Rosendale Village, New York
Encyclopedia
Rosendale Village is a hamlet and census-designated place
within the town of Rosendale
in Ulster County
, New York
, United States
, with a population of roughly 1,500 people. The area was originally settled in the late 17th century by Jacob Rutsen, a merchant from Albany
, but did not become a major population center until the 1825 discovery of Rosendale cement
in the region; the development of the cement industry, and the growth of the Delaware and Hudson Canal
along the Rondout Creek
and Main Street, gave rise to substantial economic development in Rosendale. The town's cement was used in the construction of numerous national landmarks. The Wallkill Valley Railroad reached the village in 1871, and its depot in the village was the largest station on the Wallkill Valley line. Rosendale was formally incorporated
as a village in 1890.
An 1895 fire destroyed half the village, as it had no form of fire protection
at that time. Throughout the 20th century, the decline of the natural cement industry caused Rosendale to suffer economically and lose population. The village was also battered by a series of severe flood
s, and the center of commerce began to shift from Main Street to Route 32
. By the 1970s the village was having severe problems with its utilities and tax code, and was no longer producing cement. The hippie
movement brought many artists to the village during this time, which lead to ideological clashes between the newcomers and the more conservative, established residents. In 1976, the village voted to dissolve itself to solve its municipal problems, and on January 1, 1978, Rosendale became disincorporated
. The village's mayor at the time of the vote viewed the dissolution as a work of conceptual art
, and published a book on the matter.
After the disincorporation, the commercial center of the former village was revitalized
by artists and entrepreneur
s, who purchased and restored Main Street buildings that had fallen into disrepair. Since the 1990s, Rosendale has hosted many street festivals. The former village has had a number of notable buildings, including four churches. Two notable bridges span the Rondout Creek in the village: a road bridge that carries Route 32, and the Rosendale trestle
, a former railroad bridge currently being renovated as a pedestrian walkway. Joppenbergh Mountain
, named after Rosendale's founder, borders the village and has been the site of numerous ski jumping
competitions and mine
collapses.
village, which included a cemetery, centered around a spring
that no longer exists. The first person of European descent to settle the Rosendale area was a merchant from Albany
, Jacob Rutsen (originally Jacobsen Rutger van Schoonderwoerdt). Rutsen received a patent
on October 8, 1677, for a 40 acres (16.2 ha) tract of land, located in what is now Rosendale, after purchasing it from a local Indian named Anckerop. Anckerop agreed to the sale on the condition that he be allowed, "the right to plant ... maize annually for the duration of his life", and that Rutsen would plow the involved fields.
Dirck (also spelled Direk) Keyser secured a lease to the land from Rutsen on June 17, 1680, and built the first house in Rosendale; the terms of Keyser's lease stipulated that he build a stone house on the property at the base of what is now Joppenbergh Mountain. On June 23, 1682, fifteen members of the Esopus tribe
sold Rutsen more land, by the Rondout Creek. This land was surveyed by Philip Wells on May 28, 1685; Wells declared the size of the purchase to be 395 acres (159.9 ha) south of the creek, and 240 acres (97.1 ha) to the north. There was also a 12 acres (4.9 ha) island within the creek. Rutsen was given a patent for the combined area on August 26, 1686.
In 1700, Rutsen took the house from Keyser and expanded it. The settlement was known as "Rosendall" as early as 1700, and was also called "Roasendale" in documents as early as May 28, 1685. The name is thought to be either a reference to wild rose
s growing throughout the region, or of Dutch
origin, as the word existed in period documents from Holland. After Rutsen's death in 1730, he was buried in the area which eventually became the village. His tombstone eulogizes him as the "Founder of Rosendale".
The village remained sparsely populated and only consisted of two houses when the Delaware and Hudson Canal
reached it after the materials used to manufacture Rosendale cement
, named after the town, were discovered locally in 1825. Early settlers had avoided the area because the northern land, comprising present-day Rosendale Village, was a known floodplain
, and the lands south of the creek were less mountainous and at a higher elevation
.
deposit was the "single largest natural cement deposit in the United States", encompassing 32 mi2 between High Falls
and Kingston
. The cement was used in the construction of the canal and quickly became the "primary impetus for the town to grow and prosper".
By 1835 the village contained a hydraulic cement plant, a post office, tavern, and several stores and houses. When the surrounding town of Rosendale
was created from parts of Hurley
, New Paltz
and Marbletown
on April 26, 1844, the village was referred to by the same name as the town. On December 7, 1847, New York passed a law which allowed the municipal incorporation
of villages within the state. The Wallkill Valley Railroad was opened to Rosendale in 1871, with the Rosendale trestle
across the Rondout Creek
completed the following year. James S. McEntee, a former Delaware and Hudson engineer, was the only person to have seen the opening of both the canal and the trestle. The Rosendale station was the largest depot on the Wallkill Valley rail line. Unlike the other stations on the line, it was designed to have an "L" shape, rather than being rectangular, because the building was "squeezed by the severe slope behind it". In 1888, a pinkeye outbreak killed off many horses in Rosendale and along the canal.
Rosendale was sung about in a canal-related folk song
in the 1880s called "Sari Jane". The village's cement mines were mentioned in a poem by D. Taylor, "Carrying Coal On The D & H Canal", and another poem, "Trip Down The Canal", by DeWitt E. Clinton and his wife. An 1840 painting by James Smilie depicting Rosendale was one of the earliest paintings to feature the canal.
The village was formally incorporated in 1890. Rosendale cement was used in the construction of several national monuments, such as the Brooklyn Bridge
, the Washington Monument
, Grand Central Terminal
, and parts of the Statue of Liberty
and the United States Capitol
. At its peak Rosendale had fourteen bars
on the same 1/4 mi street, while the local cement industry employed 5,000 people and was producing four million barrels of cement each year.
, though there had been an attempt prior to the fire to establish such a utility. Ironically, "those who were the heaviest losers by the fire were the ones who worked hardest to defeat the movement". About 10,000 people came to Rosendale following the fire to look at the charred remains, packing the village in "a scene [reminiscent of] an old-time country fair". In 1900, the village attempted to purchase a water plant
for $40,000. The New York & Rosendale Cement Company sued to prevent bonding
for the purchase. Before the case could reach the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
, the village elected a new board of trustees
, which attempted to block the purchase. They were unsuccessful and the village was forced to complete the purchase in 1903. The village enacted an ordinance
in December 1901 to remove snow, ice and dirt from local gutters and sidewalks. Power lines
were built throughout the village in 1906.
A "strawberry and ice cream festival" was held at Rosendale's Episcopal church on June 12, 1906. Around this time the village had an annual firemen's parades, which included athletic events, such as baseball
and tug of war
, as well as brass band
s, dances, and speeches. Several different fire companies from throughout the region were involved in the parades.
By 1910, the canal running through Rosendale had closed. On July 5, 1911, the Jacob Rutsen house was hit by lightning and destroyed in a severe storm. The increased industrial use of Portland cement
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was detrimental to Rosendale's economy. Between 1900 and 1920 the village lost almost 70 percent of its population, and only one cement factory remained open after 1920. In April 1923, the Rosendale railroad depot and its freight house were destroyed in a fire.
The village suffered a severe flood
in August 1928. Several feet of floodwater reached the first floors of buildings on Main Street, and the Kingston Fire Department sent boats to rescue stranded residents. In many houses, "muddy and slimy" water had filled the cellar "to the top step of the cellar stairway". Driveways had been washed out and planking was put down so that pumps could remove the water. Other major floods occurred in March 1936, August 1955, and October 1955. The water was as high as 8 feet (2.4 m) above the level of the street during the 1955 floods. In October 1956, a dinner reception was held to honor the government leaders and flood control officers who had coordinated rescue efforts during the previous year's floods.
The village petitioned the state for a census recount in 1957 in an attempt to secure additional state aid. The recount was performed in March 1957 and showed that the village's population had increased 16 percent since the 1950 census. The village received additional state aid. In December 1963 the federal government approved a $100,000 appropriation for flood control
projects along the Rondout Creek in the town of Rosendale; the plan included changes to the shape of the creek itself and "raising a section of [the village's] Main Street to the level of Route 32".
On a clear, sunny day in July 1964, a group of six boys went swimming in the Roundout Creek at a park in Rosendale Village. After getting out of the creek, the boys were struck by lightning
. One boy was knocked back into the creek, and regained consciousness as he was being pulled out. Two of the boys, Gary Schmitt and Ronald Morelli, died. Ronald Morelli was the son of Albert Morelli, who served as Rosendale's fire chief
. Albert Morelli was part of the team that put out the fire at Reid's Village Inn.
Rosendale had lost its bowling alley
to a 1967 fire, and, on January 14, 1969, a local hotel burned down. The hotel, Reid's Village Inn, was owned by village mayor Joseph Reid. Reid and his wife lived in the building, and lost all their possessions in the fire. Total damage was estimated to be between $50,000 and $75,000. Within two days of the blaze, the village purchased a fire truck
and scheduled hearings for alternate-side parking and water meter
proposals. By this time, the Army Corps of Engineers
had built a 325 feet (99.1 m) flood wall
, relocated several buildings, dredged the bottom of the creek, and raised a 1000 feet (304.8 m) portion of Main Street about 3 foot (0.9144 m). The project caused the 12 acres (4.9 ha) island in the creek to become a peninsula
, connected to the northern bank. Since the completion of these projects, the village has not suffered floods as extreme as those of 1955.
In 1970, Rosendale's mayor ran off after declaring that the village "had gone broke". The commercial center of the village was shifting from Main Street (concurrent
with Route 213) to Route 32; businesses on Route 32 included a department store
, butcher
shop, nail salon
, barber
shop, and restaurants. The village itself served as the commercial center of the town. The growth of shopping malls in nearby Kingston put many local stores out of business, and the last cement plant in Rosendale closed in 1971; abandoned cement mines were eventually used by edible mushrooms growers who produced their crops "on beds of horse manure". Large piles of the manure
were visible along Binnewater Road. The caves were also used to acquire naturally filtered
water, maintain corn
at a consistently cool temperature, and house a records storage
facility.
The 40 acres (16.2 ha) storage facility, operated by Iron Mountain Incorporated
, consists of street light
s amid two-story buildings, all "erected beneath the old limestone caves leased from" the Snyder Estate
for 99 years. It was opened for a public viewing in 1976 to quell rumors that the "heavily guarded" facility, described as a "subterranean James Bond
set", was part of an underground cave
network that connected the village to Kingston, and that the facility was actually a fallout shelter
for federal officials; the facility is capable of withstanding a "direct atomic hit
on [nearby] Poughkeepsie". Sealed behind a 7+1/2 ST steel door, the facility contains "its own well
and ... sewage system", and enough generators to remain self-sufficient for three months.
