I’ve already seen one headline, “Love in the Time of COVID-19.” It just doesn’t have the flow of Love in the Time of Cholera, the 1985 novel by Gabriel García Márquez. (Nor is it as exotic as Spanish Influenza.) But don’t expect that to stop reporters, bloggers, and other writers from using the formulation, in… Read More
Category Archives: History
Plagues and Economies
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
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
Requiem For a Beacon Mill
After 202 years, one of the oldest standing mills in Dutchess County, built in 1814 at the corner of Main and East Main on the Fishkill Creek, is being demolished with little fanfare over the course of a beautiful week in April, 2016. I just hope someone is planning to save a few bits… Read More
Beacon’s Historic Tioronda Bridge Lost To Neglect
Monday’s City of Beacon council meeting may have been the death knell for one of Beacon’s historic treasures. Just before the vote for consideration of a resolution to authorize submission of a funding application for the planning of the new South Avenue Bridge, council member Charles Kelly asked about the old bridge’s trusses, which… Read More
Memorial Day 1958: Digger Phelps
Beacon native Digger Phelps retired last month from his 20-year reign as an analyst for ESPN college basketball. Previous to that he was basketball coach at Notre Dame for 20 years, beginning at the age of 29. The street next to the town clock on the west end is named for him. The May… Read More