The Rail Trail makes its way


MILLERTON — The Harlem Valley Rail Trail Association (HVRTA) is celebrating the completion of a two-year fundraising effort that has enabled the organization to purchase 14 miles of abandoned railroad bed in Columbia County where trains once rolled between Grand Central Station and Chatham.

With the help of more than 300 donors, HVRTA raised nearly $220,000, which covered the purchase price and associated expenses. In addition to individual contributions, HVRTA received generous grants from both the Rheinstrom Hill Community Foundation of Hudson and the Dyson Foundation of Millbrook. Assistance was also received from the Columbia Land Conservancy based in Chatham.

"HVRTA has existed for over 20 years and this is definitely our most consequential accomplishment," said Dick Hermans, the organization’s chairman. The 14 miles were purchased from Jay and Kathleen Metz of Sharon, Conn., who had acquired the abandoned railroad property from the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. in the early 1980s.

"In 1979, Elinor Mettler, who still sits on our board, offered up the idea of converting this abandoned Harlem Valley Rail Line property into a trail in The Independent, the Hillsdale-based newspaper which she then published," Hermans added. "Today, all signs seem to indicate that we really will have a 46-mile trail from Wassaic to Chatham."

The 14 miles of rail bed HVRTA now owns will become part of the Harlem Valley Rail Trail as it extends north from Copake Falls in the coming years. Progress on this trail has taken another step forward recently with the approval of a detailed trail design document created by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation (OPRHP). That approval clears the way for OPRHP to begin acquiring other sections of the rail bed in Columbia County from willing sellers.

Over the winter OPRHP purchased part of the Odyssey Farm just north of Copake Falls. The HVRTA purchase includes a section of rail bed between that property and the state park in Copake Falls. This could become the first trail section developed between Copake Falls and Chatham.

The 14 miles HVRTA purchased consists of eight separate parcels, many of which lie between Chatham and Philmont. There are a total of 23 miles along the old railroad between Copake Falls and Chatham. Two section of the Harlem Valley Rail Trail are presently open totaling nearly 16 miles. From Copake Falls south to Undermountain Road in Boston Corners is part of the Taconic State Park. In Dutchess County, 12 miles of trail extends from Millerton to the Metro-North Station at Wassaic and is a county park. The 8-mile gap between Millerton and Boston Corner is being developed by Dutchess County’s parks department with construction anticipated in 2008.

"We are delighted that action on many fronts indicates that during the next two years tremendously significant work will happen to make our dreams for this trail a reality," said Hermans.

"The rail trail project in Columbia County would probably not be moving forward if HVRTA hadn’t purchased these 14 miles," said James Sponable, who works on property acquisition for OPRHP.

HVRTA is a nonprofit organization based in Millerton whose mission is to advocate for the development of a rail trail between Wassaic and Chatham, to organize volunteers to care for the trail and to encourage safe use of the trail.

For further information, contact HVRTA’s office at 518-789-9591.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less