The man who suggested that the underground facility have a public exhibition was a local personality, Billy Guldy. Guldy was born around 1940 in Kingston, and, by the 1970s, had become a leading figure in Rosendale Village's hippie
movement. He declared himself a king
, and frequently dressed as one. He owned a bar called "The Well", and a hotel in the village, and his portrait was painted on the door of a local bar. He declared Halloween
a national holiday, ran for president
, and led 200 people in a parade down Main Street. At one point Guldy took a bus to Yankee Stadium
to give baseball player Fred Stanley the "key to Rosendale". Some older residents considered Guldy crazy, and former village trustee Harold Schoonmaker felt "there's something wrong with a man that walks around the streets barefoot, wearing a robe and derby". The village's children viewed Guldy favorably and were quite friendly with him.
Some of the village's more traditional residents felt overwhelmed by the influx of beatnik
s, and locals were conflicted over whether Rosendale's transformation into an art colony
would benefit the village in the long term. A major clash between the hippies and village police occurred at a bar on June 21, 1975, causing over 150 people to show up to see what was going on. Although "there were many people actively involved" in the riot, only Guldy was charged.
A group that opposed the hippie movement managed to keep Guldy off the mayoral ballot in 1975. He became a write-in candidate
for village trustee, with his friend, poet George Montgomery, running for mayor. Montgomery lost the election to Raivo Puusemp, a sculptor from SoHo
. After his election, Puusemp chided Guldy for being a poor role model
for the village youth. Puusemp was not a native of Rosendale and had not lived there long. By early July 1975, Puusemp had appointed a village dog warden
after a dog bit a child and was allowed to run about the streets unrestrained.
When Puusemp, a conceptual art
ist and art instructor at SUNY Ulster
, became mayor of Rosendale, the village was plagued by an "overbearing tax structure and problems with its municipal utilities". Though disincorporation
was already known as a possible solution to the village's crises, it had been an "emotionally charged issue" and no action had been taken. By this time Rosendale "could [no longer] govern itself". The village and town governments had often been at odds; the town was governed by Republicans
while the village was increasingly under Democratic
control. This friction manifested in several ways. Town and village officials would frequently disrupt each others' meetings, and the town ordered its snow plows
to raise their blades while passing through the village; the village subsequently bought its own plow and banned the town's plow from entering village limits.
During his campaign, Puusemp did not mention disincorporation or how it related to art, though he had already decided two months before the election that the only solution to the village's problems was disincorporation. In some of Puusemp's early artworks (termed "influence pieces"), he would manipulate subjects into unknowingly executing his ideas while believing that they, the subjects, had come up with said ideas on their own.
Viewing the "project [as] an artwork in the form of a political problem", Puusemp convinced the people of Rosendale to disincorporate by publicly comparing the village's finances to what would be "need[ed] to maintain a viable town". The village's board of trustees strongly favored dissolution and "forced three separate votes before [reaching] a 179 to 87 majority to abolish the village". A public referendum
on the dissolution was held on March 16, 1976, which passed in a 2–1 landslide. Puusemp resigned as mayor on October 1, and moved to Utah
with his family. He vowed never to run for office again. During his tenure in office, and in the aftermath of his resignation, Puusemp received widespread popular support.
Marc Phelan, a village trustee and associate of Puusemp, became mayor following Puusemp's departure. He was reelected the following March with 141 votes, beating three other candidates to become the village's last mayor. Rosendale became unincorporated on January 1, 1977, though the village government did not disband until the end of 1977; the village completely ceased to exist "at the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31, 1977". Ironically, the state and federal government provided funding for new sewage and water systems following the disincorporation, mitigating the primary reasons residents had voted to dissolve.
Puusemp documented the dissolution by collecting "press clippings, council meeting minutes, and public documents" and publishing them after his friend, performance artist Paul McCarthy
, urged him to do so. Both the book and the dissolution of Rosendale Village itself can be considered different facets of the same artistic work. The 1980 census listed Rosendale Village as a census-designated place
(CDP). The former village is also considered a hamlet, an unofficial term which refers to a named but unincorporated place in New York. Rosendale Village is the largest voting bloc
in the town of Rosendale, and of all former villages in the Hudson Valley
, Rosendale was the last to dissolve.
The revitalization of businesses in the former village was credited to the influx of artists. Prior to the 1980s, store owners in Rosendale Village had either retired or died, and their shops had become residential or simply abandoned. Newcomers purchased these properties, restored them, and returned them to commercial service.
On September 13, 1991, the Century House Historical Society was formed to preserve historical sites within Rosendale, and to promote research on such sites. The New York State Education Department
granted a permanent charter to the organization on June 13, 2000. The Society held a concert in one of the former cement mines, the Widow Jane Mine, around 2002; the concert caused severe traffic and presented a fire hazard, and the society was subsequently sued by the town. The Widow Jane Mine has been the site of "all-night raves, Halloween horror shows and role-playing vampire games". It is also one of the few mines in Rosendale that is almost completely horizontal
, and is part of the Snyder Estate Natural Cement Historic District
.
Since 1998, Rosendale has held an annual pickle
festival. Some people view the pickle festival as a form of social expression, and the "current artisan pickling scene" has been compared to the mentality of early microbreweries
. The pickle festival was originally started by Eri Yamaguchi and Bill Brooks, as a way to introduce Ulster County to pickled Japanese food
, such as oshinko
. The festival has featured Japanese traditional dancing
. At the first pickle festival the number of people attending was 1,000, a number five times greater than expected. The following year it was double that, and by 2003, attendance was almost 5,000. Rosendale has had a recurring winter festival known as "Frozendale", and in late September 2010, the hamlet had a zombie-themed festival. Historically, the former village's street festivals have "draw[n as many as] 30,000 people".
", about 2+3/4 mi north of the creek's confluence
with the Wallkill River
. The highest recorded crest
of the Rondout Creek in Rosendale was 26.5 feet (8.1 m) on October 16, 1955. The creek does not normally rise above 10 feet (3 m), but overflows its banks
after reaching 18 feet (5.5 m). The hamlet's ZIP code
is 12472 and it is in area code 845
. Rosendale Village is bordered by the creek and by the 495 feet (150.9 m) Joppenbergh Mountain. It is traversed by state routes NY 32
and NY 213
. The former village is 2 miles (3.2 km) east of the hamlet of High Falls, 6 miles (9.7 km) north of the village of New Paltz
, and 8 miles (12.9 km) south of the city of Kingston
.
Rosendale is underlain by a shale
member of the Martinburg Formation called Martinburg shale, deposited as early as 500 million years ago; Martinburg shale also lines the bottom of the Rondout Creek as it flows through the town. A conglomerate
of the Shawangunk Formation
was deposited over the Martinburg layer approximately 425 million years ago. The conglomerate is in turn covered by High Falls Shale, a reddish shale formed by mud flats
. Subsequent streams left a layer of gray Binnewater Sandstone above the shale. After the sandstone
was deposited, the region experienced folding and faulting
, and was submerged in a shallow sea. This allowed the creation of fossil
iferous limestone
roughly 390 million years ago, specifically the Rondout Formation and New Scotland Formation. The Rondout Formation's dolostone
member, formed during the upper Silurian
, was mined throughout the village because of its ability to form natural cement. The region experienced repeated glaciation
, and large amounts of till
and alluvium
were deposited during the Wisconsonian glaciation.
of about 44 inches (111.8 cm). Between 1931 and 1955, the town averaged 48 inches (121.9 cm) each year. July is the hottest month, on average; the hottest recorded temperature occurred during July 1995. January is the coldest month, and the lowest recorded temperature was taken in January 1961.
, Dutch Reformed
, Catholic and Episcopal
church. Of these churches, only the Catholic one still functions as a church.
The first Baptist minister arrived in Rosendale in March 1839, and the first baptism
s took place on April 5, 1840. The First Associate Baptist Society in the Village of Rosendale was incorporated on May 22, 1840. A meeting house for the society was built in 1842; it was dedicated on October 17 and its pew
s were purchased on November 4. The church underwent a revival
between 1875 and 1876, and was reincorporated on May 1, 1876, as the Baptist Church of Rosendale. It was closed as a church in 1929, and sold in 1972 to a local filmmaker, Walter Helmuth, who used it as a house. At some point it housed a "fraternal organization of farmers" and was known as the "Grange". In the 1990s it was used as a theater. On January 15, 2004, the building burned down. Though the town's fire station
was directly across the street, the extreme cold hindered firefighters' efforts to control the fire.
The Protestant Reformed Dutch Church of Rosendale was incorporated on November 28, 1843. The church originally cost $2,500 to build, and was designed to seat 300 people. It burned down and was rebuilt in 1895. In 1985, it was renovated and converted into a glass studio called Belltower Lighting.
Catholic priests had come to Rosendale as early as 1840, and the first mass
in the village was held in a cooper's shop
. The original Church of St. Peter was completed in the summer of 1850, and the first mass in that building was held on August 15. The church was not officially incorporated until April 29, 1865. A newer, larger building was constructed in 1876, on the same road as the village's rail depot. The new building followed an English Gothic architecture
style. It was made of bricks, created near the North River, and was ornamented with yellow bricks from Perth Amboy, New Jersey
, and sandstone
from Amherst, New York
. The first mass in the new church occurred on December 25, 1876; the building's total construction cost was $31,000. The Church of St. Peter is the only one of the village's churches that still functions as a church.
Rosendale's Episcopal church, the All Saints' Chapel, was built in 1876. It was hit hard by the floods of 1955, to the point where "the rising water floated the organ up toward the altar". It was abandoned after the flooding, and was purchased by a local cement magnate, so that it could be converted into the Rosendale Library; the library association had its charter granted on October 24, 1958. The building was severely damaged by a fire on January 15, 1975, but was restored, and a new wing was added; the wing was named after Anna Mae Auchmoedy, the building's first librarian. In 1986, the library was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
.
throughout the late 19th century for the dolostone
that was used in the manufacture of natural cement. There was a large cave-in on December 19, 1899, that destroyed mining equipment and collapsed shafts
within the mountain. Though it was feared that several workers had been killed, the collapse happened during lunch, and all the miners were outside, eating. Since the collapse the mountain has experienced shaking and periodic rockfalls.
During the late 1930s, Joppenbergh became the site of several skiing
competitions, which continued until the early 1940s. The slope was designed by Harold Schelderup for Rosendale's first competition in 1937; Schelderup participated in a competition that July after the slope was coated with borax
. Skiing stopped until the 1960s, when a new slope was built, and competitions were held until 1971.
