1875)
    After assaulting and robbing the elderly Levi Washburne in Carmel inside his home at 2 a.m., five "ruffians" harnessed a pair of horses to a wagon and drove to Cold Spring, where they abandoned the vehicle. Two men chasing them took the property back to Carmel. The editor of The Cold Spring Recorder noted that local law enforcement did not continue the pursuit, but that the deputy sheriff in Cold Spring and the sheriff likely knew it would be difficult to get reimbursement from the Village Board for their expenses or a reward.
    A horse left untied by a pineapple peddler at Moshier's fish market was found near the Pacific Hotel.
    The Cold Spring and Nelsonville rifle clubs held a friendly match, shooting at targets of 50, 75 and 100 yards with Hunter's Pet guns. Cold Spring won, 390-375.
    Frederick Osborn, 17, drowned while swimming off Mine Point. "His brother made a heroic attempt to save him, but finding that both were sinking, said goodbye and released his hold," according to The Recorder.
    A passenger on the Montreal Express who disembarked at Cold Spring forgot his pocketbook, with a large amount of cash. He rushed to the telegraph office. His message and the train reached Poughkeepsie at the same time, and the pocketbook was found on the seat, undisturbed.
    At 7 p.m. on a Tuesday, Miss Kellogg called a girl playing the violin on Main Street for change to her carriage, where they conversed in Italian.
    After a series of overnight burglaries and home invasions, the Village Board adopted a resolution "that the constables of the town and police officers of the village be specially requested to arrest and take into custody and detain all persons of suspicious character found roaming through the village at any unreasonable hour of the night, or found under suspicious circumstances at any time justifying their arrest and convent without delay to the police magistrate."
    Billy McCormick, jailed in Cold Spring for stealing a barrel of liquor, claimed he was paid $250 [about $7,300 today] for the job but would not say by whom.
    A tornado at West Point broke 140 gas hotel lights and moved artillery guns.
    After a shot was heard at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday, two Fair Street men took their guns to Sandy Landing to investigate. They found a dog belonging to Michael O'Brien, of Garden Street, had been shot dead and supposed it was causing trouble for thieves hiding their goods.
    Passengers aboard the Boardman and Cornwall steam yacht complained that young male swimmers waiting for the swell created by the boat would stand naked on the dock rather than jumping in the water in advance of her passing.
    Burglars visited B Street, where they attempted to break into the home of James Ball and took a watch from under a mattress in the house of John Butler.
    A child in Nelsonville was pushed into the road while he and a playmate jostled to catch a pear falling from a tree, and only skillful horse management by Mr. Mangham prevented ...
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    15 m
  • Dutchess County Reports 911 Outage

    Dutchess County Reports 911 Outage
    Jul 15 2025
    Line down from 3 to 9 p.m. but calls rerouted
    Dutchess County reported at 3 p.m. on Tuesday (July 15) that its 911 emergency response system was down. It was restored at 9 p.m.
    The county said the outage was caused by "an issue with a Verizon fiber optic transmission line. Verizon crews from Poughkeepsie and Kingston worked to restore the lines. Incoming emergency calls were rerouted to 7-digit landline numbers without incident during the outage."
    For future updates, see the Dutchess County Emergency Management page on Facebook or download the Ready Dutchess! mobile app.
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    1 m
  • Beyond the Grid: Home Energy

    Beyond the Grid: Home Energy
    Jul 11 2025
    Glenn Rockman and his longtime partner, Darron Berquist, love many things about their 3,700-square-foot home off Route 9 in Philipstown (shown above): the quiet woods, the modern architecture, the river views.
    They also love their electric bill: $21.50 a month.
    The bills could be lower, but Central Hudson requires a basic service charge to be hooked up to the grid. The one time the bill was higher, it was because they had accidentally left the air conditioning on for 10 days while on vacation. The only gas the home uses is propane in a backup generator.
    This is all possible because Rockman and Berquist live in a certified Passive House, one of a growing number of ultra-efficient homes whose solar panels generate more power than the owners use.
    Rockman said they are hooked up to Central Hudson only as a precaution; occasionally, on hot days, the 9-kilowatt solar panel doesn't generate enough power to cool the house. But more often, it's sending electricity to Central Hudson and using a net meter to stockpile credits. Rockman expects to soon replace the backup generator with a whole-house battery that can store the excess production.
    Budget Busters
    Federal law could raise electricity costs
    By Brian PJ Cronin
    If you're considering making your home more energy-efficient, act now.
    The federal budget bill signed into law by President Donald Trump on July 4 will eliminate tax credits for solar panels, heat pumps, induction stoves, insulation and energy-efficient windows after Dec. 31. It also will eliminate, as of Sept. 30, a tax credit of up to $7,500 for buying or leasing an electric vehicle.
    The law could lead to higher utility costs because it kills many industry subsidies for wind, solar and large-scale batteries, which made up more than 90 percent of the new energy added to the grid. The REPEAT Project at Princeton University estimates 30 gigawatts that would have been generated by wind and solar annually may be lost.
    "Renewables are the cheapest source of new electricity generation, with or without the tax credits that the bill phases out," said Amanda Levin, director of policy analysis for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
    Although the cost of installing solar and batteries has fallen by 90 percent over the past decade, and wind costs have fallen by 70 percent, the bill "will put a damper on new renewable and energy storage investment over the next decade, which is going to mean less new cheap, clean power getting added to the grid, and higher electricity prices," she predicted.
    At this point, "we can't build enough new fossil plants to fill the void that might be left by killing renewables," she said. Due to supply-chain issues, there's a backlog of up to seven years for natural gas turbines, for example. Gov. Kathy Hochul has announced plans to build more nuclear power plants upstate, but that won't happen immediately: The most recent nuclear plants built in the U.S. were years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget.
    "Renewables and storage are the only resources available to be deployed today at reasonable cost," said Levin. "We won't be able to build new, unexpected, unplanned investments in other types of non-clean energy at least until the 2030s."
    The budget may mean fossil-fuel plants scheduled for retirement will need to stay open. Over the next few decades, electricity demand is expected to increase by 25 percent, primarily due to the growth of data centers.
    Relief could come at the state level if New York moves forward with a "cap-and-invest" plan, said Kobi Naseck, director of programs and advocacy for NY Renews, a progressive coalition. The program was announced by Hochul in 2023; corporations that produce more pollution than allowed would pay penalties that fund the state's climate plans and rebate checks for consumers.
    NY Renews forecasts that a cap-and-invest program could produce savings of up to $2,000 a year for households earning less than $200,000 annually.
    In Cold Spring, Chelsea Moze...
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    14 m