Highlands Current Audio Stories

Zoning amendments could nix Beacon drive-thru

The Healey family, which for 40 years operated auto dealerships along Fishkill Avenue in Beacon, says the City Council is unfairly targeting its effort to redevelop one of its lots, according to a letter addressed to Mayor Lee Kyriacou and council members.

The letter, sent Monday (Feb. 10) on behalf of Dwight Healey and his sons, Jay and Dylan, accuses the mayor and council of expediting "incomplete recommendations" made by the Fishkill Avenue Concepts Committee, a citizen workgroup assembled by Kyriacou to study the corridor. (Jay Healey is a member of the committee.) The recommendations contradict Beacon's comprehensive plan and lack analysis by traffic consultants and other experts contracted by the city, wrote Taylor Palmer, the Healeys' attorney.

Kyriacou said Wednesday that he had been away because of a family matter and had not had time to read the letter in full.

After purchasing a Ford dealership on Route 9 in Poughkeepsie and constructing a Hyundai facility on Route 52 in Fishkill, the Healey family placed four substantial Fishkill Avenue parcels on the market in 2023. The Planning Board last year approved applications from Carvana, the used-car retailer, and Soka Gakkai International, a Buddhist organization, to occupy two of the parcels.

In November, the family brought a proposal to the board to convert a building at 420 Fishkill Ave., its former Ford dealership, to a Dunkin' coffeehouse with a drive-thru, three apartments and additional commercial space.

At the same time, the council in November asked the Fishkill Avenue committee to develop interim zoning recommendations for the corridor while continuing its work, which includes studying streetscapes and pedestrian accessibility. J.C. Calderon, the committee chair, delivered the recommendations during the council's Jan. 27 workshop:

Prohibit self-storage facilities.

Prohibit drive-thrus.

Reduce the minimum front-yard setback for new development and require parking behind, underneath or to the side of a building.

Prohibit gas stations, car washes, auto lots and repair shops, but allow existing auto-related uses to remain as non-conformities.

Calderon noted that committee members had not unanimously agreed but said the proposals align with input received during three public "pop-ups" last summer and an online survey. Another public information session is scheduled for March 9 at Industrial Arts Brewing Co.

Planning Board members also questioned the committee's recommendations, Calderon said. During a work session before its Dec. 10 meeting, John Gunn, the board chair, said that auto-related uses and drive-thrus "could be considered appropriate" in the Fishkill Avenue corridor while emphasizing traffic-calming and the pedestrian experience "in context of some of these types of uses."

The City Council on Monday agreed to send a draft law prohibiting self-storage facilities and drive-thrus to the city and county planning boards for review. Council members said they requested the "quick-fix" measures to preserve the city's vision for a walkable corridor that would complement recreational uses such as biking and hiking before incompatible development is approved.

The Planning Board held a public hearing the next night on the Dunkin' proposal. Three residents, one of them the husband of Council Member Pam Wetherbee, opposed the plans. One person favored the project. Thirteen more (eight for, five against) submitted written comments.

In the letter from Palmer, the Healeys asked the council members, if they decide to prohibit self-storage and drive-thrus, to exempt their project because it had been proposed beforehand.

Rose Hill Manor

The owner of Rose Hill Manor Day School, a preschool located for 40 years at 1064 Wolcott Ave., has proposed redeveloping the site as a three-story, 41-room hotel with a gym, spa and 56-seat restaurant.

The hotel would be open year-round with the spa open Tuesday through Sunday. The restaurant ...

Survey highlights mental health challenges

Beacon firefighter David Brewer has performed CPR on five people he knew, including a friend who collapsed on Labor Day weekend in 2023 and died despite his efforts.

Then there are the other stressors: being away from his family for 24-hour shifts, the rush of adrenaline when an alarm sounds and the anxious efforts to extinguish a fire. A panic attack hospitalized him on Christmas Eve a few years ago, said Brewer.