The town of Rosendale considered buying land near the mountain in 2003 for parking
. The following year, the town leased a tract of land to build a municipal parking lot. Joppenbergh was put up for sale in 2009, and, in March 2011, the Open Space Institute
offered to purchase the entire 117 acres (47.3 ha) property and sell it to the town; the following month, Rosendale's town board agreed to the deal.
s to pay for its portion of the Wallkill Valley Railroad, and construction of a railroad bridge spanning the Rondout Creek began the following year. After bridging the Wallkill River
in New Paltz
, the railroad reached Rosendale in 1871. The Rosendale trestle was formally opened during a large ceremony on April 6, 1872. The height of the bridge terrified onlookers, who questioned the trestle's sturdiness. The bridge's completion allowed the rail line to continue north to Kingston.
The bridge was rebuilt between 1895 and 1896 to convert it from iron to steel. It was repeatedly reinforced throughout its existence. When Conrail
closed the Wallkill Valley line in 1977, the stability of the trestle had been one of its primary reasons for doing so. Conrail had tried to sell the bridge as early as 1983, and in 1986 the trestle was sold to a private businessman, John Rahl, for one dollar.
Rahl installed decking
on half of the trestle between 1989 and 1991, attempting to open it as a bungee jumping
platform. A court ruling found that such a venture violated zoning
laws, and the town denied Rahl a variance
. In 2009 the county seized the trestle, and it was sold to an environmental group. The trestle was closed in 2010 for repairs, and is expected to be opened as part of the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail
in 2012.
, General George Clinton
crossed the Rondout Creek at Rosendale Village in October 1777, arriving "one or two days too late to resist the British attack" on Kingston by the forces of General John Vaughan
. Clinton's fording
spot is now the location of a bridge on State Route 32. The bridge, originally built around 1934, was refurbished in 1970, and again between 2008 and 2009. While the bridge was being renovated in 2009, only one lane had been open, congesting traffic. The total cost of the project was $5.5 million. There is a 58-spot park and ride
on Route 32, by Rosendale's community center, that is served by the Ulster County Area Transit
and Trailways
bus services.
in the 1920s, the Rosendale Theater was seized by the village and converted into a theater in 1949 by Anthony Cacchio, a man who bore a strong resemblance to filmmaker Otto Preminger
. The first film shown on opening night in February 1949 was Blood on the Moon
. Caccio owned the building outright by 1954, and operated it with his son, Anthony Cacchio Jr., who banned popcorn
in the theater in 1969. The theater served as the village's fire department at one point.
In early 2010, a real estate
developer approached the Cacchios with an offer to purchase the theater. A 501(c) nonprofit organization was formed in March 2010 to preserve the building, which secured a $50,000 grant from PepsiCo
to help take out a $385,000 mortgage
. Since completing its purchase of the theater on August 19, 2010, the Rosendale Theatre Collective has added a digital projector
, surround sound
system, stage thrust
, and retractable screen
. The group plans to add a concession stand
and move the ticket booth
outside during warm months. In late February 2011, the theater received a $175,000 state grant to renovate the building.
was 725.5 per square mile (280.7/km²). There were 666 housing units at an average density of 351.7/sq mi (136.1/km²). The racial makeup of the CDP was 94.91% White, 2.33% African American, 0.51% Asian, 1.16% from other races
, and 1.09% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4.00% of the population.
There were 602 households, out of which 25.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 40.7% were married couples
living together, 9.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 45.2% were non-families. 34.7% of all households were made up of individuals and 12.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.27 and the average family size was 2.97.
In the CDP, the population was spread out with 21.0% under the age of 18, 8.2% from 18 to 24, 32.5% from 25 to 44, 25.8% from 45 to 64, and 12.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 39 years. For every 100 females there were 93.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.7 males.
The median income for a household in the CDP was $34,712, and the median income for a family was $50,789. Males had a median income of $35,259 versus $25,764 for females. The per capita income
for the CDP was $20,700. About 5.2% of families and 8.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 8.6% of those under age 18 and 3.6% of those age 65 or over.
Festival videos
Census-designated place
A census-designated place is a concentration of population identified by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes. CDPs are delineated for each decennial census as the statistical counterparts of incorporated places such as cities, towns and villages...
within the town of Rosendale
Rosendale, New York
Rosendale is a town in the center of Ulster County, New York, United States. It once contained a village of the same name, which was dissolved through a vote. The population was 6,075 at the 2010 census.- History :...
in Ulster County
Ulster County, New York
Ulster County is a county located in the state of New York, USA. It sits in the state's Mid-Hudson Region of the Hudson Valley. As of the 2010 census, the population was 182,493. Recent population estimates completed by the United States Census Bureau for the 12-month period ending July 1 are at...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, with a population of roughly 1,500 people. The area was originally settled in the late 17th century by Jacob Rutsen, a merchant from Albany
Albany, New York
Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...
, but did not become a major population center until the 1825 discovery of Rosendale cement
Rosendale cement
Rosendale cement refers to a type of natural cement produced in and around Rosendale, New York from argilaceous limestone. The fast-setting Rosendale natural cement mortars proved to be more efficient than the traditional mortars based on lime and sand...
in the region; the development of the cement industry, and the growth of the Delaware and Hudson Canal
Delaware and Hudson Canal
The Delaware and Hudson Canal was the first venture of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, which later developed the Delaware and Hudson Railway...
along the Rondout Creek
Rondout Creek
Rondout Creek is a tributary of the Hudson River in Ulster and Sullivan counties, New York, USA. It rises on Rocky Mountain in the eastern Catskills, flows south into Rondout Reservoir, part of New York City's water supply network, then into the valley between the Catskills and the Shawangunk...
and Main Street, gave rise to substantial economic development in Rosendale. The town's cement was used in the construction of numerous national landmarks. The Wallkill Valley Railroad reached the village in 1871, and its depot in the village was the largest station on the Wallkill Valley line. Rosendale was formally incorporated
Municipal corporation
A municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including cities, counties, towns, townships, charter townships, villages, and boroughs. Municipal incorporation occurs when such municipalities become self-governing entities under the laws of the state or province in which...
as a village in 1890.
An 1895 fire destroyed half the village, as it had no form of fire protection
Fire protection
Fire protection is the study and practice of mitigating the unwanted effects of fires. It involves the study of the behaviour, compartmentalisation, suppression and investigation of fire and its related emergencies, as well as the research and development, production, testing and application of...
at that time. Throughout the 20th century, the decline of the natural cement industry caused Rosendale to suffer economically and lose population. The village was also battered by a series of severe flood
Flood
A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land. The EU Floods directive defines a flood as a temporary covering by water of land not normally covered by water...
s, and the center of commerce began to shift from Main Street to Route 32
New York State Route 32
New York State Route 32 is a north–south state highway that extends for through the Hudson Valley and Capital District regions of the U.S. state of New York. It is a two-lane surface road for nearly its entire length, with few divided and no limited-access sections. From Harriman to Albany,...
. By the 1970s the village was having severe problems with its utilities and tax code, and was no longer producing cement. The hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
movement brought many artists to the village during this time, which lead to ideological clashes between the newcomers and the more conservative, established residents. In 1976, the village voted to dissolve itself to solve its municipal problems, and on January 1, 1978, Rosendale became disincorporated
Unincorporated area
In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not a part of any municipality.To "incorporate" in this context means to form a municipal corporation, a city, town, or village with its own government. An unincorporated community is usually not subject to or taxed by a municipal government...
. The village's mayor at the time of the vote viewed the dissolution as a work of conceptual art
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
, and published a book on the matter.
After the disincorporation, the commercial center of the former village was revitalized
Urban renewal
Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Renewal has had both successes and failures. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of...
by artists and entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
s, who purchased and restored Main Street buildings that had fallen into disrepair. Since the 1990s, Rosendale has hosted many street festivals. The former village has had a number of notable buildings, including four churches. Two notable bridges span the Rondout Creek in the village: a road bridge that carries Route 32, and the Rosendale trestle
Rosendale trestle
The Rosendale trestle is a continuous truss bridge and former railroad trestle in Rosendale Village, a hamlet in the town of Rosendale in Ulster County, New York. Originally constructed by the Wallkill Valley Railroad to continue its rail line from New Paltz to Kingston, the bridge rises above...
, a former railroad bridge currently being renovated as a pedestrian walkway. Joppenbergh Mountain
Joppenbergh Mountain
Joppenbergh Mountain is a nearly mountain in Rosendale Village, a hamlet in the town of Rosendale, in Ulster County, New York. The mountain is composed of a carbonate bedrock overlain by glacially deposited material. It was named after Rosendale's founder, Jacob Rutsen, and mined throughout the...
, named after Rosendale's founder, borders the village and has been the site of numerous ski jumping
Ski jumping
Ski jumping is a sport in which skiers go down a take-off ramp, jump and attempt to land as far as possible down the hill below. In addition to the length of the jump, judges give points for style. The skis used for ski jumping are wide and long...
competitions and mine
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
collapses.
Early settlement
The earliest recorded human habitation in Rosendale was a Native AmericanNative Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
village, which included a cemetery, centered around a spring
Spring (hydrosphere)
A spring—also known as a rising or resurgence—is a component of the hydrosphere. Specifically, it is any natural situation where water flows to the surface of the earth from underground...
that no longer exists. The first person of European descent to settle the Rosendale area was a merchant from Albany
Albany, New York
Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...
, Jacob Rutsen (originally Jacobsen Rutger van Schoonderwoerdt). Rutsen received a patent
Land patent
A land patent is a land grant made patent by the sovereign lord over the land in question. To make a such a grant “patent”, such a sovereign lord must document the land grant, securely sign and seal the document and openly publish the same to the public for all to see...
on October 8, 1677, for a 40 acres (16.2 ha) tract of land, located in what is now Rosendale, after purchasing it from a local Indian named Anckerop. Anckerop agreed to the sale on the condition that he be allowed, "the right to plant ... maize annually for the duration of his life", and that Rutsen would plow the involved fields.
Dirck (also spelled Direk) Keyser secured a lease to the land from Rutsen on June 17, 1680, and built the first house in Rosendale; the terms of Keyser's lease stipulated that he build a stone house on the property at the base of what is now Joppenbergh Mountain. On June 23, 1682, fifteen members of the Esopus tribe
Esopus tribe
The Esopus tribe was a tribe of Lenape Native Americans who were native to Upstate New York.The tribe fought a series of conflicts against settlers from the New Netherland Colony from September 1659 to September 1663, known as the Esopus Wars...
sold Rutsen more land, by the Rondout Creek. This land was surveyed by Philip Wells on May 28, 1685; Wells declared the size of the purchase to be 395 acres (159.9 ha) south of the creek, and 240 acres (97.1 ha) to the north. There was also a 12 acres (4.9 ha) island within the creek. Rutsen was given a patent for the combined area on August 26, 1686.
