Milling about in the woods

While hiking along the Vernooy Kill Falls in Rochester, I spotted what appeared to be a chimney in the distance. See it up there on the left?

It's quite common to stumble upon lone fireplaces in the forest. It's also common for my eyes to play tricks on me. When I got closer and my angle of vision had changed, I could clearly see that it was a massive wall.

Here it is from the opposite side. It's at least 12 feet high and double that in length.

Could this be the remnant of one of the first handball courts in the Catskills? Not likely, though that wall is just begging to be hit with a pink Spaldeen.  I later found out that Cornelius VerNooy, a Revolutionary War veteran and early settler, was responsible for this structure. About 250 years ago he built the first gristmill in the region. All that remains of it is this enormous (and old!) wall.

River Relic #2

With all the heavy rains lately, plenty of junk has washed up on the muddy banks of the creek. Like car parts, bottles and cutlery and other things I find lying around. I wasn't expecting to see a Manga Boy winking at me...

...from the seat of tiny tricycle. It was the bittiest bike I've ever seen.

I hope the wee owner isn't heartbroken. I'm sure an industrious beaver will find a use for it.

River Relic #1

The rivers and streams of the Catskills are marvelous places to find objets d'oddness. This study in amber washed up not too long ago on the banks of Warner Creek in Chichester.

According to the official Clorox site, this bottle dates from the mid 30's. It still has its original rubber stopper. From 1940 onward, the bottles were manufactured with screw tops.

The iconic diamond trademark was stamped into the bottom.

The ads throughout the 30's and 40s featured an animated Clorox bottle, hilariously named Butch. Yessiree, tough stains were not for wimps.

Clorox seems to have been the go-to solution for stain removal, and in the case of particularly germ-phobic housewives, it offered peace of mind when it came to protecting family health. But decades later, every girl of the 1980s knew the perfect use for the sublime power of Clorox.

Ah, this river relic, this little bottle of bleach - what fond memories you brought back!

Burlesque at the Lex!

We had passed by the defunct Lexington Hotel on many occasions while driving around the area. So a few years ago when we heard that the hotel was throwing a grand re-opening bash we were excited to check it out. What we found was a dark hotel - not merely dead, but most sincerely dead. Here it is in daylight.

My background research revealed that the hotel was a hopping Slavic hot spot in the early half of the 20th century with a mostly Ukrainian clientele. It changed hands off and on during the latter part of the century. According to the New York Times, Philadelphia nightlife impresario Philip Cohen bought the hotel in 2003. Its restaurant, an eclectic vegetarian/vegan affair, was run by Kaya Chaos, founding member of the NY hardcore punk band Deviant Behavior. Cool! After hosting burlesque shows (oh my) the place was shut down for violating the town's anti-noise ordinance. Not cool. Cohen vowed to fight the town and bring back the shows the following winter. I'm wondering if that was the grand re-opening advertised on the radio. Alas, it never came to be. But enough internet-gathered history (we all know how accurate that is) and on to more pictures!

This sign perplexes me. Cohen reopened the place in '03, but the sign says '98. Does not compute. Unless there were several incarnations. But why leave the old sign up?

A peek inside:

I almost fell through a hole in the floorboards on the rear porch. That's the Lexington Bridge in the background. The hotel literally hangs over the Schoharie River. The porch was covered in river silt.

Just across the river is a view of the impressive Lexington House. It was a resort hotel back in the 1880s. Now it's on the NY State Registry of Historic Places. It enjoyed past lives as a summer camp, an art center and a summer theater. It's one of the last standing examples of late-nineteenth century resort architecture in the Catskills. It's up for sale, so place your bids on this faded beauty!

This yummy Plymouth Valiant has been sitting in the lot across the street, most likely since 1960.

If you're ever in the town of Lexington, take a moment to pay a visit to the Lexington Hotel. They say it's haunted by old Ukrainians, but I like to think the ghosts of burlesque queens shake their pasties at passersby. 

A gravestone lovely as a tree

As commonplace as graveyards are there is always beauty to be found within their gates. In the town of Lexington a dozen gravestones dot the yard of a small church. Most are simple slabs except for this one memorializing a young woman who died more than a hundred years ago. (click on the photo for an enlarged image)

Trees are recurrent motifs in gravestone iconography. They represent the regenerative beauty of life. Befittingly, a tree stump alludes to the brevity of life.

Note the exceptionally fine detail of the bark. That rope looks woven rather than carved!

Surrounded by mountains, woods and streams, this lovely marker of a life complements its idyllic setting.