"Your bucket just gets filled up and filled up and filled up until, eventually, it overflows," said Brewer.

That is the situation for many first responders, according to an inaugural statewide survey of 6,000 emergency personnel, including 900 from the Mid-Hudson region, that asked about their mental health. Released on Feb. 5, the report is a collaboration between the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, the Institute for Disaster Mental Health and the Benjamin Center for Public Policy Initiatives at SUNY New Paltz.

Of the police officers, firefighters, paramedics, emergency dispatchers and emergency managers surveyed, 94 percent cited stress as a challenge and nine out of 10 mentioned burnout and anxiety. A majority also reported stress from traumatic events such as shootings and accidents (56 percent) and suffering symptoms of depression (53 percent). Another 40 percent experienced symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and 16 percent thought of suicide.

Being exposed to constant trauma "can destroy relationships, it can destroy families, it can destroy that person," said Aaron Leonard, a lieutenant with the Cold Spring Fire Co. and the newly appointed CEO of Guardian Revival, a Beacon organization that provides services for veterans and first responders, including peer counseling.

"I have had my own experiences of sitting at my house having dinner, and then five minutes later, I'm doing CPR, the person passes away and you just go back home," he said. "Where do you unpack that experience?"

The list of barriers that prevent first responders from getting help is long, with about 80 percent citing the stigmas surrounding mental health and concerns that colleagues will deem them unreliable. Others worried that seeking help would impact their career or cause supervisors to treat them differently (74 percent), or lead to losing their firearms license (68 percent).

"It used to be, push that stuff down," said Brewer, whose 43-year firefighting career includes 25 years as a volunteer. "You were a lesser firefighter if you talked about that."

Brewer was "circling the drain" before a 45-minute phone call with a peer counselor at Guardian Revival helped him understand that he did everything possible to save his friend.

He has also attended a Guardian Revival workshop where veterans and first responders congregate around a campfire to talk about stressors. "Sometimes you go, 'Wow, I'm not alone,'" said Brewer. "Sometimes you go, 'I'm not that messed up.' "

In addition to peer counseling, survey respondents expressed interest in training on topics such as managing stress and coping with anxiety or depression. Their wish list of solutions includes access to gym memberships or in-house equipment, like the weight room at Beacon's new firehouse, and paid time for mental health care.

Guardian Revival has memorandums of understanding to assist 25 fire departments in Dutchess and Putnam counties with wellness programs, said Leonard. The Cold Spring Fire Co. launched its program on Monday (Feb. 10) with a yoga class for firefighters and their families.

Shari Alexander, a Cold Spring firefighter, coordinates the program with Leonard's wife, Leslie, who teaches the yoga class. Alexander said two personal trainers have volunteered to lead strength training, she will lead a class on breathing techniques and there will be a pushup challenge and sessions on topics such as healthy eating.

"Calls can be difficult and emotional and taxing," she said. "Part of it is preven...

Cost, range, garage space present huge challenges

Is the transition to electric school buses too expensive and too complicated?

That's the question being asked by legislators and educators in the Highlands as New York's mandated, seven-year transition to a zero-emission fleet begins in 2027.

Electric school buses can cost $400,000 or more, three times the cost of a diesel bus. And there are concerns about range, electrical capacity and the need for larger garages to accommodate the buses and chargers.

So far, the Beacon, Haldane and Garrison districts do not have any electric buses, although Garrison has two hybrid vans. Haldane is seeking grants to buy four electric buses and Beacon voters have approved the purchase of two.

Statewide, only about 100 of 45,000 buses are electric, although about 1,000 have been approved or ordered, according to Adam Ruder, director of clean transportation for the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). At the same time, residents in a handful of districts, including Hyde Park, have voted against electric bus purchases, even with state grants cutting the cost.

State Sen. Rob Rolison, a Republican whose district includes the Highlands, said he supports the transition to zero-emission buses. But he said the state needs to "listen to the school superintendents, school boards and taxpayers who are saying, 'Can we just slow down? Let's get it done. But the time frame is unrealistic.'"

