2014: how the New York Times reports the Hudson Valley

Cultivating Hudson: Enter the Tastemakers

“Ann Marie Gardner has a buzzword for the ‘urban-rural confluence’ she sees fueling this town’s most recent boomlet as a cultural hub. ‘Rurbanism,’ as she describes it, is when urban expats bring their cultural touchstones and appetites with them when they move to a place like Hudson.”

Maintainer of City Watershed Fatally Shot, Officials Say

“Wielding a handgun, an electrician for New York City’s mammoth reservoir system, managed by the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, shot and killed another agency worker, a watershed maintainer, in the agency’s offices in downtown Kingston, N.Y., law enforcement officials said.”

What You Get for… $1,500,000

“This 1969 house is on nearly nine acres off a winding country road in the Catskills of upstate New York. (Its road — Byrdcliffe — shares a name with an artist’s colony and guild operating in the area since 1902.)”

Restoration Rings From the Rafters of the Hudson Opera House

“The building opened in 1855 as the city hall and long served in that purpose. But it was also used for theater performances, and the Hudson Opera House name was adopted about 1880.”

Plan B: Open a Country Hotel in Upstate New York

“The four owners of the Graham & Co., a motel in Phoenicia, N.Y., live in Brooklyn and have full-time jobs in the design field; the motel was a vehicle to express their overlapping aesthetics and create a brand (it has its own signature scent and ‘Catskills vs. Hamptons’ T-shirts).”

Beacon, N.Y.: Quaint City Rediscovered

“When Dia bought the building in the ‘90s, said Timothy Dexter, the city’s building inspector, ‘nobody wanted the Beacon school district.’ The improvement in fortunes since then — a result of a ‘long, long transition,’ he said — is also a result of luck: ‘Dia found us; we didn’t find them.'”

Life Sentences for 2 Sex Traffickers Who Preyed on Mexican Immigrants

“Government filings show that brothels were operated at 350 First Street in Newburgh, N.Y.; in a second-floor apartment at 613 Seneca Avenue in Queens; on the second floor of a two-story yellow house at 20 Rose Street in Poughkeepsie; and in an apartment at 121 Elm Street in Yonkers.”

All You Need Is Love and $189 a Night

“For those who want to relive the Age of Aquarius, there is the Hotel Dylan, which opened last month in Woodstock, N.Y.”

The Trial Ends, the Doubts Linger

“This disturbing film, by Kate Davis and David Heilbroner, traces the origins of the case, which came out of Newburgh, N.Y., a hard-luck town about 60 miles north of New York City.”

A Three-Sibling Rivalry Extends to the Pro Ranks

“Jeff Seager, an information technology manager at a bank, grew up in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and played second base well enough to attract scouts’ attention. He told them he was college-bound, though, and played third base for Fairleigh Dickinson.”

A Two-Ring Circus

“With its acreage, its water feature (a mucky pond, complete with turtles) and its location along a bus line so city friends can visit, the house checked off several things on the couple’s wish list.”

Dreamed-Of Music, Undreamed-Of Spaces

“Recently, I’ve taken note of a third camp, more site-specific and curatorial than either of the others. Basilica Soundscape, in a former factory in Hudson, N.Y., fits the bill.”

Manhattan’s Savor Spa Heads North to Woodstock

“So naturally, the next step for Kim’s business was to spin off a second location upstate.”

Commercial Real Estate: Daria P. Salusbury

“But I have a country house in Millbrook, N.Y., in Dutchess County, and I go up almost every weekend and I ride there.”

Preserving the Lighthouse, Not Just the Light

“Esopus Meadows is one of a number of New York-area lighthouses that sat abandoned for decades, though they continued to function as navigation aids.”

Immersive Sound Fills a Factory

“Basilica Soundscape, a two-day festival of sound, sight and taste in Hudson, N.Y., on Friday and Saturday, could one day be to New York City mavens of aggressive and immersive music what Glyndebourne, the opera festival 60 miles south of London, is to classical audiences.

Melissa Auf der Maur Hosts Musical Festivals and Flea Markets in the Hudson Valley

“The proposed Marina Abramovic Institute has helped burnish the ongoing, artistic renaissance of Hudson, New York, but Melissa Auf der Maur got there first.”

In Pursuit of Casinos, It’s Worst Foot Forward

“But building casinos in Orange County would likely doom, or severely undercut, any proposals in counties farther north in the Catskills, where elected officials have long sought the economic boost from jobs and tourism that state officials argue a casino would produce.”

Leaving Home, but Not the Folks

“In towns like Lakeville, Washington Depot and Sharon, Conn.; Millbrook, N.Y.; Deerfield and North Andover, Mass.; and Newport and Middletown, R.I., some families are buying or renting houses and apartments to be close to their children, who are living in dorms.”

Dynamite With a Laser Beam

“‘My only experience was that I worked in a metal shop in high school,’ said Mr. DeBonis. They enlisted the help of Mr. DeBonis’s father and brother, traveling to a family-owned barn in Millbrook, N.Y., over three long weekends.”

It’s Taylor Swift’s City Now

“In a recent essay in Vogue, the writer Jonathan Van Meter chronicled his decision to leave downtown Manhattan after 26 years for the more bountiful eccentricities of Woodstock, N.Y., citing the city’s acquiescence to vast wealth and imperialism as his abiding reason. In passing, he mentioned something else that seemed just as significant: that his friends had become boring, which is to say that they had chosen the path of quieter affluence, breeding and renovating in Brooklyn.”

Uncovering Hudson Valley Artists

“Compared with other regions where she has worked with artists and arts groups, though, ‘it’s much more undercover here,’ she said, adding, ‘There are world-famous artists happily working in big lofts right here in Poughkeepsie.'”

New York Casinos’ Remote Homes Could Dampen Success

“Mr. Beynon and other analysts said that a casino in the area — proposals were made for Tuxedo, Woodbury and South Blooming Grove — would have generated two or even three times the revenue projected in the Catskills, or any other spot in the state.”