Bit of rose colored glasses I think OP.
Newburgh has definitely gotten better over the past 8 years. Poughkeepsie (the largest city in the area) has had the same population count for past 4 years, despite other cities in the HV growing a bit since COVID urbanites moved to the burbs and exurbs.
Traffic is always bad this time of year — it’s our high season for the weekenders.
I live a bit north of you in Kingston, and that actually has changed dramatically in the past 8 years. We’ve gone from a dozen shootings per year down to about one or two.
I'm born and raised in Kingston. I've seen it change dramatically since I was a kid but the past 4 years have really changed. So many trendy spots, it feels like a Brooklyn I've never lived in. It's fun and definitely more safe.
Yah my rent on Henry street went up $600 in a year. And then my landlord was confused on why he couldn’t find any staff for his new restaurant venture. For context I’m a chef so this is ironic for me.
Wow so your rent is $650 dollars now? (totally kidding!) Sorry, many years ago Henry Street was the epicenter of drugs. Basically an open air market for whatever you want (including getting stabbed or shot). When I was a teenager I remember always getting pulled over on or around Henry street and the cops harassing us about being there for drugs. We decided to dress in suits and look like we were Mormons or Jehovahs Witness doing gods work. I went through this area a few years ago and have seen the dramatic change. It’s a good thing.
$800 to $1400 increase but the real kicker was my central Hudson bill went from $40 a month to $300 for absolutely no reason. The year I moved a dilapidated old crack house sold for $750,000 probably needed another $250,000 just to bring it up to code. Thing is I would have much preferred to live in Woodstock since that’s where I worked but it’s not like Woodstock businesses owners pay enough to live there. Less junkies in Kingston too funny enough.
Living in Woodstock sucks, it gets old quick. Being close for the drum circle at the monastery was nice, but I still drove up that hill, no fucking way I'm walking up that.
ok, born and raised in woodstock here and really don't see that. I guess I'm living in a bubble as I'm driving by the green. I always just see the zombie junkies near the greenline in kingston.
Typically they lived at the house that Grandpa Woodstock (the old naked hippie with the three wheeled bicycles) lived in, but that was 10 years ago and Grandpa and Grandma are probably dead now. There were half a dozen or so folks other than them that let train hoppers stay in their yard and extra rooms. Some of them have moved but many are still there.
More woods for them to live in and the tourists just hand out money to them. They can just languish on the green all day and make hundreds. Then they hop trains or hitch hike to Florida or Nola for the winter and come back every summer. God damn Oogles…
I used to walk down Henry St to go to work and my housemate once asked me if it was for the 'thrill.' this was in the mid 2010s and it really wasn't that bad. He was also an idiot.
Wait… a Kingston native that’s not complaining about the “Brooklynification” and actually thinks the changes are fun and safer? Maybe the first comment like this I’ve seen and happy to read it.
Yah gentrification is awesome until you price out all the people that work in the businesses that attracted the rich people to move there in the first place. And then you go well they will just commute from Kingston, Newburgh or Poughkeepsie and then you remind them that those are the towns that the working class only lived in because they couldn’t afford the towns they worked in so now they have no where left.
I’m not cheering on gentrification. It’s a massive problem across the hudson valley and the country. Newburgh has a chance to get ahead of it before its too late. But newburgh has a long standing reputation for being corrupt from top to bottom, and i fear they won’t do things like establish rent control or approve more affordable housing.
These problems go back to the establishment of the city of newburgh, which accelerated white flight. The city went into a financial spiral and has had unreasonably high taxes since, which has hindered investment. Mix in corruption, the war on drugs., and other societal trends and newburgh is where it is now.
Delgado was one of my regulars and I’ve asked him to his face if him and his colleges had any actual idea of what do do about the labor shortage in Kingston, he’d talk about how New Paltz still had plenty of college kids or the CIA lmfao and this was before covid... Like he 100% backs and supports the owners of the kingstonian Turning the stockade district into Disney land but the difference is proper resort town build company housing. Great big projects so the plebes have somewhere to shower and sleep between shifts and the best Kingston can do is apartments for trust fund artists.
Do you even live in Newburgh? Because I can tell you. I am totally fine with all the addicts and criminals being priced out and replaced by people who actually work for a living and do more than litter, blast music from their porch, use drugs, fight with their baby daddy, and shoot one another. Newburgh needs gentrification. Newburgh is not a ghetto. It’s a beautiful place, it’s just that the people that live there are ghetto and make it into a terrible place. So yea please price those people out!