The New York State Educational Conference Board, a coalition of groups that represent superintendents, PTAs, school boards, teachers, business officials and administrators, has raised concerns. Last month, the board published a paper stating that the mandate "will force districts to reduce educational opportunities for students, increase taxes and spend exorbitant sums, and cause voter unrest."

It proposed changes that include giving districts more money toward the estimated $15 billion in costs; allowing hybrid and low-emission buses; certifying range estimates from manufacturers; better access to funding by third-party transportation providers; and special utility rate structures for districts.

Assembly Member Dana Levenberg, a Democrat whose district includes Philipstown, said it's too soon to start "kicking the can down the road" by pushing back the zero-emission bus mandate. "We need to continue to work toward the goal. If we can't reach the goal, we can extend the deadline." She said she is not aware of any plans to add funding for electric buses to the 2025 state budget.

Jonathan Jacobson, a Democratic member of the Assembly whose district includes Beacon, said the conversion to electric buses "has presented more challenges than anticipated" including rising fleet costs, a lack of charging stations and electrical capacity and that "the buses would be too heavy for many of the small bridges in suburban and rural districts." But he said he was optimistic legislators and state agencies could find "affordable solutions."

At NYSERDA, Ruder said districts should get started, regardless. "We've been encouraging districts to buy one or two, kick the tires and get a sense of how they perform," he said, adding that 75 percent of districts have the electrical capacity to charge at least 10 buses.

Haldane, with a fleet of 15 buses and six vans, is trying to piece together financing to buy four electric buses, at a cost of $375,000 each, said Carl Albano, the interim superintendent. Albano said grants would cover all but about $50,000 of the cost if the district is approved for funding for each bus from the state ($147,000) and the federal Environmental Protection Agency ($170,000). Whether the EPA grant will be allowed to go forward under the Trump administration is unclear.

"Being patient and measured is the way to go," Albano said. "Teaching and learning should be the priorities, along with safe buildings. Protecting the environment is a high priority, but I don't think it should come at the...

Today he's releasing her music online.

Rochelle Gambino, who lived in Cold Spring for nearly a decade and owned a dog grooming business on Main Street, died suddenly, apparently of heart failure, in 2007 at age 44. A singer and guitarist, she left behind a trove of analog recordings and ephemera.

Today (Feb. 14), after working with a sound studio in the city, her son A.J. Vitiello is releasing 20 songs recorded by his mother in a compilation called For Romantics Only.

"She lived in the pre-streaming era, so I had to get this project done before the tapes break," says Vitiello, 25, a travel writer. "Deciding what to release took a long time, and I had to kill some darlings. A good song could be ruined by a scratchy recording or be so '80s that it sounds stale."

The process of sifting through hundreds of songs and transcribing lyrics brought him closer to a woman who died when he was 7. Gambino also left behind diaries, letters and photos. "This project is almost an attempt to reconstruct her persona," he says. "It's as if she's using me as a vessel to get her music out there."

He adds: "People used to ask, 'When are you going to pick up the guitar?' That's not my thing - the talent didn't transfer. But I do long for a time when rock 'n' roll was the only thing that mattered."

After Vitiello's parents separated, he lived with his mother in Nelsonville before moving to Connecticut with his father. Sometimes, he travels from Brooklyn to spruce up her gravesite at Cold Spring Cemetery.

One vivid memory is a visit she made to his kindergarten class at Haldane Elementary. "She wrote a song for every student using their names," he says. "She was known for sheer kindness and being bubbly. My mom had a lot of devoted fans in the Hudson Valley and played shows all the time."

Gambino, who grew up in Croton-on-Hudson, received a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in Boston. She dropped out and moved to Nashville but returned to New York, where she told a newspaper reporter: "I'm not some piece of plastic to be molded and make somebody else rich."

