You know Covid-19, aka the coronavirus, is serious when authorities in Italy cancel top level soccer matches. (If you have season tickets for the New York Mets or have booked a flight for the Tokyo Olympics, you might look into force majeure.) In South Korea, cases have grown exponentially over the past few days,… Read More
Category Archives: Business
Season of Soap
My family is long past the mega gifting holiday scenario, so I decided to buy soap for everyone this year. Conveniently, my local soap shop, SallyeAnder, at 1 East Main Street in Beacon, is a couple hundred yards from my back door. My son Mack and I headed over the Sunday before Christmas and spent… Read More
New Farm Market Pop-up on Main Street
Common Ground Farm, which this season took over running the Beacon Farmers Market currently located at the ferry dock across from the train station down at the riverfront, has recently opened a pop-up stand on Main Street next to Hudson Beach Glass. The farm’s mission is to provide food access and education to the entire… Read More
Beacon Sign Policy Makes No Sense
The Beacon Farmers Market, currently held every Sunday down at the waterfront near the ferry dock, is allowed to put signage up on city property advertising its existence. The Beacon Flea Market, held every Sunday in the parking lot on Henry Street, directly behind the Mobil gas station, is not allowed any signage other than… Read More
Beacon Housing Boom Will Bust
This is the hottest I’ve ever seen it. It’s like a snowball; everybody wants to go to Beacon.” Beacon building inspector Tim Dexter In our last post at the end of November, we took a quick look at the rash of building projects and infrastructure repairs under way in Beacon, with the idea of taking… Read More
Beacon Under Construction: A New Dawn?
Everyone from developers to highway crews to homeowners has been taking advantage of an unseasonably warm November, working away like busy beavers before the snows and frigid temperatures force them into hibernation for the winter. Let the Unit Count Begin Much has been made of the number of “units” in various stages of planning around… Read More
Hudson Valley Brewery Live Tonight On Wigwam Radio
Our guests this evening on Wigwam Radio, streaming live at 8pm from The Ground, Beacon’s homegrown radio project, will be John-Anthony Gargiulo, president of Hudson Valley Brewery, and Justin Riccobono, farm director of Dutchess Hops. We’ll be chatting with them about the new brewery being created on the east end of Beacon, and how it… Read More
Local Turnip Greens
From Beacon’s Farmers Market
The last of the trailing hurricane rains left the Hudson Valley on Saturday, and Sunday dawned a classic, sunny October morning. After a quick stop to see what was happening at the Beacon Flea Market, (open Sundays through November 15) my companion and I headed to the Beacon ferry dock to the farmer’s market. Our… Read More
248 Tioranda in Contract For $10 Million
After receiving a 90-day extension of its subdivision approval at the July planning board meeting, Beacon 248 Development, LLC is in contract with a Westchester developer to sell the property, site of the old Tuck Tape factory for a rumored 10 million dollars.* It was demolished in 2005 after a suspicious fire, despite assurances from… Read More
Beacon Theater To Be Sold Friday
Beacon commercial real estate continues to change hands, with the latest deal being the sale of The Beacon Theater. The property is currently “owned” by 4th Wall Productions theater company, with the mortgage held by Manhattan real estate speculator William Erlich, a hoarder of properties and a doer of nothing. The buyer is Robert… Read More
Beacon and the Tourism Trap
I’ve lived in this city since it was an industrial community, and that was our economic engine. Today, our economic engine is tourism. ” Beacon mayor Randy Casale, April 2015 Last night was Second Saturday and one imagines it was exactly what a successful Second Saturday was envisioned to look like when the monthly… Read More
Bowling Over for Beacon and Fishkill
For the first time in 63 years, the bang and rumble of bowling balls spinning down the boards and the knock and clatter of pins scattering into the pit can no longer be heard at 629 Route 52, as Southern Dutchess Bowl set its final rack on May 31. The property was purchased by… Read More
Compost Culture
