Highlands Current Audio Stories

Magazzino extends run of glass masterpieces

By popular demand, Magazzino Italian Art in Philipstown is extending its exhibit, Yoichi Ohira: Japan in Murano, through Feb. 22.

"One woman kept begging me, 'Please don't close it,' and hugged me when I told her we're holding it over," says museum co-founder Giorgio Spanu.

Selecting favorites from the 54 unique pieces is challenging. There are advanced coloring and techniques, deceptive textures, complex swirling patterns and optical illusions aplenty.

Ohira, who died in 2022, became enamored with glass as a youngster, calling it "music without sound." He studied in Japan, then pursued further education in Venice, graduating in 1978 and landing on the nearby island of Murano, a famous glassblowing center for centuries.

After being hired by the de Majo company as artistic director in 1987, he left after five years to forge his own path. Unlike many designers at the time, Ohira credited the craftsmen who helped execute his vision, including carver Giacomo Barbini and glass artists Livio Serena and Andrea Zilio.

In 1997, Spanu and Nancy Olnick, the museum's other founder, attended Ohira's first solo exhibition at Caffe Florian in Venice. Over the years, the couple has amassed and displayed many of his works.

Around 85 percent of the exhibit is culled from their collection, which spans most of the artist's nearly four-decade career in Italy, starting with his early reinventions of historic Venetian-style vessels. The exhibit ends with three works of thick, nearly colorless glass created by melding together two separate vessels.

At the exhibit, which fuses Japanese-inspired motifs and sensibilities with meticulous Italian craftsmanship, many visitors point out details, utter a comment and shake their heads.

The patterns on some vases resemble Japanese letters, including one with clay-like vertical streaks on a black background. "Dark colors are incredibly difficult to render in glass," says Spanu.

The texture of "Pasta Vitria" looks bumpy, but closer inspection reveals a mirror-smooth surface. Black lines streaking the surface of "Natsume" are obvious, but the rest of the orb settles on green or purple, depending on one's viewpoint.

Mille luci, 2004

Mosaico, 1997

Murrine, 1997

Pasta vitrea 2, 1997

Pasta vitrea 3, 1997

Pasta Vitrea Finestre, 1997

Pasta vitrea, 1997

Pastra vitrea, 1997

Polvere 2, 1997

Polvere, 1997

Polvere, 2000

Serena e Giacomo Barbini, Mille luci, 2002

Silenzio, 1999, glass

Tessere smaltate, 2000

Finestre 2, 1997

Finestre, 1998

Fiori verdi e blu, 1998

Gocce di cristallo, 1999

Gocce di murrine, 1999

Grappolo in rosso e in nero, 2001

A canne bianche e verdi

In the artist's little windows series, tiny shards of shiny glass speckle the works, some of which look like wood or pottery. Ohira hand-carried the milk-white glass sculpture "Finestre" on an airplane, gifting it to Spanu and Olnick when they curated a show at Manhattan's Museum of Art and Design in 2000.

Another pattern resembles small strings of seashells fused together with remarkable precision. The carver Barbini transformed the top of one work into a lagoon; others include vertical surface scratches, although he typically worked with a wheel.

The exhibition displays a few of Ohira's hand-drawn designs, the raw material his team turned into glass masterpieces. Like potters, who never know what their conception is going to look like once the kiln door swings open, glassblowers bear the similar vicissitudes of trial and error.

"No one knows how he and his collaborators mastered the interplay between opacity and transparency," says Olnick. "To this day, it's completely mysterious and unbelievable."

Magazzino Italian Art, at 2700 Route 9 in Philipstown, is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday to Monday. Tickets are $20 ($10 students, seniors, visitors with disabilities; $5 ages 5 to 10; military, veterans, children under 5, members and Philipstown residents free). See magazzino.art.

Also asks state to study capacity for electric buses

Voters in the Beacon City School District will be asked on May 19 to approve a $91.9 million budget that would allow Rombout Middle School to expand to a nine-period day in 2026-27.

The six members of the board (two seats are vacant and one member was absent) unanimously adopted the budget on Monday (April 13). A public hearing will be held at Beacon High School on May 5; two weeks later, district residents will vote on the budget and three trustee seats.

