Beacon Mountain

Beacon Reservoir supplies water to the city of Beacon, in Dutchess County, New York, United States. It is located at 1,285 feet (392 m) above sea level in a hollow between Beacon Mountain and Scofield Ridge, in the neighboring Town of Fishkill, very close to the Putnam County line. It was created in 1922 by damming Dry Brook, a tributary of Fishkill Creek. It holds 125 million US gallons (470,000 m3). A publicly accessible dirt road, frequently used to climb the mountain, runs from the city past it to the summits. No boating or fishing or swimming is allowed in the reservoir. It is the highest lake in Dutchess County.

The Mt. Beacon Fire Observation Tower is located on the summit of South Beacon Mountain in Beacon, New York, United States.It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.

The Mount Beacon Incline Railway was a narrow gauge incline railway up Beacon Mountain near Beacon, New York. A popular local tourist attraction, it operated for much of the 20th century, providing sweeping views of the Hudson River Valley. Efforts to restore it continue today. The Otis Elevator Company and Mohawk Construction opened the 2,200' 3 ft (914 mm) gauge railway on Memorial Day, 1902. Sixty thousand fares were sold in its first year; two decades later that had almost doubled. Riders were often day visitors from New York City who came up the Hudson River by steamboat to Newburgh and then took the Newburgh-Beacon Ferry across the river. After a trolley trip to the base station on Wolcott Avenue (today NY 9D), the railway would take them up to the 1,540-foot (469 m) northern summit via an average gradient of 65% (33°) and a maximum gradient of 74% (36.5°), the steepest in existence while the railroad operated.As was the case of so many other period incline railways, the Beacon funicular was in reality a means to a larger end. The 75-mile (121 km) panoramic views from the summit of Beacon Mountain and natural setting would be the lures to get tourists to the doorstep of several profitable attractions the railway's backers built atop the mountain, including the Beaconcrest Hotel, a Casino, and a private cottage community following land sales. The hotel and casino were in place by 1926, which proved a banner year, with 110,000 passengers riding to the top. Tragedy struck the next year, with fire consuming both the hotel and casino. Though they were rebuilt within a year, this proved the turning point in the rail's history, with the tourism-dampening Great Depression and World War II to follow.Thanks to the automobile replacing historic mass transit to the area - which had brought passengers en masse up the river in excursion boats, via the railroad, and thence trolley right to the base of the lift - recreational patterns changed and the Beacon attraction never regained its popularity. Financial problems and more fires plagued the concern, which was unable to maintain necessary maintenance on either the railway or the summit attractions. In 1978 the railway ceased operations. In 1982 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. A fire attributed to vandalism the next year completely destroyed the trackway and consumed the lower station, following which the only remaining structure at the top, the powerhouse, was raised. The route still remains and is visible from much of the city. The Mount Beacon Incline Railway Restoration Society is working to rebuild the railroad and restore service.

Valhalla Highlands Historic District, also known as Lake Valhalla, is a national historic district located near Cold Spring in Putnam County, New York. The district encompasses 57 contributing buildings, 11 contributing sites, 10 contributing structures, 7 contributing objects and a 900-acre forest in an early second home community established by primarily German/Austrians and Norwegians from New York City. It developed between the early-1930s and mid-1940s, and includes lodges that are typically one or two stories high and have fieldstone foundations. They are characterized by structural stone walls and full log construction and frame dwellings clad with half-log wood siding and fieldstone veneer, chimneys and terraces. The district also includes a boat lodge with a ping-pong room and terrace, a swimming dock, a boat dock, a tea pavilion, a recreation pavilion, a lookout pavilion, shuffleboard courts, a tennis court, a playing field, a picnic area, rustic improvements throughout the forest and the remnants of a hunting cabin.The on-site National Register plaque states: "Valhalla Highlands was initiated in the early 1930s as a stylistically cohesive summer community with individual lodges, shared amenities, including Lake Valhalla, community buildings and a 1,100 acre forest with trails and rustic facilities and Valkyrie, the home of Ludwig Novoting, the creator of Valhalla Highlands. All the lodges were placed on a planned layout with a carefully organized system of boulder-lined unpaved roads, vistas and landscape features. No two lodges were the same and the community was harmoniously placed within its magnificent natural setting. The District was an early occurrence of seasonal retreats for New Yorkers in the rural areas of the Hudson Valley during the early twentieth century. The lodges, roads, common facilities and landscaping were a rustic interpretation of the Storybook Style popular in America between World War I and World War II. With whimsy and creative playfulness, the Valhalla Highlands interpretation was picturesque and nostalgic. These qualities were evident in the buttressed field stone and half-log walls, swooping multi-color asphalt shingle roofs with peaks, asymmetrical roof pitches, prominent field stone chimneys, cantilevered entry canopies, free-standing peeled log arches at the entrances, window awnings, half-log flower boxes, small-paned steel and wood windows, field stone paths and steps, boulder borders, rock gardens with elf figurines and knotty pine interiors. The ensemble blurred the line of fantasy and true reality with an inherent sense of humor. The playful, fairy-tale aesthetic of Valhalla Highlands matched the community’s theme of a Nordic paradise. Eighty years later, on November 12, 2014, when the United States Department of the Interior listed the Valhalla Highlands Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places, the district was essentially unchanged from its time of origin." It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.