If you are worried about the state of the world but keep telling yourself there is nothing you can do, that’s just not true. A very useful thing to do would be to click on over to Zero to Go’s fundraising campaign to help jumpstart a composting operation in Beacon. Zero to Go is an… Read More
Gas Station Set to Expand
Despite Nonconforming Use
City regulations specifically prohibit enlargement of structures containing nonconforming uses, but the Xtrafuel gas station at Main Street and Fishkill Avenue is expanding nevertheless. The site plan is still up for public discussion. However, the building inspector has interpreted the zoning in a way that would allow the owners to add an additional 200… Read More
Beacon Outlaws Gas Stations
on Main Street
Over at Beacon Citizen, a Wigwam reader has become incensed over the leaking underground storage tanks at Main and Fishkill. This is as predicted in one of the previous posts about the LUST (Leaking Underground Storage Tanks): “Some of us might even get upset or angry over this egregious fouling of the environment. How could… Read More
Fuel Gas Leak on Main Street
The redecorating job at Xtrafuel on Main Street and Fishkill Avenue has hit a slight snag. The job entailed removal and replacement of the gas storage tanks buried underground. Workers expected four tanks, and were surprised to find several more. Unfortunately, these older, non-operational tanks had never been emptied, and have apparently been leaking gas.… Read More
Drink More Sets Soft Opening For Saturday
While the back room operations involving the commercial kitchen have been humming along since last year, the much-anticipated opening of Drink More Good’s retail space next to the Town Crier is set for this Saturday, February 12, with the official grand opening set for March 14. The shelves are already stocked with bitters, bar accoutrements,… Read More
Beer Grants, Jobs, Lumbersexuals & LegoLand
I was sitting in Yummy Taco on 17k in Newburgh last December having lunch with a friend. We met a dozen years ago, when he was running a small eatery on Main Street in Beacon and I ran a second-hand furniture place next door. As we sampled what he called the fusion menu—the place was… Read More
The Beacon Project
This is the latest update on the status of the former Beacon women’s correctional facility, located just beyond our city’s high school grounds. On Wednesday, December 17th, a number of interested parties toured the site and all the buildings. For almost a year, a group of citizens affiliated with various community organizations, currently known as… Read More
Barb’s Butchery Back on Track
After a number of what can go wrong will go wrong scenarios, including a sewer line break, Barbara Fisher is hesitant to give an opening date for her butcher shop at 69 Spring Street. Initially preparing for an August opening, she is now keeping her fingers crossed and looking at some time in late… Read More
Tune in and Get Grounded With Beacon Radio
Wigwam will go back to regular posting this Monday. Meanwhile, an exciting update from the folks at The Ground, Beacon’s Internet radio project. A Little About The Ground The Ground is an internet based community radio project in Beacon, NY. Giving voice to under-examined ideas, thoughts and action through music, art and conversation. The Ground… Read More
Latest Public Hearing on Airbnb Well Attended
After perculating along for months with seemingly little interest from the public, the issue of Airbnb rentals in the City of Beacon has finally come to a bit of a boil. Although it wasn’t a complete sellout crowd at last night’s city council meeting, the so-called tourist home ordinance was the feature event of the… Read More
A Sailing Opportunity
The Vermont Sail Project is alive and well, and looking for two sailors. Harvest Sailing Ceres and her crew completed a second voyage down the Hudson earlier this summer, stopping in Mechanicville, Waterford, Troy, Clearwater’s Great Hudson River Revival in Croton-on-Hudson, and Nyack, among other ports. Now we’re looking ahead to next weekend’s Tugboat Roundup… Read More
Awnings & Bikes, Mid-Summer Weeds & Beer
The city council workshop was Monday and it’s now Friday, and I’ve been trying to write the best ever blog post about awnings, and coming up short. And now I find out someone has already done a the best ever blog post about awnings! Bummer. Yes, it was another scintillating workshop session devoted in… Read More