Gambino met Vitiello's father at one of her Black Jacket Band shows and the couple settled in Cold Spring. At their Dockside Park wedding, she strapped a black electric guitar over her white dress and wailed away.

Her music ranges from acoustic ballads to hard rock and includes a few religious songs. Toward the end of her life, she spent more time at Our Lady of Loretto on Fair Street, says Vitiello.

"She could shred on guitar and also compose on piano," he says. "She had vocal chords of steel. I still remember her fingernails being cracked and mutilated, as if she'd been to war. I still find [guitar] picks in her stuff."

Gambino chafed at comparisons to Janis Joplin. After she died, a close friend held tributes in Croton that raised money for music students.

The melancholy breakup song "Cold Spring" tells of "too much fighting / too many angry lies." The chorus refrains: "I didn't know what you meant to me / That night in Cold Spring / Where we fought to save our dreams / It was a dream we had when young / As the Hudson River runs / That night in Cold Spring."

For Romantics Only is available at Spotify (dub.sh/gambino-spotify) and YouTube (dub.sh/for-romantic).

As many critics and moviegoers gush over the new Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, Greg Linksman shrugs. He has already dived deep into the music and background of one of his heroes but saw the film on a lark.

"I've read all the books and watched the concert footage and documentaries, so there's no real need to see a re-creation of a scene that I've already seen in its original form," he says.

Due to thirsty ears and a curious mind, he has accumulated at least a degree's worth of facts and knowledge about popular music, especially from the 1950s to the 1970s.

"I get excited listening to Motown when you know 30 seconds in that you're getting a hooky chorus in a perfectly crafted song, or knowing that Paul Simon will have amazing arrangements," he says. "But I also appreciate Buddy Holly and that punk rock thing with two chords."

Linksman, 36, hails from Westchester County. He knew Beacon because an aunt lived in the city. He started coming up more often in the 2010s to take breaks from Brooklyn and fell in with the Dogwood music crew. Then he met Kyra Auffermann, got engaged and relocated last year.

Over the years, he's performed semi-monthly pop-up shows at local bars and joined DIY events like a five-band event at the VFW Hall in December.

On Friday (Feb. 21), his group, Mickey Green's Off-Track, will play at Industrial Arts Brewing Co. For New Yorkers of a certain age, a word is missing from the name and indeed, his grandfather, Mickey Green, frequented the Off-Track Betting parlors that once dotted neighborhoods across New York City and showed horse races via closed-circuit analog television feeds.

Onstage, Linksman wears a shamrock-green cap knitted by his great-grandmother. "It's always been my color," he says.

Linksman is still perfecting his sound and says he has yet to record anything serious, so he works out arrangements and approaches during his laidback solo gigs. On guitar, he delivers a full sound with hybrid picking, where his thumb and forefinger squeeze a triangular flat pick to play the low end and the other three fingers pluck out higher notes.

The technique is associated with country guitarists (who call it "chicken picking") and helps fatten up Linksman's feel-good pop tunes. In general, verses are simple and well-placed minor chords color the mood, taking songs in different directions.

During "What Cha Gonna Do About It?", the opening number at an informal Tuesday gig on Feb. 4 at Draught Industries on Main Street, he launched into a lush solo based on the tune's main riff and ended the song by holding a bell-like falsetto note for what seemed like a minute.

In the second set, he reeled off the iconic opening riff of AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" as a finger exercise. "I do it just to warm up my hands; it's a parlor trick that's more flashy than difficult."

Tuesday nights are typically slow in Beacon, especially in the winter. "It's a relaxed atmosphere; I can try out some new things," he says. "If you're doing what you love and you have to do it, you can feel the support in this town even if only nine people show up."

Industrial Arts Brewing Co. is located at 511 Fishkill Ave. in Beacon. The Feb. 21 show, which begins at 8 p.m., also will include performances by Barnaby! and the Vibeke Saugestad Band.