The budget will increase the tax levy — the total amount the district collects through property taxes — by 4.47 percent, to $52.3 million. That's the maximum increase allowed for 2026-27 under a state tax cap. Going "to cap" will keep in place big-ticket items funded in previous spending plans: reduced class sizes at the district's four elementary schools, increased mental health support for students and expanded extracurriculars and special education resources, among other initiatives.

The most significant expenditure for 2026-27 will be Rombout's shift from eight to nine periods, which comes four years after Beacon High School made the same move. School officials said it will allow the district to add a sixth-grade health class and a "Welcome to Sixth Grade" course for incoming students while giving all grades access to an expanded selection of electives.

In addition to property taxes, the budget will rely on about $33 million in total state aid, a 3.2 percent increase over 2025-26, including $1.1 million for pre-K. That number is significant because it's enough to cover full-day pre-K programs at all four elementaries, saving the district about $450,000.

More than 75 percent of expected spending in 2026-27 will go to salaries and benefits, with medical and dental insurance premiums increasing by more than 15 percent.

The district estimates that the average homeowner, which includes residents in parts of Fishkill and Wappinger, will pay between $213 and $244 more in taxes annually.

Last month, Board Member Eric Schetter asked Superintendent Matt Landahl to cut $250,000 from the budget — enough to get the tax levy increase under 4 percent. Landahl's immediate recommendation was to delay the Rombout expansion to nine periods for a year.

If Rombout goes ahead, he said during the Monday meeting, a handful of other cuts could lighten the budget by about $150,000, but it would be "a slog for me, trying to figure out ways" to get to $250,000. Another option would be to defer debt on the $50 million capital project approved by voters in 2024, but that could cause next year's levy to swell beyond 5 percent, Deputy Superintendent Ann Marie Quartironi said.

Other board members pushed back. "Most of the discretionary things are rising by very, very small percentages, most often less than inflation," said Chris Lewine. "We're managing huge cost increases in a ton of different places and finding a way to do that without making cuts and even doing this thing [the nine-period day] you've been planning for many years."

Schetter ultimately said he would support the budget with the maximum allowable levy increase. "If going to 4.47 [percent] means going to a nine-period day at Rombout, then I would be in favor of that," he said. "I think it's important not only from the students' perspective, but it brings more favorable things for the teachers in regard to professional development."

Schetter's seat is one of three that will be on the May ballot, along with the two that are vacant. Nominating petitions are due by 5 p.m. on April 29; to receive a petition, email [email protected].

Electric buses

The school board on Monday agreed to sign onto the Lower Hudson Education Coalition's request that the state Public Service Commission study whether electric utilities, including Central Hudson, will have the necessary infrastructure in place to support the electrification of school bus fleets.

A state law adopted in 2022 requires that all b...

Beacon Litfest hosts '70s dance party

While volunteering at Beacon Reads, the bookstore run by the Friends of the Howland Public Library, Hannah Brooks took particular interest in a customer whose voice she recognized.

Since 1991, Felix Hernandez has hosted "Rhythm Revue," a six-hour weekly radio show produced by WGBO (88.3 FM) in Newark on which he spins classic and obscure soul, funk and R&B. Long before high-earning celebrity DJs became a thing, Hernandez played clubs like the Roseland Ballroom in Manhattan until the wee hours of the morning.

Brooks says she shocked herself "by jumping out of the chair for a selfie. I've never done that with any other celebrity."

Hernandez, who splits time between homes in Brooklyn and Ulster County, will be donating his services on Friday (April 24) for an extended '70s Dance Party at Denning's Point Distillery to benefit Beacon LitFest, which will take place from June 12 to 14. Brooks is among the organizers.

Litfest Rises in Charts

Attendance at the annual Beacon LitFest jumped from 80 in its first year in 2023 to more than 400 last year, according to Hannah Brooks. She says 75 percent of participants are locals.

This year, the festival will host panels on Friday, June 12 ("The Exquisite Art of Translation") and Saturday ("The Poet as Witness" and "Crafting Realities in Nonfiction and Fiction") to "get the creative bug going" for Sunday workshops, says Brooks.