In 1700, Rutsen took the house from Keyser and expanded it. The settlement was known as "Rosendall" as early as 1700, and was also called "Roasendale" in documents as early as May 28, 1685. The name is thought to be either a reference to wild rose
Rose
A rose is a woody perennial of the genus Rosa, within the family Rosaceae. There are over 100 species. They form a group of erect shrubs, and climbing or trailing plants, with stems that are often armed with sharp prickles. Flowers are large and showy, in colours ranging from white through yellows...
s growing throughout the region, or of Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
origin, as the word existed in period documents from Holland. After Rutsen's death in 1730, he was buried in the area which eventually became the village. His tombstone eulogizes him as the "Founder of Rosendale".
The village remained sparsely populated and only consisted of two houses when the Delaware and Hudson Canal
Delaware and Hudson Canal
The Delaware and Hudson Canal was the first venture of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, which later developed the Delaware and Hudson Railway...
reached it after the materials used to manufacture Rosendale cement
Rosendale cement
Rosendale cement refers to a type of natural cement produced in and around Rosendale, New York from argilaceous limestone. The fast-setting Rosendale natural cement mortars proved to be more efficient than the traditional mortars based on lime and sand...
, named after the town, were discovered locally in 1825. Early settlers had avoided the area because the northern land, comprising present-day Rosendale Village, was a known floodplain
Floodplain
A floodplain, or flood plain, is a flat or nearly flat land adjacent a stream or river that stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls and experiences flooding during periods of high discharge...
, and the lands south of the creek were less mountainous and at a higher elevation
Elevation
The elevation of a geographic location is its height above a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface ....
.
Industrial growth
The 1825 dolostoneDolostone
Dolostone or dolomite rock is a sedimentary carbonate rock that contains a high percentage of the mineral dolomite. In old U.S.G.S. publications it was referred to as magnesian limestone. Most dolostone formed as a magnesium replacement of limestone or lime mud prior to lithification. It is...
deposit was the "single largest natural cement deposit in the United States", encompassing 32 mi2 between High Falls
High Falls, New York
High Falls is a hamlet in Ulster County, New York, United States. The population was 627 at the 2000 census.High Falls is located in Marbletown, near the town boundary with Rosendale.-Geography:...
and Kingston
Kingston, New York
Kingston is a city in and the county seat of Ulster County, New York, USA. It is north of New York City and south of Albany. It became New York's first capital in 1777, and was burned by the British Oct. 16, 1777, after the Battles of Saratoga...
. The cement was used in the construction of the canal and quickly became the "primary impetus for the town to grow and prosper".
By 1835 the village contained a hydraulic cement plant, a post office, tavern, and several stores and houses. When the surrounding town of Rosendale
Rosendale, New York
Rosendale is a town in the center of Ulster County, New York, United States. It once contained a village of the same name, which was dissolved through a vote. The population was 6,075 at the 2010 census.- History :...
was created from parts of Hurley
Hurley (town), New York
Hurley is a town in Ulster County, New York, USA. The population was 6,314 at the 2010 census.The Town of Hurley is in the northeast part of the county, west of the City of Kingston...
, New Paltz
New Paltz, New York
New Paltz is a town in Ulster County, New York, USA. The population was 14,003 at the 2010 census. The town is located in the southeastern part of the county and is south of Kingston, New York. New Paltz contains a village also with the name New Paltz...
and Marbletown
Marbletown, New York
Marbletown is a town in Ulster County, New York, United States. The population was 5,854 at the 2000 census.The Town of Marbletown is near the center of Ulster County, southwest of the City of Kingston. US 209 and NY 213 pass through the town...
on April 26, 1844, the village was referred to by the same name as the town. On December 7, 1847, New York passed a law which allowed the municipal incorporation
Municipal corporation
A municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including cities, counties, towns, townships, charter townships, villages, and boroughs. Municipal incorporation occurs when such municipalities become self-governing entities under the laws of the state or province in which...
of villages within the state. The Wallkill Valley Railroad was opened to Rosendale in 1871, with the Rosendale trestle
Rosendale trestle
The Rosendale trestle is a continuous truss bridge and former railroad trestle in Rosendale Village, a hamlet in the town of Rosendale in Ulster County, New York. Originally constructed by the Wallkill Valley Railroad to continue its rail line from New Paltz to Kingston, the bridge rises above...
across the Rondout Creek
Rondout Creek
Rondout Creek is a tributary of the Hudson River in Ulster and Sullivan counties, New York, USA. It rises on Rocky Mountain in the eastern Catskills, flows south into Rondout Reservoir, part of New York City's water supply network, then into the valley between the Catskills and the Shawangunk...
completed the following year. James S. McEntee, a former Delaware and Hudson engineer, was the only person to have seen the opening of both the canal and the trestle. The Rosendale station was the largest depot on the Wallkill Valley rail line. Unlike the other stations on the line, it was designed to have an "L" shape, rather than being rectangular, because the building was "squeezed by the severe slope behind it". In 1888, a pinkeye outbreak killed off many horses in Rosendale and along the canal.
Rosendale was sung about in a canal-related folk song
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
in the 1880s called "Sari Jane". The village's cement mines were mentioned in a poem by D. Taylor, "Carrying Coal On The D & H Canal", and another poem, "Trip Down The Canal", by DeWitt E. Clinton and his wife. An 1840 painting by James Smilie depicting Rosendale was one of the earliest paintings to feature the canal.
The village was formally incorporated in 1890. Rosendale cement was used in the construction of several national monuments, such as the Brooklyn Bridge
Brooklyn Bridge
The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States. Completed in 1883, it connects the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River...
, the Washington Monument
Washington Monument
The Washington Monument is an obelisk near the west end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., built to commemorate the first U.S. president, General George Washington...
, Grand Central Terminal
Grand Central Terminal
Grand Central Terminal —often incorrectly called Grand Central Station, or shortened to simply Grand Central—is a terminal station at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States...
, and parts of the Statue of Liberty
Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886...
and the United States Capitol
United States Capitol
The United States Capitol is the meeting place of the United States Congress, the legislature of the federal government of the United States. Located in Washington, D.C., it sits atop Capitol Hill at the eastern end of the National Mall...
. At its peak Rosendale had fourteen bars
Bar (establishment)
A bar is a business establishment that serves alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, liquor, and cocktails — for consumption on the premises.Bars provide stools or chairs that are placed at tables or counters for their patrons. Some bars have entertainment on a stage, such as a live band, comedians, go-go...
on the same 1/4 mi street, while the local cement industry employed 5,000 people and was producing four million barrels of cement each year.
Decline and disasters
A fire destroyed half the village in 1895, burning 26 buildings and causing more than $125,000 in damage. The village had no form of fire protectionFire protection
Fire protection is the study and practice of mitigating the unwanted effects of fires. It involves the study of the behaviour, compartmentalisation, suppression and investigation of fire and its related emergencies, as well as the research and development, production, testing and application of...
, though there had been an attempt prior to the fire to establish such a utility. Ironically, "those who were the heaviest losers by the fire were the ones who worked hardest to defeat the movement". About 10,000 people came to Rosendale following the fire to look at the charred remains, packing the village in "a scene [reminiscent of] an old-time country fair". In 1900, the village attempted to purchase a water plant
Water supply
Water supply is the provision of water by public utilities, commercial organisations, community endeavours or by individuals, usually via a system of pumps and pipes...
for $40,000. The New York & Rosendale Cement Company sued to prevent bonding
Municipal bond
A municipal bond is a bond issued by a city or other local government, or their agencies. Potential issuers of municipal bonds includes cities, counties, redevelopment agencies, special-purpose districts, school districts, public utility districts, publicly owned airports and seaports, and any...
for the purchase. Before the case could reach the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
The Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division is the intermediate appellate court in New York State. The Appellate Division is composed of four departments .*The First Department covers the Bronx The Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division is the intermediate...
, the village elected a new board of trustees
Board of directors
A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...
, which attempted to block the purchase. They were unsuccessful and the village was forced to complete the purchase in 1903. The village enacted an ordinance
Local ordinance
A local ordinance is a law usually found in a municipal code.-United States:In the United States, these laws are enforced locally in addition to state law and federal law.-Japan:...
in December 1901 to remove snow, ice and dirt from local gutters and sidewalks. Power lines
Electric power transmission
Electric-power transmission is the bulk transfer of electrical energy, from generating power plants to Electrical substations located near demand centers...
were built throughout the village in 1906.
A "strawberry and ice cream festival" was held at Rosendale's Episcopal church on June 12, 1906. Around this time the village had an annual firemen's parades, which included athletic events, such as baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
and tug of war
Tug of war
Tug of war, also known as tug o' war, tug war, rope war or rope pulling, is a sport that directly pits two teams against each other in a test of strength. The term may also be used as a metaphor to describe a demonstration of brute strength by two opposing groups, such as a rivalry between two...
, as well as brass band
Brass band
A brass band is a musical ensemble generally consisting entirely of brass instruments, most often with a percussion section. Ensembles that include brass and woodwind instruments can in certain traditions also be termed brass bands , but are usually more correctly termed military bands, concert...
s, dances, and speeches. Several different fire companies from throughout the region were involved in the parades.
By 1910, the canal running through Rosendale had closed. On July 5, 1911, the Jacob Rutsen house was hit by lightning and destroyed in a severe storm. The increased industrial use of Portland cement
Portland cement
Portland cement is the most common type of cement in general use around the world because it is a basic ingredient of concrete, mortar, stucco and most non-specialty grout...
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was detrimental to Rosendale's economy. Between 1900 and 1920 the village lost almost 70 percent of its population, and only one cement factory remained open after 1920. In April 1923, the Rosendale railroad depot and its freight house were destroyed in a fire.
The village suffered a severe flood
Flood
A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land. The EU Floods directive defines a flood as a temporary covering by water of land not normally covered by water...
in August 1928. Several feet of floodwater reached the first floors of buildings on Main Street, and the Kingston Fire Department sent boats to rescue stranded residents. In many houses, "muddy and slimy" water had filled the cellar "to the top step of the cellar stairway". Driveways had been washed out and planking was put down so that pumps could remove the water. Other major floods occurred in March 1936, August 1955, and October 1955. The water was as high as 8 feet (2.4 m) above the level of the street during the 1955 floods. In October 1956, a dinner reception was held to honor the government leaders and flood control officers who had coordinated rescue efforts during the previous year's floods.