Rik Mercaldi acquired his main electric guitar at age 15 and has been mastering its intricacies ever since. Give him a country song, a three-chord vamp or a funky bass line and he will execute an impressive solo with impeccable tone.

Playing with Last Minute Soulmates at the Towne Crier Cafe in Beacon on Feb. 7, he balanced feeling with technique and made his wah wah effect pedal cry like a baby as he sang along.

"People tell me that I sing, but it's not conscious and I guess I can't help it," he says. "I wasn't trying to draw undue attention, but sometimes the adrenaline kicks in when you're playing live, and you lose yourself."

Though he can rip out ferocious licks up and down the neck, Mercaldi only unleashes the beast at the proper time.

"That's the goal of a sideman, to make everything sound better," he says. "It's not about showboating."

Delivering tasteful lead guitar parts in an original pop/rock band is one skill, but over the years he has performed a wide range of styles, including the Cosmokaze project, which performs at 8 p.m. on Feb. 20 and every third Thursday at Quinn's.

The sound is as far out as the name because, unlike the more pat blues and rock that first forged Mercaldi's sound and style, this instrumental trio improvises for 45 minutes to an hour at a time, like one long jazz solo.

Drummer Todd Guidice produced and engineered the group's two albums at Roots Cellar Studio in Philipstown.

Regarding the band's name, which sounds like an exotic cocktail, "we were kicking stuff around with the general feeling of trippy, spacey, astral and the word cosmic came up and Josh [Enslen on bass] blurted it out," he says. "It's a cosmic kamikaze if that makes any sense."

Instead of crashing and burning, the music soars like a Grateful Dead space jam, sometimes gelling into a steady chord pattern and then fading into an ambient wash of sound or a low frequency rumble. Solos can break out at any time.

"It's not a jam band, we're doing spontaneous composition," he says. "We're like a jazz group with rock instruments."

No two performances are alike, but they can incorporate "a riff or chordal thing we've used before, which works well as a springboard."

There is plenty of musicality for listeners to latch onto a groove, or pocket, as segments lurch along then morph into a pattern with a strong backbeat.

Exotic sounds augment the mix, including two twangy lap steel guitars, a digital sitar effect and found backgrounds, like snippets from old films and answering machines. An electromagnetic EBow device transforms the guitar's timbre into an otherworldly, high-pitched buzz with sustain for forever.

Mercaldi moved to Beacon in 2016 from Hastings-on-Hudson, his first suburban stop. Visiting Dogwood (now Cooper's) sealed the deal.

Cosmokaze is a 180-degree departure from Last Minute Soulmates and The Subterraneans, which gigged all over the city and New Jersey during the 1990s. They're still around, putting together a concept album.

The Jersey native also spent five years playing mandolin and other acoustic instruments with Yonkers-based Spuyten Duyvil, which made a name in folk music circles touring the country and performing at big festivals before disbanding in 2018.

"I need to scratch every musical itch," he says. "I love [Cosmokaze's] creative freedom and relaxed pace; I don't need to be out there wanking a solo all the time. At home, this is something I would be noodling with, so now I'm just doing that in front of an audience."

Quinn's is located at 330 Main St. in Beacon. Mercaldi also will play a solo set at the Towne Crier Café on Feb. 22. See cosmokaze.bandcamp.com.

Beacon committee's plan would prohibit self-storage, drive-thrus

The Beacon City Council is expected on Monday (Feb. 10) to begin its review of a draft law that, if approved, would ban new self-storage facilities and businesses with drive-thrus on Fishkill Avenue (Route 52).

The proposal is part of a first batch of recommendations for the busy thoroughfare generated by the Fishkill Avenue Concepts Committee, a citizen workgroup assembled by Mayor Lee Kyriacou a year ago. The council in November asked the group to present "quick fixes" while the committee works on more detailed recommendations for the mile-long stretch from Blackburn Avenue to the Town of Fishkill line near the Industrial Arts Brewing Co.