Kingstons unofficial Motto is at least we ain’t Newburgh/s. the people that actually work for a living are the ones being priced out. The junkies still live on the street. Look at Woodstock, junkies everywhere but not like the high cost of living is keeping them out just the people needed to work in all the restaurants and shops.
Exactly - gentrification, despite being such a 'dirty' word, is in reality quite often simply a reversion to what existed *before* cities like Newburgh fell into disrepair. These were thriving, diverse urban environments for many decades - filled with great restaurants, nightlife, etc.
That's what I find so ironic about people who treat gentrification like a horrific tragedy. No, the tragedy was what happened **in between**, when populations were decimated, tax bases plummeted, cities cut services, etc.
Poughkeepsie was always fast while the outlying towns were slow. Used to be a bunch of diary farms, apple orchards & corn plots. No more. I used to do maintenance after they closed at the Juice Factory in Highland.
I'm from New Jersey, but visit the Hudson Valley frequently. The changes over the past 15 years or so have been extraordinary for the better in my opinion. The towns look cleaner and more vibrant then they did years ago. The amount of outdoor activities, particularly the growth of Rail Trails has been unbelievable (and they are free to use so far). I say keep up the good work.
That's the thing about the world, it doesn't stay the same just because you leave a place. The only constant is change. You're a very different person than you were 8 years ago, why would the Hudson Valley stay exactly the same?
This is sooo true. I left the Fishkill/Hopewell/Wiccopee area 10 years ago now. I visit home and feel like I barely recognize it! But, would 2014 me recognize 2024 me? Probably not
Born and raised in Milton/Marlboro, and I moved back here in 2018. I still love it here, but it’s increasingly hard to afford living in the Hudson Valley. I’m heading to the Rochester area where I might actually be able to afford a house in the next few years.
No. Me too. It looks like the Disney world times square turned into. Its a joke. Place is for hipsters with daddies money and wanna be bankers from rye lol. Place became a clown show. Nobody that grew up in the Hudson valley is excited for what it became. No fair rent or opportunity but yea beacon got a cool trendy farmers market so who cares cause daddy’s a banker.
I grew up in the Hudson Valley. I like what it’s becoming. Although the Hudson Valley I grew up in had schools that taught basic, like, kindergarten-level grammar. I’m sorry yours didn’t.
I grew up in the Hudson Valley 40 years back. It’s definitely grown significantly but it’s also has many more options. Especially with hiking trails and places to eat.
The only thing that bums me out is the transition from farm land to strip malls in many areas. But that’s pretty much progress over time.
Dur dur dur sorry my gramma mam isnt up to ur prerogative; il try to step it up for the cultured money folk. Don meen to sully you with my stupid, please forgive me and enjoy ur stay at the mall of america or as u call it the hudson valley. Enjoy ur brunch.
I did have a good point. You said no one who grew up in the Hudson Valley is happy with what is happening to it. If you knew how to read, you’d know I pointed out how that’s incorrect.
But you didn’t grow up in the HV. You are a Midwest transplant who lived in Williamsburg BK for 4 years then “had enough of the big city” and moved to beacon. Your parents bought you a modest 2 bedroom on main st for only 750k and you’re a local poly barista who runs a farmers market on weekends lol.
I’m with you on this one. All of the boring people are thrilled with the gentrification and “fun things to do” while the actual residents have always enjoyed the peace before now.
Traffic is awful. It’s the absolute worst on Friday afternoon/evening say from 2pm-6:30pm. There is a regular occurrence 84 is backed up from the bridge to NYS thruway during the afternoon - 84 goes from 3 lanes back to 2 lanes after the Gidney Ave overpass.
9D by 84 is awful. NYS seriously has to do something with this interchange. It gets worst every single year. 9W in Newburgh horrible. The worst is trying to make an unprotected left turn weekdays from 2-7pm….sometimes feels almost impossible. Sometimes I just go down to the next traffic light or plaza turn in and go the way I needed to go making the right.
Having to go to a light to make a left turn if something you do in every town or city during rush hour.
But roads like 9D and 9W where you can’t take any other roads to go the same way without hitting the same traffic is so frustrating.
The interchange up on 9 at the mid Hudson bridge is crazy as well. The one where everyone coming off and on the bridge is trying to merge into each other down on 9.