On May 13, LitFest will host an exploration of mental health at "Stories We Don't Tell" at Savage Wonder in Beacon. See beaconlitfest.org.

Hernandez is an expert on pop music from doo-wop to disco; he says he especially cherishes songs from 1954 to 1979. "I have so many thousands of records, I lost count long ago," he says. "The only thing that surpasses them is books."

The playlist of a recent show included the overlooked Motown group, The Elgins, followed by "I Love You (For Sentimental Reasons)" by Sam Cooke, which reached No. 15 on the pop charts but is more commonly associated with Nat King Cole.

Hernandez also slipped in Earth, Wind and Fire's "Serpentine Fire," a Top 20 pop hit not included on the 1978 album, The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire, Vol. 1, a monster seller. (For true fans, it does appear on Volume 2.)

During live gigs, people expect and receive familiar fare. But on the radio, Hernandez keeps things fresh by alternating familiar chestnuts with more obscure artists and repertoire. He says his format is to play a hit, then a miss — rinse and repeat. He notes that, during the period when Cooke and Ray Charles forged soul music, James Brown created funk, and its spawn, disco, emerged, thousands of independent labels released a barrage of great songs, including many one-hit wonders during the 1970s.

"There's so much obscure but incredible music out there, it's baffling why, like with classic rock, people are fixated on such a small number of artists," he says.

Dennings Point Distillery is located at 10 N. Chestnut St. in Beacon. Tickets for the dance party, which begins at 6:30 p.m., are $20 at dub.sh/beacon-boogie, or at the door. Rhythm Revue can be streamed at wbgo.org/show/rhythm-revue.

Tax levy increase stays within state cap

The Nelsonville Village Board on Wednesday (April 15) adopted a $392,497 budget for 2026-27, a 3.4 increase over the current year. The property tax levy — the total amount the village collects through property taxes — will rise by 3.14 percent, the maximum Nelsonville is allowed under the state's tax cap for 2026-27.

The spending plan includes $6,112 (compared to $2,500 this year) to supply Nelsonville's fire hydrants because of higher rates charged by Cold Spring, an additional 33 percent for the village attorney ($20,000), and 10 percent raises for the mayor and the four trustees, their first increase since 2017, according to Winward. The mayor's salary will rise to $4,950 annually, and the trustees' to $2,915.

The budget also includes a 10 percent hike for the village justice, to $3,850, and 3 percent raises for the clerk and court clerk positions, both held by Melissa Harris.

Anticipated savings include $2,000 in street lighting costs due to the installation last year of LED bulbs and $6,000 in street maintenance costs. Instead of renewing a contract with a company that handled road maintenance and snow removal, the village contracted with Philipstown for plowing and some roadwork, and with another company to provide services not offered by the town.

"Even with the unusually snowy winter we had — where we actually had to pay more to remove snow — we were still able to stay within the budgeted amount for snow and street maintenance combined," said Winward.

This fiscal year is Nelsonville's first to include revenue from a sales-tax sharing agreement between Putnam County and its nine municipalities. Nelsonville will receive the minimum share, which is $50,000. It must be spent on infrastructure but can be used to hire consultants for projects. "I can't say enough how important that is for a tiny village, to be able to look forward and plan," said Winward.

Code update

The board continues to review property-maintenance regulations as part of a comprehensive revision of the village codes that began last month with the adoption of rules for residents with household pets, bees and/or chickens.

The guidelines for property maintenance span three sections of the code: Chapter 74 (Brush, Grass and Weeds), Chapter 148 (Property Maintenance) and Article IV, which requires property owners to remove snow and ice from sidewalks.

Trustee Alan Potts said he and another trustee, Marie Zhynovitch, are working on crafting a single chapter for property maintenance and revising language to eliminate ambiguity and confusion.

Wins ban on use of name, logo it owns after lawsuit

A historic Black church in Washington, D.C., awarded rights to the name and logo of an extremist group after its property was vandalized, won a trademark case against the Hudson Valley chapter and its president, a former Beacon resident.