The City Council will likely fine-tune the draft on Monday before scheduling a public hearing and sending the proposal to the Dutchess County and Beacon planning boards for review.

Existing businesses in the corridor would be exempted. There are no drive-thrus on Fishkill Avenue, but the Planning Board will hold a public hearing the following night (Feb. 11) on a proposal to convert 420-430 Fishkill Ave., the former site of the Healey Brothers Ford dealership, to a Dunkin' coffeehouse with a drive-thru. The building also would have other commercial space and three apartments.

If the Planning Board approves the Dunkin' proposal, it would be regulated by whatever zoning is in place when a foundation is poured and "something substantial has come out of the ground," City Attorney Nick Ward-Willis told the council during its workshop on Jan. 27.

During that meeting, J.C. Calderon, who chairs the Fishkill Avenue committee, introduced four recommendations, although the law being discussed Feb. 10 will only include the first two:

1. Prohibit self-storage facilities, which provide minimal employment and do not contribute to "vibrant corridors."

2. Prohibit drive-thrus, which are inconsistent with the committee's "pedestrian-scale vision."

3. Reduce the minimum front-yard setback for new development in the corridor from 15 feet to 10 feet, and require parking spaces to be located behind, underneath or to the side of a building. If to the side, parking should be screened by a low wall or landscaping.

4. Prohibit gas stations, car washes, vehicle sales or rental lots and auto-repair shops, while allowing existing auto-related uses in the corridor to remain as non-conformities.

The committee is expected to make other recommendations that could include the creation of a Fishkill Avenue zoning district. Calderon noted that the interim suggestions, particularly No. 4, were not unanimous among the nine committee members, although he suggested some of that could be attributed to a misunderstanding about existing businesses being exempt.

Natalie Quinn, the city's planning consultant, told the council: "There's a thought that these [gas stations, car washes, car dealers and auto-repair shops] are viable business options that provide services to members of the community, and they have to be located somewhere, and this may be one of the last corridors in the city that allows some of these uses." She said, in some cases, the opposition could be boiled down to: "Many people own a car that needs repair at some point."

Beacon Planning Board members have also expressed concern with the fourth recommendation, Quinn said, because auto-related ventures are "what the market is currently providing" for available lots on Fishkill Avenue.

Pam Wetherbee, who represents Ward 3, which includes the corridor, said she favors banning drive-thrus because of the emissions and traffic they create. "We're going to have a rail trail," she said, referring to Dutchess County's study of a dormant line along Fishkill Creek, "and to have emissions happening right where people are walking in nature seems to go against itself."

But she and Kyriacou each said they would move deliberately on No. 4 because much of the corridor is autocentric. "I don't want to be in the situati...

Community kitchen closes, but free meals continue

After the Beacon Community Kitchen closed last month, volunteers launched two free meal programs to feed residents who might go without.

A week ago, on Jan. 31, more than 100 people were fed at the inaugural weekly dinner at the First Presbyterian Church provided by volunteers from Fareground, an anti-hunger nonprofit founded in 2012. Two weeks ago, a newly created nonprofit, Beacon's Backyard, began serving breakfasts on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at The Yard.

Both projects were in the early planning stages before the closing of the Beacon Community Kitchen, which had been serving weekday lunches at Tabernacle of Christ Church since 2015 under the direction of Candi Rivera and other volunteers.

About the same time Beacon Community Kitchen closed, a meal program at First Presbyterian Church also stopped. In both cases, longtime coordinators retired or relocated.

"This wasn't the original plan," said Justice McCray, a former Beacon City Council member who helped organize Beacon's Backyard in December with plans for spring programming. "We pivoted."

Jamie Levato, the executive director at Fareground, said the sudden change feels like "a generational shift."

Fareground's Welcome Table and Beacon's Backyard Kitchen are carrying on a local tradition of feeding the hungry at a moment's notice. It took Beacon Community Kitchen less than a week to go from conception to opening in 2015 when the Salvation Army's kitchen closed unexpectedly. In March 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, Beacon Mutual Aid was operating within 24 hours. Volunteers were never in short supply.

