The eminent Swedish botanist and zoologist Carl Linnaeus, father of modern taxonomy, called Bartram “the greatest natural botanist in the world.” And aristocrats eagerly awaited the arrival of their “Bartram’s Boxes”: bundles of seeds, saps and specimens shipped from North America. What brought him to the Catskills?
Having previously created large-scale images of Elvis, Einstein, the Statue of Liberty and Jimi Hendrix in a field in Ellenville by expertly manipulating a lawnmower, Roger Baker fired up his push-mower by Sandburg Creek and began crafting Beethoven’s eyes in May 2016. The completed drawing on the living canvas of grass culminated in a series of performances of Beethoven’s music held on-site. Days later, as the grass grew and the dark and light areas melded together, the image vanished. It lives on in John Hazard’s new film.
In truth, that wasn’t a photo of a black hole. Nor was it the first ironclad proof that they exist. And it didn’t finally prove that Einstein was right.
Led by Shari Aber of the Adirondack Mountain Club and Catskill 3500 Club, and a Black Creek neighbor, the group will follow safe wide paths and make their way towards Chodikee Lake. Spring peepers, waterfalls and rustlings. What will the moon reveal?
June 15 and 16: One should never sleep on Clearwater. Over the years, it has quietly become the most inclusive and progressive of all the major New York summer festivals, belying its reputation as a weekend of Pete Seeger’s two favorite things: banjos and garbage cleanup.
One wouldn’t think that people in the business of hunting whales far out at sea would ever have imagined Hudson to be an auspicious place to set up shop. But they did, beginning in 1783, just as the Revolutionary War was drawing to a close.
The property is spectacular and for a long time has functioned as an off-limits recreation center for trespassing ATV drivers, who roar around the moonscape quarries on warm days.
Did you know that Schodack Island was the site of the central council fire of all the Mahican peoples? Or that British mystic Aleister Crowley claimed to be meditating and writing on Esopus Island, but he may have been spying on behalf of the US government during WWI?
Mohonk’s summerhouses were originally fashioned by “rustic carpenters”: farmers mostly, with good carpentry skills. The amateur artisans were instructed to use the materials they could find at hand and to use their imagination. No two are alike.
Guyot’s map of the Catskills radically redefined the physical and cultural understanding of the region. Before his work, the mountain known as High Peak was unanimously considered the highest in the range, and the region of the Catskill Mountain House (where the North/South Lake campground is today) was generally thought to be the only part of the Catskills of real natural and cultural interest – a misconception that the House owners had no interest in changing. Guyot set everyone straight, demoting High Peak, ultimately, to merely the 23rd-highest summit in the range and calling attention the natural treasures of Slide Mountain and the areas of the Catskills to the south and west.