In a federal lawsuit filed in August 2025, the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church accused the Hudson Valley Proud Boys and Will Pepe of "unlawful and ongoing infringement" of its right to control use of the group's name. Pepe is one of over 1,000 people found guilty of invading the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and pardoned in January 2025 by President Donald Trump.

After he failed to submit a timely answer to Metropolitan's lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla issued an order on April 8 permanently barring the chapter from using the name and logo. She also awarded $75,000 to the church, which hosted the funeral of Frederick Douglass and a speech by Eleanor Roosevelt; $183,603.50 in fees to Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and $15,849.50 to the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

The judgment is the church's first against a chapter and similar lawsuits could follow.

"This is an important judgment for the church and for the residents of the Hudson Valley," said Dan Kramer, the Paul, Weiss attorney who represented the church. "It means that there cannot be a chapter of the Proud Boys in their community."

A D.C. Superior Court judge awarded Metropolitan AME the trademark rights in February 2025 as the Proud Boys largely ignored an earlier $2.8 million judgment against it over a December 2020 incident during a rally in support of Trump. Some of the group's members, during a roving "night march," leaped the church's fence to tear down its Black Lives Matter sign.

They then "stomped on it and cut it into pieces, and loudly and publicly celebrated its destruction" on social media, according to Metropolitan AME, which installed cameras and hired security guards after the attack.

Despite the Superior Court order, which prohibits the Proud Boys from "selling, transferring, disposing of or licensing" the name without the church's permission, the Hudson Valley chapter continued to employ the Proud Boys name on multiple websites it and other New York chapters use, and on clothing, hats and other merchandise sold online, according to court documents.

Metropolitan also said Pepe had not responded to a cease-and-desist letter sent to him at a Long Island address in June 2025, as well as requests that he provide information on the chapter's use of the name and the amount of revenues from members' dues and merchandise sales.

The church said it wants to "evolve" the Proud Boys name to become "associated with the church's mission of love and humanity, rather than white supremacy, hatred and violence." Last year, it introduced two limited-edition T-shirts replicating the Proud Boys logo and etched with slogans: "Stay Proud, Black Lives Matter" and "Stay Black, Black Lives Matter.

Metropolitan was one of two Black churches in D.C. whose Black Lives Matter signs were destroyed by Proud Boys who rallied in the city on Dec. 12, 2020, in support of Trump's challenge to the results of the 2020 presidential election won by Joe Biden. Weeks later, on Jan. 6, 2021, protesters broke into and ransacked the Capitol building as lawmakers met to certify Biden's win.

Police arrested Pepe six days later, accusing him, as president of the Hudson Valley chapter of the Proud Boys, of coordinating with other members by radio and moving a police barricade. A federal judge found Pepe, who was fired from his job with Metro-North in Brewster, guilty in a bench trial on Oct. 23, 2024, of a felony (obstructing law enforcement during a civil disorder) and four misdemeanors. His sentencing was canceled when he was pardoned.

Metropolitan AME is targeting the Proud Boys' money. The church initially sued Proud Boys International for destructi...

Third straight year for local recognitions

For the third year in a row, a local resident has won a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Reid Davenport, who lives in Beacon, was among 223 recipients of the annual award, which provides scholars, artists, writers, historians and scientists with grants ranging from about $30,000 to $45,000 to provide "blocks of time in which fellows can work with as much creative freedom as possible," according to the Guggenheim Foundation. The honors were announced on Tuesday (April 14).

Davenport is a documentary filmmaker who premiered Life After (2025) and I Didn't See You There (2022) at the Sundance Film Festival. Davenport, who has cerebral palsy, describes himself online as a "disabled filmmaker telling disabled stories through a political lens."

Jessica Pisano, a Philipstown resident who is a professor of politics at The New School for Social Research in New York City, was named a fellow in 2024, and Gwen Laster, a violinist who lives in Beacon, was among the honorees in 2025.

Adam James Smith, a documentary filmmaker who has a home in Lake Peekskill in Putnam County, was also honored this year. His upcoming films include Nighthawk, set in Shenzhen's vast art factory, and In the Valley of Solace, about a woman living alone and off the land in a remote Yunnan valley.

Cold Spring newspaper closes after 160 years

The Putnam County News & Recorder, which was published weekly in Cold Spring for 160 years, has closed.