The village petitioned the state for a census recount in 1957 in an attempt to secure additional state aid. The recount was performed in March 1957 and showed that the village's population had increased 16 percent since the 1950 census. The village received additional state aid. In December 1963 the federal government approved a $100,000 appropriation for flood control
Flood control
In communications, flood control is a feature of many communication protocols designed to prevent overwhelming of a destination receiver. Such controls can be implemented either in software or in hardware, and will often request that the message be resent after the receiver has finished...
projects along the Rondout Creek in the town of Rosendale; the plan included changes to the shape of the creek itself and "raising a section of [the village's] Main Street to the level of Route 32".
On a clear, sunny day in July 1964, a group of six boys went swimming in the Roundout Creek at a park in Rosendale Village. After getting out of the creek, the boys were struck by lightning
Lightning strike
Lightning strikes are electrical discharges caused by lightning, typically during thunderstorms.Humans can be hit by lightning directly when outdoors. Contrary to popular notion, there is no 'safe' location outdoors. People have been struck in sheds and makeshift shelters...
. One boy was knocked back into the creek, and regained consciousness as he was being pulled out. Two of the boys, Gary Schmitt and Ronald Morelli, died. Ronald Morelli was the son of Albert Morelli, who served as Rosendale's fire chief
Fire chief
Fire Chief is a top executive rank or commanding officer in a fire department, either elected or appointed...
. Albert Morelli was part of the team that put out the fire at Reid's Village Inn.
Rosendale had lost its bowling alley
Bowling
Bowling Bowling Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule...
to a 1967 fire, and, on January 14, 1969, a local hotel burned down. The hotel, Reid's Village Inn, was owned by village mayor Joseph Reid. Reid and his wife lived in the building, and lost all their possessions in the fire. Total damage was estimated to be between $50,000 and $75,000. Within two days of the blaze, the village purchased a fire truck
Fire apparatus
A fire apparatus, fire engine, fire truck, or fire appliance is a vehicle designed to assist in fighting fires by transporting firefighters to the scene and providing them with access to the fire, along with water or other equipment...
and scheduled hearings for alternate-side parking and water meter
Water meter
A water meter is a device used to measure the volume of water usage. This article provides an overview of technical aspects of water meters. The worldwide prevalence of metering as well as its economic benefits and costs are covered in the separate article on water metering.In many developed...
proposals. By this time, the Army Corps of Engineers
United States Army Corps of Engineers
The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency and a major Army command made up of some 38,000 civilian and military personnel, making it the world's largest public engineering, design and construction management agency...
had built a 325 feet (99.1 m) flood wall
Flood wall
A flood wall is a primarily vertical artificial barrier designed to temporarily contain the waters of a river or other waterway which may rise to unusual levels during seasonal or extreme weather events...
, relocated several buildings, dredged the bottom of the creek, and raised a 1000 feet (304.8 m) portion of Main Street about 3 foot (0.9144 m). The project caused the 12 acres (4.9 ha) island in the creek to become a peninsula
Peninsula
A peninsula is a piece of land that is bordered by water on three sides but connected to mainland. In many Germanic and Celtic languages and also in Baltic, Slavic and Hungarian, peninsulas are called "half-islands"....
, connected to the northern bank. Since the completion of these projects, the village has not suffered floods as extreme as those of 1955.
In 1970, Rosendale's mayor ran off after declaring that the village "had gone broke". The commercial center of the village was shifting from Main Street (concurrent
Concurrency (road)
A concurrency, overlap, or coincidence in a road network is an instance of one physical road bearing two or more different highway, motorway, or other route numbers...
with Route 213) to Route 32; businesses on Route 32 included a department store
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...
, butcher
Butcher
A butcher is a person who may slaughter animals, dress their flesh, sell their meat or any combination of these three tasks. They may prepare standard cuts of meat, poultry, fish and shellfish for sale in retail or wholesale food establishments...
shop, nail salon
Nail salon
A nail salon or nail bar is a beauty services establishment that primarily offers nail care services such as manicures, pedicures, and nail enhancements. Often, nail salons also offer skin care services. There are approximately 9,900 nail salons in the U.S., up 23% from 2007 according to the ....
, barber
Barber
A barber is someone whose occupation is to cut any type of hair, and to shave or trim the beards of men. The place of work of a barber is generally called a barbershop....
shop, and restaurants. The village itself served as the commercial center of the town. The growth of shopping malls in nearby Kingston put many local stores out of business, and the last cement plant in Rosendale closed in 1971; abandoned cement mines were eventually used by edible mushrooms growers who produced their crops "on beds of horse manure". Large piles of the manure
Manure
Manure is organic matter used as organic fertilizer in agriculture. Manures contribute to the fertility of the soil by adding organic matter and nutrients, such as nitrogen, that are trapped by bacteria in the soil...
were visible along Binnewater Road. The caves were also used to acquire naturally filtered
Water purification
Water purification is the process of removing undesirable chemicals, materials, and biological contaminants from contaminated water. The goal is to produce water fit for a specific purpose...
water, maintain corn
Corn
Corn is the name used in the United States, Canada, and Australia for the grain maize.In much of the English-speaking world, the term "corn" is a generic term for cereal crops, such as* Barley* Oats* Wheat* Rye- Places :...
at a consistently cool temperature, and house a records storage
Records management
Records management, or RM, is the practice of maintaining the records of an organization from the time they are created up to their eventual disposal...
facility.
The 40 acres (16.2 ha) storage facility, operated by Iron Mountain Incorporated
Iron Mountain Incorporated
Iron Mountain Inc , founded in 1951, is a company whose headquarters are located in Boston, Massachusetts. It offers records management, information destruction and data backup services to more than 120,000 customers throughout North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia...
, consists of street light
Street light
A street light, lamppost, street lamp, light standard, or lamp standard is a raised source of light on the edge of a road or walkway, which is turned on or lit at a certain time every night. Modern lamps may also have light-sensitive photocells to turn them on at dusk, off at dawn, or activate...
s amid two-story buildings, all "erected beneath the old limestone caves leased from" the Snyder Estate
Snyder Estate Natural Cement Historic District
The Snyder Estate Natural Cement Historic District is located in the Town of Rosendale, New York, United States. It is a tract roughly bounded by Rondout Creek, Binnewater and Cottekill roads and Sawdust Avenue...
for 99 years. It was opened for a public viewing in 1976 to quell rumors that the "heavily guarded" facility, described as a "subterranean James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
set", was part of an underground cave
Cave
A cave or cavern is a natural underground space large enough for a human to enter. The term applies to natural cavities some part of which is in total darkness. The word cave also includes smaller spaces like rock shelters, sea caves, and grottos.Speleology is the science of exploration and study...
network that connected the village to Kingston, and that the facility was actually a fallout shelter
Fallout shelter
A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designed to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War....
for federal officials; the facility is capable of withstanding a "direct atomic hit
Nuclear warfare
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...
on [nearby] Poughkeepsie". Sealed behind a 7+1/2 ST steel door, the facility contains "its own well
Water well
A water well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, boring or drilling to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The well water is drawn by an electric submersible pump, a trash pump, a vertical turbine pump, a handpump or a mechanical pump...
and ... sewage system", and enough generators to remain self-sufficient for three months.
Reign of Billy Guldy
| "Friendship is measured among these hippie types by passed swigs of wine: the communion of the hip." |
| —Chris Farlekas, 1976 |
The man who suggested that the underground facility have a public exhibition was a local personality, Billy Guldy. Guldy was born around 1940 in Kingston, and, by the 1970s, had become a leading figure in Rosendale Village's hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
movement. He declared himself a king
Monarch
A monarch is the person who heads a monarchy. This is a form of government in which a state or polity is ruled or controlled by an individual who typically inherits the throne by birth and occasionally rules for life or until abdication...
, and frequently dressed as one. He owned a bar called "The Well", and a hotel in the village, and his portrait was painted on the door of a local bar. He declared Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
a national holiday, ran for president
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
, and led 200 people in a parade down Main Street. At one point Guldy took a bus to Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium was a stadium located in The Bronx in New York City, New York. It was the home ballpark of the New York Yankees from 1923 to 1973 and from 1976 to 2008. The stadium hosted 6,581 Yankees regular season home games during its 85-year history. It was also the former home of the New York...
to give baseball player Fred Stanley the "key to Rosendale". Some older residents considered Guldy crazy, and former village trustee Harold Schoonmaker felt "there's something wrong with a man that walks around the streets barefoot, wearing a robe and derby". The village's children viewed Guldy favorably and were quite friendly with him.
Some of the village's more traditional residents felt overwhelmed by the influx of beatnik
Beatnik
Beatnik was a media stereotype of the 1950s and early 1960s that displayed the more superficial aspects of the Beat Generation literary movement of the 1950s and violent film images, along with a cartoonish depiction of the real-life people and the spiritual quest in Jack Kerouac's autobiographical...
s, and locals were conflicted over whether Rosendale's transformation into an art colony
Art colony
right|300px|thumb|Artist houses in [[Montsalvat]] near [[Melbourne, Australia]].An art colony or artists' colony is a place where creative practitioners live and interact with one another. Artists are often invited or selected through a formal process, for a residency from a few weeks to over a year...
would benefit the village in the long term. A major clash between the hippies and village police occurred at a bar on June 21, 1975, causing over 150 people to show up to see what was going on. Although "there were many people actively involved" in the riot, only Guldy was charged.
A group that opposed the hippie movement managed to keep Guldy off the mayoral ballot in 1975. He became a write-in candidate
Write-in candidate
A write-in candidate is a candidate in an election whose name does not appear on the ballot, but for whom voters may vote nonetheless by writing in the person's name. Some states and local jurisdictions allow a voter to affix a sticker with a write-in candidate's name on it to the ballot in lieu...
for village trustee, with his friend, poet George Montgomery, running for mayor. Montgomery lost the election to Raivo Puusemp, a sculptor from SoHo
SoHo
SoHo is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, notable for being the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and also, more recently, for the wide variety of stores and shops ranging from trendy boutiques to outlets of upscale national and international chain stores...
. After his election, Puusemp chided Guldy for being a poor role model
Role model
The term role model generally means any "person who serves as an example, whose behaviour is emulated by others".The term first appeared in Robert K. Merton's socialization research of medical students...
for the village youth. Puusemp was not a native of Rosendale and had not lived there long. By early July 1975, Puusemp had appointed a village dog warden
Animal control officer
Historically, Dog whippers were charged with keeping dogs out of churches in 16th- to 19th- century Europe; they also sometimes filled a general animal-control role in villages, confining strays...
after a dog bit a child and was allowed to run about the streets unrestrained.
