Inspired by the weekend’s Spirit of Beacon Day parade, I dreamed of three approaches to adding enjoyment, enhancing cultural resources and stimulating business life in and around Main Street:
(1) An improved pedestrian link between Main Street, westward across Wolcott Avenue, leading down toward lower Main and, ultimately, to the waterfront. Broaden and improve the awkward and failing concrete steps leading to the parking lot by City Hall; restoring Bank Square as an artful, recognizable and welcoming “place” — the very same place Franklin D. Roosevelt stopped in Beacon for his last pre-election speeches on his way home to Hyde Park. Important linkages regained.
(2) Provide light-rail service from the Beacon train station curving south and eastward and upward on existing tracks by Dennings Point, to the Matteawan Station terminus at the east end of Main Street. Combined with improvements at the west end of Main Street — a boost from both directions, all seasons, with services and galleries all along the way. Says, “This is Beacon.”
(3) And, blame me, a retired architect and planner living in The Preserve community south of Craig House on Route 9D, for dreaming — to continue looping the light rail beyond Matteawan Station past the dam, across the creek, by the cemetery on Grove Street, across Depuyster Avenue, through the woods arriving at the base of Mount Beacon Incline, while, with Scenic Hudson, restoring what was once the world’s steepest scenic funicular railroad … access to the top! Potentially a historical and cultural attraction rivaling the bridge over the Hudson in Poughkeepsie. Stir in a rail trail? The Hudson Highlands Fjord Trail? Spirit of Beacon Trail? Sounds like a win-win-win to me. Think about these linkages in a coordinated plan. Not realized all at once, but …
Please get started on those concrete steps at the West End soon. I’m turning 80 in two years.
James Rhodes, Beacon