The Howland Cultural Center, formerly known as Howland Library, is located on Main Street (New York State Route 52 Business) in Beacon, New York, United States. It is an ornate brick building designed by Richard Morris Hunt in the 1870s. In 1973 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Hunt was commissioned by his brother-in-law, Joseph Howland, to design a home for a subscription library he donated to the city. The completed building has much in common with the Stick style summer homes in Newport, Rhode Island, that Hunt designed at this early stage of his career. Some of its design elements have been compared to Norwegian vernacular architecture. The interior was not complete in its current form until almost the end of the century. Except for some upgrades to its utilities, it has remained largely intact since then. Throughout the 1920s it was one of only two remaining public subscription libraries in the state. In response to a donor's bequest, the library became free at the end of that decade. Almost 50 years later, the library moved out when it outgrew the building. Since then it has been used as a cultural center, hosting various visual and performing arts events.

Beacon is a city located in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The 2020 census placed the city total population at 13,769. Beacon is part of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown, New York Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York–Newark–Bridgeport, New York–New Jersey–Connecticut–Pennsylvania Combined Statistical Area. Beacon was so named to commemorate the historic beacon fires that blazed forth from the summit of the Fishkill Mountains to alert the Continental Army of British troop movements. Originally an industrial city along the Hudson, Beacon experienced a revival beginning in 2003 with the arrival of Dia Beacon, one of the largest modern art museums in the United States. Recent growth has generated debates on development and zoning issues.The area known as Beacon was settled by Europeans as the villages of Matteawan and Fishkill Landing in 1709. They were among the first colonial communities in the county. Beacon is located in the southwestern corner of Dutchess County in the Mid-Hudson Region, approximately 90 miles (140 km) south of Albany, and approximately 60 miles (97 km) north of New York City.

The Beacon Theatre was an American Art Deco performing arts theater located in Beacon, New York, in the Hudson Valley, on Main Street in the city's downtown section (known as "Theatre Square"), across from Fishkill Creek. The theater was run by 4th Wall Productions, which has been producing live theater in the Hudson Valley since 1994, from 2010 until they sold the building in 2015. The main stage was gutted and converted into residential units, with the second floor converted into a smaller performance space. In 2011, the original Beacon Theatre was featured in a music video for the song "Walk Katie Home" by American folk singer Seth Glier, on his album The Next Right Thing.

Towne Crier Cafe is a club and restaurant located in Beacon, NY. It was established in 1972. The restaurant offers a brunch menu, dinner menu or dessert menu, depending on the time of day. The restaurant is accompanied by live music, and seats approximately 100 guests. The intimate venue seats 170 guests. It was founded in 1972 by Phil Ciganer. After a period of decline, it has enjoyed increased popularity in recent years.

The U.S. Post Office in Beacon, New York, is located on Main Street (New York State Route 52 Business). It serves the ZIP Code 12508, covering the entire city of Beacon and some of the neighboring areas of the Town of Fishkill. It is a stone structure in the Dutch Colonial Revival architectural style built in the mid-1930s. In 1988 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places along with many other older post offices in the state. While its style was not uncommon for post offices of the era, its fieldstone exterior is. Only a few other New Deal post offices in the state, most of them also in Dutchess County towns along the Hudson River, used it. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's preferred that new post offices in his native region echo the architectural preferences of his Dutch ancestors who had been among the earliest settlers of the Hudson Valley, and the success of the Beacon post office may have encouraged him in that respect.It was also the only federal building in New York designed by architect Gilbert Stanley Underwood, who lived in Idaho and primarily worked on buildings in the national parks of the West, closer to his home. Inside the building, Charles Rosen painted a map of the Hudson Valley on the lobby walls, in addition to some murals depicting historic events in the area. Both interior and exterior remain largely as originally constructed.

Surprise Lake Camp is a non-profit sleepaway camp located on over 400 acres (1.6 km2) in Cold Spring, New York (approximately 60 miles (97 km) north of New York City). It is one of the oldest Jewish summer camps in the United States.

The Peter C. DuBois House is located on Slocum Road in the Dutchess Junction neighborhood of the city of Beacon, New York, United States. It was one of the last significant Greek Revival buildings in the Hudson Valley. In the 20th century, it would be reused as a sanatorium and altered with the addition of a third story. Today it is once again a dwelling. In 2004 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

The Tioronda Bridge once carried South Avenue in Beacon, New York, across Fishkill Creek. Built between 1869 and 1873 by the Ohio Bridge Company, it was demolished by the city in December 2006. The bridge had been listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, but a decade later had deteriorated to the point that it had to be closed.Three stone abutments laid in randomly coursed ashlar remain in the river, with one steel stringer and some utility pipes. They supported three spans 34 feet (10 m) in length for a total span of 110 feet (34 m). The bowstrings, arched hollow tubes which once carried the load but later only became guardrails, were the bridge's distinctive structural feature.It was one of the last remaining bowstring truss bridges in the United States, one of the oldest vehicular bridges in New York and one of the few 19th century iron bridges known to have been based on a patent model. Only one other bridge, over Sandy Creek in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, is known to have been built from that model as the Ohio Bridge Company ceased operations in 1873, possibly due to that year's economic crisis.The trusses themselves were preserved for possible ornamental use on a rebuilt bridge. However, it is not known when such rebuilding would take place, and the city's police and fire departments would like a rebuilt bridge to be wider than the current abutments and decking, still in place, would allow for.