Disincorporation
| "This village is not a heritage ... it is a luxury we can no longer afford." |
| —Mayor Raivo Puusemp, 1976 |
| "In Rosendale, A Public Work, the attempt was made to superimpose a formal concept upon an essentially directionless political microsystem and to affect that system permanently by doing so..." |
| —Raivo Puusemp, 1980 |
| "The genre was the village and its survival problems. The frame was concentrated in a geographical place ... The public, more properly the participants, were the townspeople, Mayor Puusemp, county officials, lawyers, representatives of the federal government, and the publishers and readers of area newspapers. The purpose, like that I have suggested for such art, was therapeutic: to cure a local illness and allow village life ... to go on more constructively." |
| —Allan Kaprow Allan Kaprow Allan Kaprow was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. He helped to develop the "Environment" and "Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as their theory. His Happenings - some 200 of them - evolved over the years... , 2003 |
When Puusemp, a conceptual art
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
ist and art instructor at SUNY Ulster
Ulster County Community College
SUNY Ulster is a public two-year college supported by Ulster County, New York and the State University of New York. The main campus is located in Stone Ridge, New York...
, became mayor of Rosendale, the village was plagued by an "overbearing tax structure and problems with its municipal utilities". Though disincorporation
Unincorporated area
In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not a part of any municipality.To "incorporate" in this context means to form a municipal corporation, a city, town, or village with its own government. An unincorporated community is usually not subject to or taxed by a municipal government...
was already known as a possible solution to the village's crises, it had been an "emotionally charged issue" and no action had been taken. By this time Rosendale "could [no longer] govern itself". The village and town governments had often been at odds; the town was governed by Republicans
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
while the village was increasingly under Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
control. This friction manifested in several ways. Town and village officials would frequently disrupt each others' meetings, and the town ordered its snow plows
Snowplow
A snowplow is a device intended for mounting on a vehicle, used for removing snow and ice from outdoor surfaces, typically those serving transportation purposes...
to raise their blades while passing through the village; the village subsequently bought its own plow and banned the town's plow from entering village limits.
During his campaign, Puusemp did not mention disincorporation or how it related to art, though he had already decided two months before the election that the only solution to the village's problems was disincorporation. In some of Puusemp's early artworks (termed "influence pieces"), he would manipulate subjects into unknowingly executing his ideas while believing that they, the subjects, had come up with said ideas on their own.
Viewing the "project [as] an artwork in the form of a political problem", Puusemp convinced the people of Rosendale to disincorporate by publicly comparing the village's finances to what would be "need[ed] to maintain a viable town". The village's board of trustees strongly favored dissolution and "forced three separate votes before [reaching] a 179 to 87 majority to abolish the village". A public referendum
Referendum
A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...
on the dissolution was held on March 16, 1976, which passed in a 2–1 landslide. Puusemp resigned as mayor on October 1, and moved to Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
with his family. He vowed never to run for office again. During his tenure in office, and in the aftermath of his resignation, Puusemp received widespread popular support.
Marc Phelan, a village trustee and associate of Puusemp, became mayor following Puusemp's departure. He was reelected the following March with 141 votes, beating three other candidates to become the village's last mayor. Rosendale became unincorporated on January 1, 1977, though the village government did not disband until the end of 1977; the village completely ceased to exist "at the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31, 1977". Ironically, the state and federal government provided funding for new sewage and water systems following the disincorporation, mitigating the primary reasons residents had voted to dissolve.
Puusemp documented the dissolution by collecting "press clippings, council meeting minutes, and public documents" and publishing them after his friend, performance artist Paul McCarthy
Paul McCarthy
Paul McCarthy , is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, California.-Life:McCarthy was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and studied art at the University of Utah in 1969. He went on to study at the San Francisco Art Institute receiving a BFA in painting...
, urged him to do so. Both the book and the dissolution of Rosendale Village itself can be considered different facets of the same artistic work. The 1980 census listed Rosendale Village as a census-designated place
Census-designated place
A census-designated place is a concentration of population identified by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes. CDPs are delineated for each decennial census as the statistical counterparts of incorporated places such as cities, towns and villages...
(CDP). The former village is also considered a hamlet, an unofficial term which refers to a named but unincorporated place in New York. Rosendale Village is the largest voting bloc
Voting bloc
A voting bloc is a group of voters that are so motivated by a specific concern or group of concerns that it helps determine how they vote in elections. The divisions between voting blocs are known as cleavage...
in the town of Rosendale, and of all former villages in the Hudson Valley
Hudson Valley
The Hudson Valley comprises the valley of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in New York State, United States, from northern Westchester County northward to the cities of Albany and Troy.-History:...
, Rosendale was the last to dissolve.
Modern Rosendale
After the village's disincorporation, taxes decreased for former village residents, but increased for Rosendale residents throughout the rest of the town. The population of the former village has grown 24.5 percent, from 1,220 to an estimated 1,519 people. The same year that the village chose to disincorporate, the Wallkill Valley rail line that ran through the village also ceased regular service.The revitalization of businesses in the former village was credited to the influx of artists. Prior to the 1980s, store owners in Rosendale Village had either retired or died, and their shops had become residential or simply abandoned. Newcomers purchased these properties, restored them, and returned them to commercial service.
On September 13, 1991, the Century House Historical Society was formed to preserve historical sites within Rosendale, and to promote research on such sites. The New York State Education Department
New York State Education Department
The New York State Education Department is the state education department in New York. It is part of the University of the State of New York , one of the most complete, interconnected systems of educational services in the United States...
granted a permanent charter to the organization on June 13, 2000. The Society held a concert in one of the former cement mines, the Widow Jane Mine, around 2002; the concert caused severe traffic and presented a fire hazard, and the society was subsequently sued by the town. The Widow Jane Mine has been the site of "all-night raves, Halloween horror shows and role-playing vampire games". It is also one of the few mines in Rosendale that is almost completely horizontal
Room and pillar
Room and pillar is a mining system in which the mined material is extracted across a horizontal plane while leaving "pillars" of untouched material to support the roof overburden leaving open areas or "rooms" underground...
, and is part of the Snyder Estate Natural Cement Historic District
Snyder Estate Natural Cement Historic District
The Snyder Estate Natural Cement Historic District is located in the Town of Rosendale, New York, United States. It is a tract roughly bounded by Rondout Creek, Binnewater and Cottekill roads and Sawdust Avenue...
.
Since 1998, Rosendale has held an annual pickle
Pickled cucumber
A pickled cucumber is a cucumber that has been pickled in a brine, vinegar, or other solution and left to ferment for a period of time, by either immersing the cucumbers in an acidic solution or through souring by lacto-fermentation.-Gherkin:A gherkin is not only...
festival. Some people view the pickle festival as a form of social expression, and the "current artisan pickling scene" has been compared to the mentality of early microbreweries
Microbrewery
A microbrewery or craft brewer is a brewery which produces a limited amount of beer, and is associated by consumers with innovation and uniqueness....
. The pickle festival was originally started by Eri Yamaguchi and Bill Brooks, as a way to introduce Ulster County to pickled Japanese food
Japanese cuisine
Japanese cuisine has developed over the centuries as a result of many political and social changes throughout Japan. The cuisine eventually changed with the advent of the Medieval age which ushered in a shedding of elitism with the age of shogun rule...
, such as oshinko
Tsukemono
are Japanese pickles. They are served with rice as okazu with drinks as an otsumami , as an accompaniment to or garnish for meals, and as a course in the kaiseki portion of a Japanese tea ceremony....
. The festival has featured Japanese traditional dancing
Japanese traditional dance
There are two types of Japanese traditional dance: Odori, which originated in the Edo period, and Mai, which originated in the western part of Japan. Odori grew out of Kabuki drama and is more oriented toward male sentiments. Mai is traditionally performed in Japanese rooms instead of on the stage...
. At the first pickle festival the number of people attending was 1,000, a number five times greater than expected. The following year it was double that, and by 2003, attendance was almost 5,000. Rosendale has had a recurring winter festival known as "Frozendale", and in late September 2010, the hamlet had a zombie-themed festival. Historically, the former village's street festivals have "draw[n as many as] 30,000 people".
Geography and geology
Rosendale Village has a total area of 2 mi2, of which 1.9 mi2 is land and 0.1 mi2 is water. The former village is located at the center of the town of Rosendale, and is "situated on the [former Delaware and Hudson] canal and Rondout CreekRondout Creek
Rondout Creek is a tributary of the Hudson River in Ulster and Sullivan counties, New York, USA. It rises on Rocky Mountain in the eastern Catskills, flows south into Rondout Reservoir, part of New York City's water supply network, then into the valley between the Catskills and the Shawangunk...
", about 2+3/4 mi north of the creek's confluence
Confluence
Confluence, in geography, describes the meeting of two or more bodies of water.Confluence may also refer to:* Confluence , a property of term rewriting systems...
with the Wallkill River
Wallkill River
The Wallkill River, a tributary of the Hudson, drains Lake Mohawk in Sparta, New Jersey, flowing from there generally northeasterly to Rondout Creek in New York, near Rosendale, with the combined flows reaching the Hudson at Kingston....
. The highest recorded crest
Crest (hydrology)
In hydrology, crest is the highest level above a certain point that a river will reach in a certain amount of time. This term is usually limited to a flooding event and from ground level ....
of the Rondout Creek in Rosendale was 26.5 feet (8.1 m) on October 16, 1955. The creek does not normally rise above 10 feet (3 m), but overflows its banks
Bank (geography)
A geographic bank has four definitions and applications:# Limnology: The shoreline of a pond, swamp, estuary, reservoir, or lake. The grade can vary from vertical to a shallow slope....
after reaching 18 feet (5.5 m). The hamlet's ZIP code
ZIP Code
ZIP codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, is properly written in capital letters and was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...
is 12472 and it is in area code 845
Area code 845
Area code 845 is a telephone area code which serves the Hudson Valley counties of Rockland, Putnam, Orange, most of Dutchess, Ulster, and Sullivan, plus parts of Delaware, Greene, and Columbia counties...
. Rosendale Village is bordered by the creek and by the 495 feet (150.9 m) Joppenbergh Mountain. It is traversed by state routes NY 32
New York State Route 32
New York State Route 32 is a north–south state highway that extends for through the Hudson Valley and Capital District regions of the U.S. state of New York. It is a two-lane surface road for nearly its entire length, with few divided and no limited-access sections. From Harriman to Albany,...
and NY 213
New York State Route 213
New York State Route 213 is a state highway located entirely in Ulster County. It runs from the eastern Catskills to downtown Kingston....