COVID changed pricing structures for everything.
Also, investors destroy everything.
I don't mean to repeat myself. It's just pretty clear that COVID really sped up the idea that people should get as much as possible for anything. New restaurants in the area are nice and all but very expensive and fairly awful in terms of food quality. It all come out of a bag from food service delivery.
People don't seem to care. Investors came and bought up everything available for cheap and slapped dark siding on, did a basic remodel that looks minimal and modern, and gutted the market for buyers and renters.
I realize this is how things go but the speed at which this happened in fairly disgusting. I bought up here 20 years ago for a decent price and I'm glad I did. I barely go out anymore because it's such a drag. Everything is the same mediocre thing.
Maybe I'm just old
Covid happened. thousands of people left the city and purchased homes upstate. lots of businesses failed and buildings have changed hands or gone to rot.
It’s all NYC now and sure I’ll get all a lot of downvotes for saying this as the gentrification supporters are either in denial or feel some sort of deep shame that makes them lash out at people when you bring it up. But yah it’s not the same anymore, and now it’s deep into a new stage where the haves forcing out the locals is having tangible repercussions as they are now feeling the effects of not having anyone left to make the brunch. And yes it’s a gross over simplification but the brunch eating demographic for me is the easiest way to put the effects of gentrification into context.
The thing with this is that the blame gets placed on the people moving, when the blame needs to be placed on the politicians who aren’t responding by building more affordable housing. And one of the big reasons is locals, actually, who already own and don’t want anything to change, so they stop new builds and make matters worse. People coming from the city in my experience are more open to density and affordable housing because they’re not psychologically attached to the way things “used to be.”
The people moving to the HV have RUPCO NO! signs in their yards right next to their BLM signs. To them affordable housing projects is exactly what they are leaving the city to escape. Plus it would lower their property values. It’s just your classic kick the ball down the road argument. Well cool it’s too late, the working class are leaving as fast as new people are moving in, thing is these people moving here are simply not filling the jobs people are leaving vacant. To really just some it up perfectly from my own experience was after I left I get a text from my old land lord in Kingston. He had the brainiac idea to open a restaurant, and asks me because I manage restaurants for a living if I happen to know anyone looking for kitchen jobs as he could find plenty of FoH but just absolutely no Chef, Cooks are Dishwashers like wow so weird because even on the slumiest of slums in one of the worst cities in NY the people he needs to hire can’t afford the apartments he’s renting out! Just so little self awareness. And nothing will be done and just think about all the abandoned resorts dotted all over the Catskills… this has all happed before. It’s a cycle and it will happen again unless people not only build employee housing yesterday and then do some sort of incentive for the workers to come back.
I left Newburgh as a kid in 1970. Talk about not recognizing anything anymore! My home isn’t even there- the base housing for Stewart was bulldozed and replaced by a multi story apartment building. But my Little Britain Elementary is still there!
I’m a Catskills native who also lives in the Charleston area now. The same can be said for both places. Lots of growth and a huge shift in population. Houses are going up everywhere, more traffic with no change to the roads. I haven’t been back to NY in 2 years but I imagine like most places, it changes with the times.
All these people complaining about traffic and I honestly have no clue what they are talking about. I commute 3 days a month to Long Island and yeah it sucks but all my traffic is in the Bronx. Rte 9 I wait for a bit at lights, nothing crazy. I genuinely don’t know if I’m just missing this traffic people are talking about or it’s just a perspective.
Yeah I'll take 15 Hudson Valley miles over 15 Long Island miles any day. I have co-workers who live on the island and sometimes have to be in the Bronx. They tell me it takes 3 hours to Levittown. It's 30 miles. I can be in Syracuse in three hours from Ulster County.
My relative goes from Lindenhurst to RVC on Long Island and it takes him over an hour. I go from North Westchester to Lake Success in an hour and a half on weekday mornings… it’s all perspective.
Yeah I agree with you. I just don’t know if I genuinely am missing all of this traffic or I have different perspective than most on what bad traffic is.
I think it’s just a different perspective. I work nights, so I’m on the Thruway/Newburgh-Beacon bridge between 5:30-6:30 pm. If I leave early, no traffic. But if i’m a little late all of a sudden there’s a ton of cars and we’re doing 20mph
I have no idea what you’re talking about. I live in Putnam county and it’s full of charm. Lots of houses got renovated and rehabbed during the pandemic. That’s a good thing. More people moved from nyc bringing their culture and experience into the aging community. There’s farmer’s markets and restaurants and food cafes opening up. Go to Pawling for example. Charm is alive and well.
