Lives of the Hudson

For just on more week (until 3/14) you can see and experience a wonderful show called “Lives of the Hudson” at Skidmore’s Tang Museum. In pictures, sounds and various curios it celebrates the river and the various ways the Hudson intersects with the lives of those who use it or live along it. The crowds are gone and you’ll probably have the place mostly to yourself, which provides the quiet calm this exhibit deserves just like the river itself.

The show offers a nice representation of Hudson School painters, giant modern photos of shipyards and such, old postcards and delftware with Hudson River imagery, and a couple of multimedia exhibits including a hypnotic film where you sit in a dark room and become a passenger on a boat, watching the shoreline pass in by the night. Be sure to go into the elevator, close the door, and listen to the "sound map" of water sounds recorded at a series of Hudson River.

If you miss this exhibition, you’ll just have to go to the river itself. One of the best things about living in Saratoga is being able to take Amtrak to/from Penn Station and glide along the Hudson for mile after mile as it changes from rural to suburban to the big city. The river is beautiful and relaxing at any time of year. And it’s easy (and not expensive) to take the train down early, enjoy a full day in the city, then come back in the evening.

For best effect, I like to take the train down at sunrise and the train back an hour or so before sunset and leave from Albany since the trains run much more frequently. Keep in mind that the tracks are on the east side of the river which means you’ll want to sit on the right side of the car going down, the left side coming back up. Make a mistake in your initial seating and you’ll likely find the window seats filled up.  Keep an eye out for the decaying Bannerman Castle, on an offshore island a few miles south of Poughkeepsie. It really is falling down, I recently learned, so catch it while you can.