. The former village is 2 miles (3.2 km) east of the hamlet of High Falls, 6 miles (9.7 km) north of the village of New Paltz
New Paltz (village), New York
New Paltz is a village in Ulster County in the U.S. state of New York. It is about north of New York City and south of Albany. The population was 6,818 at the 2010 census.The Village of New Paltz is located within the Town of New Paltz...
, and 8 miles (12.9 km) south of the city of Kingston
Kingston, New York
Kingston is a city in and the county seat of Ulster County, New York, USA. It is north of New York City and south of Albany. It became New York's first capital in 1777, and was burned by the British Oct. 16, 1777, after the Battles of Saratoga...
.
Rosendale is underlain by a shale
Shale
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock composed of mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable. Shale is characterized by breaks along thin laminae or parallel layering...
member of the Martinburg Formation called Martinburg shale, deposited as early as 500 million years ago; Martinburg shale also lines the bottom of the Rondout Creek as it flows through the town. A conglomerate
Conglomerate (geology)
A conglomerate is a rock consisting of individual clasts within a finer-grained matrix that have become cemented together. Conglomerates are sedimentary rocks consisting of rounded fragments and are thus differentiated from breccias, which consist of angular clasts...
of the Shawangunk Formation
Shawangunk Formation
The Silurian Shawangunk Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. It is named for the Shawangunk Ridge for which it is the dominant rock type. The division of the Shawangunk between the Tuscarora Formation and Clinton Group has not been conclusively...
was deposited over the Martinburg layer approximately 425 million years ago. The conglomerate is in turn covered by High Falls Shale, a reddish shale formed by mud flats
Mudflat
Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats, are coastal wetlands that form when mud is deposited by tides or rivers. They are found in sheltered areas such as bays, bayous, lagoons, and estuaries. Mudflats may be viewed geologically as exposed layers of bay mud, resulting from deposition of...
. Subsequent streams left a layer of gray Binnewater Sandstone above the shale. After the sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
was deposited, the region experienced folding and faulting
Disturbance (geology)
A disturbance is a linear zone of disturbed rock strata stretching for many miles across country which comprises a combination of folding and faulting...
, and was submerged in a shallow sea. This allowed the creation of fossil
Fossil
Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
iferous limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
roughly 390 million years ago, specifically the Rondout Formation and New Scotland Formation. The Rondout Formation's dolostone
Dolostone
Dolostone or dolomite rock is a sedimentary carbonate rock that contains a high percentage of the mineral dolomite. In old U.S.G.S. publications it was referred to as magnesian limestone. Most dolostone formed as a magnesium replacement of limestone or lime mud prior to lithification. It is...
member, formed during the upper Silurian
Silurian
The Silurian is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Ordovician Period, about 443.7 ± 1.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Devonian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya . As with other geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period's start and end are well identified, but the...
, was mined throughout the village because of its ability to form natural cement. The region experienced repeated glaciation
Glacial period
A glacial period is an interval of time within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate within an ice age...
, and large amounts of till
Till
thumb|right|Closeup of glacial till. Note that the larger grains in the till are completely surrounded by the matrix of finer material , and this characteristic, known as matrix support, is diagnostic of till....
and alluvium
Alluvium
Alluvium is loose, unconsolidated soil or sediments, eroded, deposited, and reshaped by water in some form in a non-marine setting. Alluvium is typically made up of a variety of materials, including fine particles of silt and clay and larger particles of sand and gravel...
were deposited during the Wisconsonian glaciation.
Climate
There is more precipitation during May than in any other month; Rosendale currently has an annual precipitationPrecipitation (meteorology)
In meteorology, precipitation In meteorology, precipitation In meteorology, precipitation (also known as one of the classes of hydrometeors, which are atmospheric water phenomena is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravity. The main forms of precipitation...
of about 44 inches (111.8 cm). Between 1931 and 1955, the town averaged 48 inches (121.9 cm) each year. July is the hottest month, on average; the hottest recorded temperature occurred during July 1995. January is the coldest month, and the lowest recorded temperature was taken in January 1961.
Churches
Rosendale Village has had four churches throughout its existence: a BaptistBaptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
, Dutch Reformed
Dutch Reformed Church
The Dutch Reformed Church was a Reformed Christian denomination in the Netherlands. It existed from the 1570s to 2004, the year it merged with the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Kingdom of the Netherlands to form the Protestant Church in the...
, Catholic and Episcopal
Episcopal Church (United States)
The Episcopal Church is a mainline Anglican Christian church found mainly in the United States , but also in Honduras, Taiwan, Colombia, Ecuador, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the British Virgin Islands and parts of Europe...
church. Of these churches, only the Catholic one still functions as a church.
The first Baptist minister arrived in Rosendale in March 1839, and the first baptism
Baptism
In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...
s took place on April 5, 1840. The First Associate Baptist Society in the Village of Rosendale was incorporated on May 22, 1840. A meeting house for the society was built in 1842; it was dedicated on October 17 and its pew
Pew
A pew is a long bench seat or enclosed box used for seating members of a congregation or choir in a church, or sometimes in a courtroom.-Overview:Churches were not commonly furnished with permanent pews before the Protestant Reformation...
s were purchased on November 4. The church underwent a revival
Christian revival
Christian revival is a term that generally refers to a specific period of increased spiritual interest or renewal in the life of a church congregation or many churches, either regionally or globally...
between 1875 and 1876, and was reincorporated on May 1, 1876, as the Baptist Church of Rosendale. It was closed as a church in 1929, and sold in 1972 to a local filmmaker, Walter Helmuth, who used it as a house. At some point it housed a "fraternal organization of farmers" and was known as the "Grange". In the 1990s it was used as a theater. On January 15, 2004, the building burned down. Though the town's fire station
Fire station
A fire station is a structure or other area set aside for storage of firefighting apparatus , personal protective equipment, fire hose, fire extinguishers, and other fire extinguishing equipment...
was directly across the street, the extreme cold hindered firefighters' efforts to control the fire.
The Protestant Reformed Dutch Church of Rosendale was incorporated on November 28, 1843. The church originally cost $2,500 to build, and was designed to seat 300 people. It burned down and was rebuilt in 1895. In 1985, it was renovated and converted into a glass studio called Belltower Lighting.
Catholic priests had come to Rosendale as early as 1840, and the first mass
Mass (liturgy)
"Mass" is one of the names by which the sacrament of the Eucharist is called in the Roman Catholic Church: others are "Eucharist", the "Lord's Supper", the "Breaking of Bread", the "Eucharistic assembly ", the "memorial of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection", the "Holy Sacrifice", the "Holy and...
in the village was held in a cooper's shop
Cooper (profession)
Traditionally, a cooper is someone who makes wooden staved vessels of a conical form, of greater length than breadth, bound together with hoops and possessing flat ends or heads...
. The original Church of St. Peter was completed in the summer of 1850, and the first mass in that building was held on August 15. The church was not officially incorporated until April 29, 1865. A newer, larger building was constructed in 1876, on the same road as the village's rail depot. The new building followed an English Gothic architecture
English Gothic architecture
English Gothic is the name of the architectural style that flourished in England from about 1180 until about 1520.-Introduction:As with the Gothic architecture of other parts of Europe, English Gothic is defined by its pointed arches, vaulted roofs, buttresses, large windows, and spires...
style. It was made of bricks, created near the North River, and was ornamented with yellow bricks from Perth Amboy, New Jersey
Perth Amboy, New Jersey
Perth Amboy is a city in Middlesex County, New Jersey, United States. The City of Perth Amboy is part of the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city population was 50,814. Perth Amboy is known as the "City by the Bay", referring to Raritan Bay.-Name:The Lenape...
, and sandstone
Sandstone
Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...
from Amherst, New York
Amherst, New York
Amherst is a town in Erie County, New York, United States. As of the 2010 census, the town had a total population of 122,366. This represents an increase of 5.0% from the 2000 census. The town is named for Jeffrey Amherst, a British Army officer of the colonial period...
. The first mass in the new church occurred on December 25, 1876; the building's total construction cost was $31,000. The Church of St. Peter is the only one of the village's churches that still functions as a church.
Rosendale's Episcopal church, the All Saints' Chapel, was built in 1876. It was hit hard by the floods of 1955, to the point where "the rising water floated the organ up toward the altar". It was abandoned after the flooding, and was purchased by a local cement magnate, so that it could be converted into the Rosendale Library; the library association had its charter granted on October 24, 1958. The building was severely damaged by a fire on January 15, 1975, but was restored, and a new wing was added; the wing was named after Anna Mae Auchmoedy, the building's first librarian. In 1986, the library was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
.
Joppenbergh Mountain
Joppenbergh is a 495 feet (150.9 m) mountain, adjacent to the hamlet's railroad trestle and Route 213. It was named after Rosendale's founder, Jacob Rutsen, and minedMining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
throughout the late 19th century for the dolostone
Dolostone
Dolostone or dolomite rock is a sedimentary carbonate rock that contains a high percentage of the mineral dolomite. In old U.S.G.S. publications it was referred to as magnesian limestone. Most dolostone formed as a magnesium replacement of limestone or lime mud prior to lithification. It is...
that was used in the manufacture of natural cement. There was a large cave-in on December 19, 1899, that destroyed mining equipment and collapsed shafts
Shaft mining
Shaft mining or shaft sinking refers to the method of excavating a vertical or near-vertical tunnel from the top down, where there is initially no access to the bottom....
within the mountain. Though it was feared that several workers had been killed, the collapse happened during lunch, and all the miners were outside, eating. Since the collapse the mountain has experienced shaking and periodic rockfalls.
During the late 1930s, Joppenbergh became the site of several skiing
Alpine skiing
Alpine skiing is the sport of sliding down snow-covered hills on skis with fixed-heel bindings. Alpine skiing can be contrasted with skiing using free-heel bindings: Ski mountaineering and nordic skiing – such as cross-country; ski jumping; and Telemark. In competitive alpine skiing races four...
competitions, which continued until the early 1940s. The slope was designed by Harold Schelderup for Rosendale's first competition in 1937; Schelderup participated in a competition that July after the slope was coated with borax
Borax
Borax, also known as sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate, is an important boron compound, a mineral, and a salt of boric acid. It is usually a white powder consisting of soft colorless crystals that dissolve easily in water.Borax has a wide variety of uses...
. Skiing stopped until the 1960s, when a new slope was built, and competitions were held until 1971.
The town of Rosendale considered buying land near the mountain in 2003 for parking
Parking lot
A parking lot , also known as car lot, is a cleared area that is intended for parking vehicles. Usually, the term refers to a dedicated area that has been provided with a durable or semi-durable surface....