The PCNR published its last print edition on Jan. 28 due to what the editor, Rick Pezzullo, at the time called "unforeseen circumstances." It continued to publish a digital edition, but that did not appear on April 8, and the paper's website has not been updated since April 2.

The weekly had been published since April 2024 by a Carmel-based company called Putnam Media Inc. Its owners were described as "a group of Putnam County citizens" but never identified. The company purchased The PCNR and The Putnam County Courier, based in Brewster, from Douglas Cunningham, their former editor.

A source said the investment group voted, 14-2, to dissolve Putnam Media Inc. as of March 31. On April 6, Eric Gross, the senior reporter for The PCNR and Courier, joined Mid Hudson News as its Putnam County bureau chief.

Kathy Kahng, a Kent resident who was identified after the 2024 sale as the papers' general manager, did not return a phone call or email seeking comment. But Getz Obstfeld, one of the 16 investors, said on Tuesday (April 14) that the group had two or three potential buyers and had ceased publication to preserve cash.

"We want to continue the papers and preserve the tradition," said Obstfeld, who has a home in Kent. "We'll see how fast we can make a deal, but I expect it will be within weeks." He said the 16 investors were a mix of "community-minded and media-minded" residents who liked the idea of supporting a nonpartisan news source that served the entire county.

"The papers will be sold at a loss," he said. "But not a single one of us went into it to make money. We intended it as an investment to support the community."

He said the group approached the board of Highlands Current Inc., which publishes this newspaper, but the nonprofit was not interested in buying the publications. Todd Haskell, the board chair, declined to comment.

The loss of the two papers reflects a national trend. According to the State of Local News, a report compiled by Northwestern University, nearly 40 percent of local newspapers have vanished in the past 20 years. That represents at least 3,400 titles, including 130 in 2025. Newspapers have been hit hard by competition from Facebook and Google for local advertisers.

"I've been involved in community journalism since I was 13, and it's a shame what once was a big part of every municipality is fading quickly, and not too many people seem to care," said Pezzullo, who had been on the job for nine months after leaving Examiner Media when it shuttered its print editions, including The Putnam Examiner. Pezzullo referred questions about the closure to Putnam Media Inc.

The PCNR dated to March 1866, when Charles Blanchard founded The Cold Spring Recorder, promising readers "a family journal devoted to the dissemination of general and local news, and the impartial discussion of questions of public interest."

He sold the paper in 1867 to a group of residents who appointed the village postmaster, Sylvester Beers Allis, as editor. Nearly 20 years later, in 1886, a county history reported that The Recorder, now owned by Allis, was "independent in politics, fearless in expression of opinion and has an extensive circulation."

After Allis died in 1891, his heirs sold the paper to Irving McCoy, who ran it for 15 years before handing the operation to Otis Montrose, the principal of the Cold Spring school. Montrose published The Recorder for 29 years; after his death, it passed to W. Osborn Webb, owner of the upstart Putnam County News, who merged the two publications and sold The PCNR in 1939 to pursue a graduate degree in journalism. (According to his obituary, in 1946 Webb was among the founders of the Central Intelligence Agency.)

Jack Ladue, the next owner, ran The PCNR for 44 years until his retirement in 1983. In 1965, ahead of its centennial, he added the motto to the...

Requires feds to provide judicial warrant

A policy passed in 2017 to forbid Philipstown employees from participating in immigration enforcement has been revised to specify that access to personal data and town facilities is banned without a judicial warrant or court order.

An ad hoc committee's changes to the town's "equal protection" policy were unanimously approved by the Town Board on Thursday (April 9). The policy bans town employees and contractors from collecting information about immigration status or disclosing personal information such as names, addresses and Social Security numbers, without an order or warrant from a federal judge.

It also bars officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agencies from nonpublic areas without a warrant or court order. If an employee is served with a judicial or an administrative warrant — documents issued by the agencies without a judge's signature — they are not to allow access to data or nonpublic areas. Instead, they must give the warrant to the town clerk, who will notify the supervisor and town attorney.