"We have a lot of people who are ready and willing to step up," said McCray. "They're just waiting for the Bat-Signal."

Special Reports

Hunger in the Highlands (2021)

Hunger in the Highlands Update (2024)

The Fareground dinner began after a volunteer who also helped at First Presbyterian noted the church has a commercial kitchen. "It was perfect timing because that's what we needed to make it happen," said Levato. (Fareground moved into a space just outside Beacon last year that has a commercial kitchen, but it needs major upgrades.)

The First Presbyterian kitchen needed a few minor fixes to pass inspection by the county health department, so Meyer's Olde Dutch Beacon donated pasta, meatballs, salad and bread for the Jan. 31 meal. Diners lingered and caught up with friends while music played and children colored.

The welcoming atmosphere is as integral to the program as the food, Levato said. "We want people to have access to fresh, healthy food because food is a human right," she said. "We also want people to engage with each other. There's a lot of issues that arise from people feeling lonely and a lack of connection.

"If you see somebody once a week, you can notice that something might be wrong. Maybe they need a ride to the doctor, or maybe they have some amazing news that they want to share with someone. If you can have those connections, you can build a network of support and community care."

"It's mutual aid," said Jason Hughes, a volunteer with Beacon's Backyard Kitchen, on Tuesday (Feb. 4) before breakfast was served at The Yard. "We're not feeding them - we're feeding us."

Altrude Lewis Thorpe

Beatrice Clay

Brian Arnoff

Chef Zeke

Jeff Silverstein

Rhys Bethke

The Yard has a commercial kitchen inside a trailer. Professional chefs and enthusiastic amateurs spent the early morning preparing shakshuka, potato hash, bacon, toast and fruit salad, while volunteers laid out muffins and cereal. As the dining room filled, the kitchen staff made and packaged a dozen sandwiches to hand out for lunch.

McCray said Beacon's Backyard Kitchen decided to serve breakfast because many working people couldn't attend the Beacon Community Kitchen lunches. "With a dine-in and takeout option, people don't have to go to work hungry," McCray said. "We know there's been a lot of success with the Beacon schools' ...

Dutchess County has slowest growth

A New York report released last month found that the number of people without long-term housing nearly doubled between 2022 and 2024, although Dutchess County had the lowest growth rate in the state, at 11 percent.

The report, compiled by the state Comptroller's Office, found that, from January 2022 to January 2024, New York's homeless population grew by 50 percent, compared to 20 percent in the rest of the country.

It relied on a census conducted annually by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development that estimated about 770,000 people in the U.S. were homeless in 2024, including 140,000 in New York City and 18,000 in the rest of the state. Only Hawaii and Washington, D.C., had higher rates per capita.

The homeless population in Dutchess County grew to an estimated 705 residents. Putnam County was not broken out, but Westchester County had a 19 percent increase, to 1,611. The statewide increase was 113 percent, although nearly all of that growth was in New York City, the report said, citing an influx of asylum seekers, the end of a pandemic freeze on evictions, a lack of affordable housing and rising rents.

In a news release on Jan. 30, Dutchess County cited its "proactive approach to addressing homelessness" for its state-low growth, including street outreach, case management and two licensed social workers hired in December.

How to Get Help

Dutchess County residents who need housing or a warming center can call the Department of Community & Family Services at 845-486-3300 during business hours or call 211 or law enforcement.

Putnam County residents who need emergency housing can call the Department of Social Services & Mental Health at 845-808-1500, ext. 45233, during business hours.

The state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance at 800-342-3009 or dub.sh/NY-help can provide guidance for emergency benefits.

Last summer, the county Department of Community & Family Services took over operations of a Poughkeepsie shelter, known as PODS, where an eight-person team works with each resident to develop "individualized independent living plans" and provide mental health support and crisis intervention. The shelter population dropped by 33 percent from 2023 to 2024, the county said.