. The following year, the town leased a tract of land to build a municipal parking lot. Joppenbergh was put up for sale in 2009, and, in March 2011, the Open Space Institute
Open Space Institute
Open Space Institute is a conservation organization and think tank with an extensive mission statement. It seeks to preserve scenic, natural and historic landscapes for public enjoyment, conserve habitats while sustaining community character, and help protect the environment...
offered to purchase the entire 117 acres (47.3 ha) property and sell it to the town; the following month, Rosendale's town board agreed to the deal.
Railroad bridge
In 1869 the town of Rosendale issued municipal bondMunicipal bond
A municipal bond is a bond issued by a city or other local government, or their agencies. Potential issuers of municipal bonds includes cities, counties, redevelopment agencies, special-purpose districts, school districts, public utility districts, publicly owned airports and seaports, and any...
s to pay for its portion of the Wallkill Valley Railroad, and construction of a railroad bridge spanning the Rondout Creek began the following year. After bridging the Wallkill River
Wallkill River
The Wallkill River, a tributary of the Hudson, drains Lake Mohawk in Sparta, New Jersey, flowing from there generally northeasterly to Rondout Creek in New York, near Rosendale, with the combined flows reaching the Hudson at Kingston....
in New Paltz
New Paltz, New York
New Paltz is a town in Ulster County, New York, USA. The population was 14,003 at the 2010 census. The town is located in the southeastern part of the county and is south of Kingston, New York. New Paltz contains a village also with the name New Paltz...
, the railroad reached Rosendale in 1871. The Rosendale trestle was formally opened during a large ceremony on April 6, 1872. The height of the bridge terrified onlookers, who questioned the trestle's sturdiness. The bridge's completion allowed the rail line to continue north to Kingston.
The bridge was rebuilt between 1895 and 1896 to convert it from iron to steel. It was repeatedly reinforced throughout its existence. When Conrail
Consolidated Rail Corporation
The Consolidated Rail Corporation, commonly known as Conrail , was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeast U.S. between 1976 and 1999. The federal government created it to take over the potentially profitable lines of bankrupt carriers, including the Penn Central Transportation Company and...
closed the Wallkill Valley line in 1977, the stability of the trestle had been one of its primary reasons for doing so. Conrail had tried to sell the bridge as early as 1983, and in 1986 the trestle was sold to a private businessman, John Rahl, for one dollar.
Rahl installed decking
Deck (building)
In architecture, a deck is a flat surface capable of supporting weight, similar to a floor, but typically constructed outdoors, often elevated from the ground, and usually connected to a building...
on half of the trestle between 1989 and 1991, attempting to open it as a bungee jumping
Bungee jumping
Bungee jumping is an activity that involves jumping from a tall structure while connected to a large elastic cord. The tall structure is usually a fixed object, such as a building, bridge or crane; but it is also possible to jump from a movable object, such as a hot-air-balloon or helicopter, that...
platform. A court ruling found that such a venture violated zoning
Zoning
Zoning is a device of land use planning used by local governments in most developed countries. The word is derived from the practice of designating permitted uses of land based on mapped zones which separate one set of land uses from another...
laws, and the town denied Rahl a variance
Variance (land use)
A variance is the process by which an applicant can request deviation from the set of rules a municipality applies to land use and land development, typically a zoning ordinance, building code or municipal code. The manner in which variances are employed can differ greatly depending on the...
. In 2009 the county seized the trestle, and it was sold to an environmental group. The trestle was closed in 2010 for repairs, and is expected to be opened as part of the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail
Wallkill Valley Rail Trail
The Wallkill Valley Rail Trail is a rail trail and linear park that runs along the former Wallkill Valley Railroad rail corridor in Ulster County, New York. , it stretches from Gardiner through New Paltz, crossing the Wallkill River as it reaches Rosendale...
in 2012.
Route 32 bridge
During the American RevolutionAmerican Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
, General George Clinton
George Clinton (vice president)
George Clinton was an American soldier and politician, considered one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He was the first Governor of New York, and then the fourth Vice President of the United States , serving under Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. He and John C...
crossed the Rondout Creek at Rosendale Village in October 1777, arriving "one or two days too late to resist the British attack" on Kingston by the forces of General John Vaughan
John Vaughan (British army officer)
Lieutenant-General Sir John Vaughan KB , styled The Honourable from 1741, was a British soldier and a Member of Parliament in both the British and Irish Parliaments.-Background and early career:...
. Clinton's fording
Ford (crossing)
A ford is a shallow place with good footing where a river or stream may be crossed by wading or in a vehicle. A ford is mostly a natural phenomenon, in contrast to a low water crossing, which is an artificial bridge that allows crossing a river or stream when water is low.The names of many towns...
spot is now the location of a bridge on State Route 32. The bridge, originally built around 1934, was refurbished in 1970, and again between 2008 and 2009. While the bridge was being renovated in 2009, only one lane had been open, congesting traffic. The total cost of the project was $5.5 million. There is a 58-spot park and ride
Park and ride
Park and ride facilities are car parks with connections to public transport that allow commuters and other people wishing to travel into city centres to leave their vehicles and transfer to a bus, rail system , or carpool for the rest of their trip...
on Route 32, by Rosendale's community center, that is served by the Ulster County Area Transit
Ulster County Area Transit
Ulster County Area Transit is the county-owned operator of bus transportation in Ulster County, New York, providing fixed-route, deviated-fixed route, and commuter transit, except within the city of Kingston, where the local Kingston Citibus provides public transit.-Service area:UCAT provides...
and Trailways
Trailways of New York
Trailways of New York is a bus company in New York operating under the Adirondack Trailways, Pine Hill Trailways, and New York Trailways brands, primarily along the Albany to Buffalo corridor...
bus services.
Theater
Originally a casinoCasino
In modern English, a casino is a facility which houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. Casinos are most commonly built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships or other tourist attractions...
in the 1920s, the Rosendale Theater was seized by the village and converted into a theater in 1949 by Anthony Cacchio, a man who bore a strong resemblance to filmmaker Otto Preminger
Otto Preminger
Otto Ludwig Preminger was an Austro–Hungarian-American theatre and film director.After moving from the theatre to Hollywood, he directed over 35 feature films in a five-decade career. He rose to prominence for stylish film noir mysteries such as Laura and Fallen Angel...
. The first film shown on opening night in February 1949 was Blood on the Moon
Blood on the Moon
Blood on the Moon is an RKO black-and-white "psychological" western directed by Robert Wise with cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca. The film, starring Robert Mitchum, Barbara Bel Geddes, and Robert Preston has many film noir elements. It was shot in California and some of the more scenic shots...
. Caccio owned the building outright by 1954, and operated it with his son, Anthony Cacchio Jr., who banned popcorn
Popcorn
Popcorn, or popping corn, is corn which expands from the kernel and puffs up when heated. Corn is able to pop because, like sorghum, quinoa and millet, its kernels have a hard moisture-sealed hull and a dense starchy interior. This allows pressure to build inside the kernel until an explosive...
in the theater in 1969. The theater served as the village's fire department at one point.
In early 2010, a real estate
Real estate
In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
developer approached the Cacchios with an offer to purchase the theater. A 501(c) nonprofit organization was formed in March 2010 to preserve the building, which secured a $50,000 grant from PepsiCo
PepsiCo
PepsiCo Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Purchase, New York, United States, with interests in the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of grain-based snack foods, beverages, and other products. PepsiCo was formed in 1965 with the merger of the Pepsi-Cola Company...
to help take out a $385,000 mortgage
Mortgage loan
A mortgage loan is a loan secured by real property through the use of a mortgage note which evidences the existence of the loan and the encumbrance of that realty through the granting of a mortgage which secures the loan...
. Since completing its purchase of the theater on August 19, 2010, the Rosendale Theatre Collective has added a digital projector
Video projector
A video projector is an image projector that receives a video signal and projects the corresponding image on a projection screen using a lens system. All video projectors use a very bright light to project the image, and most modern ones can correct any curves, blurriness, and other...
, surround sound
Surround sound
Surround sound encompasses a range of techniques such as for enriching the sound reproduction quality of an audio source with audio channels reproduced via additional, discrete speakers. Surround sound is characterized by a listener location or sweet spot where the audio effects work best, and...
system, stage thrust
Thrust stage
In theatre, a thrust stage is one that extends into the audience on three sides and is connected to the backstage area by its up stage end. A thrust has the benefit of greater intimacy between performers and the audience than a proscenium, while retaining the utility of a backstage area...
, and retractable screen
Retractable screen
Retractable screens provide a barrier to insects entering the interior while allowing the option of an unobstructed view, without a traditional hinged or sliding screen door.- Description :...
. The group plans to add a concession stand
Concession stand
A concession stand , snack kiosk or snack bar is the term used to refer to a place where patrons can purchase snacks or food at a cinema, fair, stadium, or other entertainment venue. Some events or venues contract out the right to sell food to third parties...
and move the ticket booth
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
outside during warm months. In late February 2011, the theater received a $175,000 state grant to renovate the building.
Demographics
As of the census of 2000, there were 1,374 people, 602 households, and 329 families residing in the CDP. The population densityPopulation density
Population density is a measurement of population per unit area or unit volume. It is frequently applied to living organisms, and particularly to humans...
was 725.5 per square mile (280.7/km²). There were 666 housing units at an average density of 351.7/sq mi (136.1/km²). The racial makeup of the CDP was 94.91% White, 2.33% African American, 0.51% Asian, 1.16% from other races
Race (United States Census)
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, as defined by the Federal Office of Management and Budget and the United States Census Bureau, are self-identification data items in which residents choose the race or races with which they most closely identify, and indicate whether or not they are...
, and 1.09% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4.00% of the population.
There were 602 households, out of which 25.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 40.7% were married couples
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
living together, 9.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 45.2% were non-families. 34.7% of all households were made up of individuals and 12.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.27 and the average family size was 2.97.
In the CDP, the population was spread out with 21.0% under the age of 18, 8.2% from 18 to 24, 32.5% from 25 to 44, 25.8% from 45 to 64, and 12.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 39 years. For every 100 females there were 93.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.7 males.
The median income for a household in the CDP was $34,712, and the median income for a family was $50,789. Males had a median income of $35,259 versus $25,764 for females. The per capita income
Per capita income
Per capita income or income per person is a measure of mean income within an economic aggregate, such as a country or city. It is calculated by taking a measure of all sources of income in the aggregate and dividing it by the total population...
for the CDP was $20,700. About 5.2% of families and 8.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 8.6% of those under age 18 and 3.6% of those age 65 or over.
See also
External links
Festival videos