Latest news with #CatskillMountains
Wall Street Journal
29 minutes ago
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
A 1,600-Acre Estate in the Catskills Lists for the First Time in More Than 200 Years
An estate in New York's Catskill Mountains has remained in the same family since it was built more than 200 years ago. Now the lakeside home is hitting the market for the first time, asking $14 million. Built around 1787, the house sits on roughly 1,600 acres in rural Delaware County, about 150 miles northwest of Manhattan. Known as Lake Delaware Farm, it belongs to descendants of the prominent Livingston family, early American aristocrats who once owned much of the land in the area.
New York Times
17-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
New York's Best Summer Art Shows Are Upstate
Summer in the city is group-show season — but some of this summer's best are beyond the five boroughs, in Upstate Art Weekend, a five-day festival of more than 150 participants that sprawls across 10 counties in the Catskill Mountains and the Hudson Valley. The festival, which begins Thursday, July 17, and continues through Monday, July 21, brims with museum shows, live performances and opportunities to visit artists at work in their studios. And while some of the shows are ongoing, for many, this weekend is your only chance to visit. I've gone through the entire list and visited several shows in advance. Listed below, under the heading 'Highlights,' are nine of my favorites, destinations that I'd recommend organizing a day around. But I'd consider visiting an open art studio, too, one of more than 200 listed by the Foreland art center in Catskill, the Millbrook Arts Group and Upstate Open Studios. You can also be part of a conversation and studio viewing with the collector Jack Shear (the widower of the great American painter and sculptor Ellsworth Kelly) in Spencertown, in Columbia County. And at the Spencertown Academy Arts Center, a show of second- and third-generation Gee's Bend quilters is worth a visit. Glasshouse, in New Paltz, has a dedicated performance art series. At Storm King Art Center, the 500-acre outdoor museum in New Windsor, the artist Kevin Beasley will be staging music and dancing in front of his 100-foot-long work titled 'Proscenium.' And just like last year there will be a dance party fund-raiser for Noise for Now, a health care and reproductive rights nonprofit, at Assembly in Kingston. One of the loveliest sites for a visit is the KinoSaito foundation in Verplanck, a converted former school building set up by the Japanese American Color Field painter Kikuo Saito before his death. There, in addition to a show of Saito's own paintings, you'll find an alluring collection of cross-cultural abstractions in the group show 'The Unknown and Its Poetics.' Other venues with interesting shows include the River Valley Arts Collective; 'Upstate Gnarly,' an annual group show in an artists' studio, with work by Judith Linhares, Carolee Schneemann and Nicola Tyson; Athens Cultural Center, with Polly Apfelbaum and other abstract artists; and 'So It Goes,' a colorful group show in the grand old wooden grain elevator of the Wassaic Project, an artists' residency center in Wassaic. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Bloomberg
30-05-2025
- Climate
- Bloomberg
Soggy New York to Get More Rain After a Month of Dreary Weather
A weekend storm is expected to bring one last dose of rainfall to an already waterlogged New York after a month of above-average precipitation. Persistent low-pressure systems have been funneling moisture into the southern half of the state, fueling round after round of storms. As of May 29, rainfall totals were up to 6 inches (15 centimeters) above normal from the Albany area south through the Catskill Mountains and into New York City, said Bryan Jackson, a meteorologist at the US Weather Prediction Center.
Wall Street Journal
23-05-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
On the Market for $10 Million: a New York Estate With a Large Stone Maze
In New York's Catskill Mountains, a 280-acre estate asking $10 million has a peculiar amenity: an outdoor stone maze with walls up to 10 feet high. The Erpf family, which has owned the property since the late 1800s, constructed the labyrinth in the 1960s, according to seller Tolomy Erpf, who co-owns the property with his sister Cornelia Erpf. The property, which the family uses on weekends and holidays, is located in the hamlet of Arkville in Delaware County, and has numerous structures. The main house, renovated in 2016, spans roughly 5,300 square feet with eight bedrooms and a cupola.
Washington Post
18-05-2025
- General
- Washington Post
These invisible ‘wild neighbors' need our help
Carla Rhodes is a photographer based in the Catskill Mountains of New York. A hickory nut, opened with such precision it could belong in the Museum of Modern Art, lay at the base of a towering, dead eastern hemlock. That nut, its delicate grooves unmistakably carved by a flying squirrel, was a clue and an invitation to look through a doorway into a secret world. The elusive, acrobatic lives of flying squirrels — North America's only gliding mammal — range across the Northeastern United States, including in urban areas such as New York City and D.C. But they remain practically invisible to us. Not because they are rare, but because we aren't looking. Mostly silent and nocturnal, they glide like sprites through the canopy, planting seeds, spreading mycelium and keeping ecosystems alive in ways we are only beginning to understand. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement A flying squirrel peers from its nest box, placed on a dead eastern hemlock, quietly watching me, the real space invader, wander through my backyard. A flying squirrel pauses dramatically at a nest box. With incredibly delicate whiskers, these animals extend their vibrissae forward upon landing, using them to help pinpoint the perfect touchdown spot. A flying squirrel ventures down to the ground, navigating an eastern hemlock snag — the very snag that led me to the discovery of the hickory nut. A hickory nut, marked by the delicate grooves of a flying squirrel's teeth, signaled their hidden presence in my backyard ecosystem. Yet, when people do encounter flying squirrels in my area of New York's Catskill Mountains, the animals are often dismissed as pesky attic invaders, and their magic is downgraded to mere nuisance. Flying squirrels, like so many overlooked species, depend on dead and dying trees, called snags, for survival. We humans have a bad habit of tidying up nature, cutting down 'messy' deadwood, and, as a result, removing critical habitat. When we clear their homes, the fliers don't disappear, they adapt. That's why flying squirrels often end up in attics, seeking warmth and shelter. What others call a nuisance is actually survival in response to human encroachment. While it's easy to feel powerless in the face of climate disasters and willful habitat destruction, conservation doesn't have to start with grand gestures. It can start with something simple, such as pausing to notice the wild neighbors we share space with, whether in a forest, a city park or just the tree outside a window. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement A flying squirrel surveys the backyard winter wonderland. Since humans have a bad habit of tidying up their surroundings, snags — especially the nesting cavities they offer — are often in high demand. This proved to be true in my backyard, with an assortment of 'nosy neighbors' like this tufted titmouse, who would check out the nest boxes. A raccoon proved to be another nosy neighbor. Flying squirrels come alive while most humans are asleep, and often live in tight family units. Pulled by obsessive curiosity about flying squirrels, I took small steps in my own backyard. I left dead trees standing if it was safe to do so, planted natives and installed nest boxes to help steward my surroundings. Over time, my backyard has transformed into not only a flier-friendly habitat, but also a sanctuary for countless species, many that are overlooked, misunderstood or forgotten in the larger conservation narrative. (I'm looking at you, northern short-tailed shrews) What started as a quest to photograph flying squirrels turned into something much deeper: a practice in mindfulness, a way to remind myself that the world is full of small miracles, even when it feels like it's falling apart.