According to the federal data, the number of families without long-term housing in New York state tripled between 2022 and 2024, to 96,000, accounting for about 60 percent of the population. More than half of state residents without long-term housing are Black or Hispanic, and an estimated 10 percent suffer from severe mental illness or chronic substance abuse.

To its credit, New York state has the lowest rate of unsheltered homeless in the country (3.6 percent of all homeless, versus 44 percent nationally), the lowest rate of homeless seniors (2.5 percent) and the lowest rate of chronically homeless (3.6 percent).

The state has 128,000 emergency beds (compared to 76,000 in California), 95 percent of which are in shelters, according to the report. The remaining 5 percent consists of "rapid re-housing" for moving people to permanent homes, "safe havens" for people with severe mental illness and "transitional housing" with support for up to 24 months.

Show features paintings by 'archaeo-nerd'

Greg Slick's studio in Newburgh is an interesting place. With a treetop view of brick apartments and Victorian-era homes, the former carriage repair shop dates to the 1870s.

A pulley system with a 4-foot-diameter gear, a larger flywheel and steel rope wound around a cylinder peeks over a wall in the modest space. "I am inspired by that," says Slick, a New Jersey native who has lived in Beacon since 2003.

Two umbrella lights, typically used for photo shoots, flank his desk. Slick is "partially sighted," he says. "With a little help, the brain is remarkably good at adapting to challenging conditions."

Slick crafts what he calls "weird little" sculptures, but his current approach is painting with acrylic on wood, a technique informed by an obsession with the late Neolithic era about 5,500 years ago, when humans settled into farming.

Evidence of his armchair archaeological studies is reflected in Depth Perception, a solo show at the Garrison Art Center that opens Saturday (Feb. 8). In the adjoining gallery, a group exhibit, Home is Where the Heart Is, features work by Amy Cheng, Erik Schoonebeck and Zac Skinner, who lives in Beacon.

Though Stonehenge is the most famous monument, Neolithic societies arranged rocks and created elaborate structures with significant care and skill at thousands of sites across Europe and elsewhere.

Slick considers himself an "archaeo-nerd." In his studio, he flips through The Old Stones: A Field Guide to the Megalithic Sites of Britain and Ireland, a thick, illustrated listing of more than 1,000 places. Two copies of The Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, an academic journal published by Cambridge University Press, sit on another table.

"I joined the society so I could get the journal," says Slick, who has visited several ancient architectural constructs and is the chief docent at the Magazzino Italian Art museum in Philipstown.

The new show's title is apt because Slick's striated series has evolved to feature what resembles layers of rocks beneath the Earth's surface. Early iterations consist of piles of abstract stones (or scoops of ice cream).

"Bocan"

"Guadalperal"

"Sueño Oscuro"

"Vertical Time 2"

"Shadow Field"

"Sueño Oscuro"

The work developed into what he calls "stratigraphic, research-based" pictures with three layers separated by a stone-like wash created by dragging and dabbing a brush roller across the surface with his hands.

Up close and from the side, the works look like collages, with textured surfaces. Covering a stone with grids or a chevron breaks up the colors and evokes shamanistic and hallucinogenic rituals from prehistoric times, he says.

Some of the featured shapes are textured and scratched, while others are rendered with flat surfaces and brighter colors, like red and blue. At the bottom, a layer of what seems like dark yellow goo suggests magma.

"If you dig down far enough in the Earth, you'll find a wall, a pot, a skull," Slick says. "All this materiality connects us to the past. It's the history underneath our feet and a bridge to 5,000 years ago."

The Garrison Art Center is located at 23 Garrison's Landing. The exhibits open with a reception from 3 to 5 p.m. on Feb. 8 and continue through March 9. An artist's talk is scheduled for March 1. For more of Slick's artwork, see gregslick.com.