If you’ve been wanting to visit the beautiful City of Newburgh but haven’t yet set a date, might I suggest June 20th? Newburgh is celebrating its 150th birthday, and the annual Newburgh Illuminated festival is going to be REALLY fantastic this year. Live music all day long, a marketplace with tons of Hudson Valley-based handmakers and small business owners, all kinds of awesome food vendors, an historic trolley tour around the city, pop-up art shows, and (of course) loads of stuff for kids to do. The whole thing is going to kick off at 11am and run until the wee hours of the night.
If you live in New York City, it’s really easy to get to Newburgh. It’s about an hour-long drive from the George Washington Bridge, or you can take Metro-North to Beacon and then take a short cab ride across the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge to Newburgh. (There’s a ferry from Beacon to Newburgh during the week for commuters, but unfortunately it doesn’t run on weekends.) It’s a really nice train ride—I did it twice a day for four years, so I know!
✚ Hudson Valley makers, food venders and small businesses:
If you are interested in being a vendor at the 2015 Newburgh Illuminated festival, please fill out this form and someone will get in touch with all the necessary information!
p.s. Curious about why the festival is called Newburgh Illuminated? Newburgh was the first electrified city in the United States! Thomas Edison opened the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of Newburgh in 1883—and it’s still in operation by Central Hudson Gas & Electric now.
p.p.s. If you’re dying to know more about Newburgh and you want to ogle our incredible architecture, be sure to visit Newburgh Restoration!
9 Comments
sounds like fun!! Putting it on my calendar. Maybe next year, the organizers can petition to have the ferry run just for the event. It would be so great to be able to go car-less and (most) everyone loves a ferry ride!
Hi Nancy,
I’m actually one of the people helping to organize it this year, and we are certainly trying to get some kind of boat to take NYC folks across. The ferry is actually pretty expensive, but we are looking at other options like using the River Rose steam ship. Or worst case scenario we will have a bus or something. In short, we hope lots of NYC friends come up and visit, and we are trying our best to have a way for them to easily get across the river.
joshua
Thanks!! 🙂
This looks really fun. I love Newburgh. Any excuse to visit!
I love community pride! If I weren’t on the opposite coast, I’d be there. Newburgh has such rich history!
Hi Anna,
Long time silent follower.
I just wanted to send you this link to an article about Newburgh I saw on The Guardian today.
Maybe it’s interesting.
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/apr/08/resurrecting-newburgh-once-grand-american-city-heart-torn-out
Thanks for the inspiration!
Flavia
I read the Guardian (a lot), stumbled onto this:
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/apr/08/resurrecting-newburgh-once-grand-american-city-heart-torn-out
Thought of your post, have a wonderful day!!!
Thanks Simone and Flavia! I’ve been tweeting about that article this morning. It’s great!
I think the article is written to promote a book about Newburgh. It sounds worth preserving (but also in need of a lot of long term structural help).