Judy Farrell, a member of the Town Board, suggested the revision in February. At that time, she said the new language was designed to protect personal data, not immigration status, which the town does not collect. "It's about requiring judicial process, which residents are entitled to under the Constitution, and to make sure our town staff aren't sharing residents' information," she said.

Following Supervisor John Van Tassel's recommendation, the policy will take effect in June to allow training for town employees. "I don't think it's fair to put an employee in a position that they're going to implement a policy without prior training to the actual policy," he said.

Philipstown's original equal-protection policy passed, by a 3-2 vote, in April 2017, with "no" votes from Van Tassel, then a councilor, and Bob Flaherty, who voted on Thursday for the revised guidance. It similarly barred town employees from aiding immigration investigations or arrests unless required by state or federal law or a judge's order.

That same month, the Beacon City Council approved a policy limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities, and declaring the city to be "welcoming, safe and inclusive." Both policies were enacted amid heightened immigration enforcement during President Donald Trump's first term. Philipstown's revision comes as Trump expands deportations in his second term.

In January 2025, the state attorney general, Letitia James, issued guidance that noted federal law does not require a local government to communicate with immigration authorities, but that a federal statute says municipalities cannot prevent employees "from sending to, or receiving from" them information regarding someone's citizenship or immigration status. Nothing prevents governments from withholding other information, said James.

Federal officials say restrictions imposed by state and local governments, which they designate as "sanctuary" jurisdictions, hinder the capture and deportation of dangerous criminals.

Immigration arrests have more than quadrupled, and deportations have risen fivefold, during the first year of Trump's second term, according to a report this month from the Deportation Data Project, a team of academics and lawyers who obtain and analyze immigration data.

While the Trump administration says it is focused on criminals (entering the country without legal authorization is a civil offense), the arrests of people without criminal convictions increased eightfold, according to the report.

Food-scrap recycling

Jeff Mikkelson, advocacy chair for the Cold Spring Chamber of Commerce and a member of the town's Climate Smart Task Force, asked if Philipstown would be the fiscal sponsor if an application for a grant to expand the residential food scraps recycling program to businesses is successful.

A $6,000 grant from Williams College has enabled a startup commercial pr...

250 Years Ago (April 1776)

On April 2, George Washington wrote from his headquarters near Boston to Brig. Benedict Arnold: "The chief part of the troops are marched from hence towards New York. I will set off tomorrow." The general was concerned that the British, who had evacuated Boston, were headed to New York City.

On April 13, after traveling nine days by horseback, Washington and three aides arrived in New York. He made his headquarters at Richmond Hill, a 26-acre estate located in what is now Greenwich Village.

It was during his stay that the New York governor and the New York City mayor, both loyalists, plotted to capture and/or kill Washington with assistance from his bodyguards. The plotters had loose lips, however, and the alleged ringleader, Thomas Hickey, was hanged. "The discovery of this plot, and the effort to investigate it, led colonial authorities to devise new systems" that today would be called counterintelligence, wrote Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch in The First Conspiracy.

On April 19, Washington wrote to Congress reporting that four regiments ordered to march from Boston to defend New York had not left because their colonels had not arranged for them to be paid. He lamented the lack of trained officers.

On April 22, Washington left for Philadelphia to consult with Congress about the defense of New York.

On April 29, the Iroquois complained that there were not enough traders to meet their needs for blankets, clothing and ammunition and called for a meeting with the Americans at Albany. Most sachems remained neutral about the war, but this lack of trade goods would push some to side with the British.

150 Years Ago (April 1876)

William Jaycox reported that, after a 9-inch snowfall on April 5, sleighing was good on the old post road. In the village, the snow melted by evening.

Stephen Davenport, "among the few of our old men who retained a good memory of the past half century," according to The Cold Spring Recorder, died at age 76 after complaining of a headache at breakfast.

After a hoghead of molasses being unloaded at J.Y. Dykeman's store in Nelsonville broke open, "most of the sweet stuff was wasted on the ungrateful soil," according to The Recorder.

A prisoner escaped from the county jail in Carmel by taking the place of the boy who usually delivered the coal to heat the jail overnight. The jailer discovered the escape when he woke up in the cold.

John Brady broke his leg when he was thrown from his wagon near Garden Street. His horse was spooked by a boy rolling a barrel.

The Recorder noted that "a fine goat which has grown fat and kept itself in fine condition by stealing all about the village was shot, somewhere downtown, on Tuesday afternoon. … We could not avoid sorrow at the creature's dying moans, but could not say that its death was unjust."

A one-armed traveling cornet player performed on Main Street for tips.

After a Saturday night stop at Fishkill Landing, the Van Amburgh & Co. circus paraded into Cold Spring with an elephant, camel and a lion in a cage on Monday morning for a performance later in the day.

Standing a few rods from the West Point Foundry, a group of 12 men, including Robert Parrott, Capt. Ottinger and Colin Tolmie Jr., a clerk, observed test firings of projectiles designed for the Coast Life Saving service. After a successful first shot, Tolmie was instructed to add 4 more ounces of gunpowder. During its flight, the second projectile exploded, sending a 60-pound fragment into the men, who were standing 40 feet away. Tolmie, 46, was struck in the head and killed instantly. Tolmie had worked at the foundry for nearly 30 years; he came to Cold Spring at age 9 when his father was hired to supervise the forging department, and he was apprenticed at age 17.

Peter Louis, a Frenchman who lived on Bank Street and had fought as a sharpshooter in the Civil War, worked at the foundry pattern shop until a leg disease forced him to become a peddler. He and Charles Hines were returning ...

Democrats prepare for June 23 primaries

Six Democratic candidates filed nominating petitions with the state Board of Elections by the April 6 deadline to challenge Rep. Mike Lawler for his U.S. House seat representing Philipstown, although one — Peter Chatzky — dropped out on Thursday (April 9).

Lawler, who filed petitions to appear on the Republican and Conservative lines on the November ballot, is seeking his third 2-year term.

A Democratic primary is scheduled for June 23. The candidates who filed are John Cappello, a Rockland native and former defense attaché at the U.S. embassies in Israel and Serbia; Chatzky, a tech company founder and village trustee in Briarcliff Manor; Cait Conley, a West Point graduate from Orange County and former director of counterterrorism for the National Security Council; Beth Davidson, a Rockland County legislator; Effie Phillips-Staley, a Tarrytown trustee who is a nonprofit executive; and Mike Sacks, a lawyer and former TV journalist from Westchester.

Each candidate had to collect at least 1,250 signatures from voters in District 17. Typically, a candidate files far more than required because the Board of Elections can invalidate signatures if opponents file challenges.

On Thursday, Alyssa Verrilli, Chatzky's campaign manager, confirmed reports that he had ended his campaign. A debate hosted on Thursday at Manhattanville University in Purchase by the Westchester County Democratic Committee with four candidates selected based on polling, money raised and endorsements — Chatzky, Conley, Davidson and Phillips-Staley — proceeded with three. A recording is posted at dub.sh/district-17-debate.

In District 18, which includes Beacon, incumbent Rep. Pat Ryan filed petitions for the Democratic and Working Families lines, and Sharanjit Thind filed for the Republican and Conservative lines.

The Dutchess County Democratic Committee has endorsed Conley and Ryan. The Putnam County Democratic Committee is expected to make endorsements after its April 20 meeting.

In state legislative contests, retired teacher Laurie Ryan filed for the Republican and Conservative lines to oppose Dana Levenberg, the incumbent Democrat whose 95th Assembly district includes Philipstown. In District 104, which includes Beacon, Ali Muhammad, a former Beacon City Council member who now lives in Newburgh, will challenge incumbent Jonathan Jacobson in a Democratic primary. Robert F. Johnson filed to run as a Republican.

Three Democrats will face off in the June 23 primary to challenge the Republican incumbent, Rob Rolison, for the state Senate seat that represents the Highlands: Lisa Kaul, a Dutchess County legislator who represents part of the Town of Poughkeepsie; Gay Lee, a social worker and former Newburgh City Council member who ran for the seat in 2014; and Evan Menist, a member of the Poughkeepsie Common Council.

The Dutchess County Democratic Committee has endorsed Kaul for the state Senate and Jacobson for the Assembly. The Putnam County Democratic Committee has endorsed Levenberg.