And the old racist white people who once dominated are getting voted out. Up here our vote counts more than in Manhattan. Our neighborhood just did a big block party with shared drinks and food and we talked and celebrated late into the evening. We have a neighborhood text thread and we look out for each other. We’ve got gay neighbors and older folks who have lived up here for decades all talking and chatting and sharing.
Maybe Beacon and Cold Spring got extra bougie - but there’s literally tons of towns elsewhere where you can explore and see the positive energy.
Born and raised in Dutchess County but moved to Summerville, SC briefly while I attended school. Came back a couple of years ago, and it definitely feels different. Traffic is a nightmare now. Cost of living has skyrocketed and barely any options if you're looking to rent. Parents moved out of state because they couldn't take it anymore. I might end up leaving as well. Sucks because I love the HV.
So do I. But fun fact! Charleston is also changing and not for the better. Upper king is littered with pseudo-contemporary apartment buildings that cost 4x what they should. Wild what 8 years can do.
I get what coming back to ‘home’ feels like when you’ve been away for a long time. I moved to the US from the UK 12 years ago. And out of my home town 30 years ago. It’s completely alien to me now. I moved to Beacon 8.5 years ago, and whilst I wish for somethings to go back to when I was first here, it absolutely feels more ‘alive’ to me on both sides of the river. And c’mon- losing its charm? It never will. In spitting distance of one of the most iconic cities in the world. Along one of the most iconic rivers in the country. Tons of towns with walkable main streets. Outdoor recreation galore- famous climbing cliffs, oldest gravel roads in the country, unique gnarly trails. No wildfire season. Great water supply. There will be certain streets and towns, maybe, that might feel a little overdeveloped but not the region as a whole. Maybe its former sleepiness was a charm, but historically, that’s an anomaly for the HV. There’s a reason the Vanderbilts and the Rockefellers built their mansions around here. If you want to call what I describe an ‘NYC suburb’, well…plus ca change.
You might be interested in Richard Ocejo’s book 60 Miles Upriver. It’s a deep dive into the changes of newburgh in particular
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691211329/sixty-miles-upriver
I’ll tell you what happened in the case of my husband and I, because I’m guessing it happened to many others.
We were renting a small run down house in Cortlandt Manor for 15 years. Rent was cheap at $1,600 for 2 bd 1 bath house with a huge yard (landlord did nothing to repair or enhance in all those years).
Aug ‘21, we come home and there’s a “for sale” sign in front of the house. No notice at all and we never paid late in all those years. He was a complete AH.
We were panicking and looking for another place to rent in the area and just a 1 bed apartment was $2000.
So we look up the line for a house we can afford and find a mother-daughter in Fishkill that we absolutely love. My elderly mom lives downstairs now and we love the town and the people. Lots to do and eat locally.
The part that really sucks is that we now live 90 minutes from our grown sons in nyc area. Used to be an hour.
We are def not trust fund babies. Just couldn’t afford to live in Westchester anymore.
grew up in the HV. from the time I graduated HS (2006) to now? population has gone way up and traffic is way worse, pretty much all the time. people coming from the city and the pandemic didnt help. and they don't know how to drive, which is the worst part.
As someone that lived in NB, it's definitely weird going back. Why are there so many distribution centers? A casino in the Newburgh mall? And this one is random but I swear no one in Newburgh weeds their yards.
People always lived in NB and worked in the city but it definitely had its own identity. Now it really feels like a bedroom community. It's the distribution center for NYC.
It’s the politicians that have been voted in by the populous. You see the big negative changes because you have been away. People who never left dont see or feel it. Boil the frog syndrome.
As someone that lived in Beaufort, bluffton, Hinton head until 2011 and originally from Clifton park, op, anything compared to down there will be pricey.
Oh don't tell anyone that. They'll say it's always been traffic like this and it has nothing to do with all the new people that moved here and the culture DEFINITELY hasn't changed just because a whole bunch of yuppies came up here and brought their terrible way of life with them
I left that area ten years ago. I recently was back. To me, Poughkeepsie is a toilet! Every corner had groups of dealers. Uptown Kingston is nice, but everything everywhere else is run down. Hyde Park has so many vacant stores. I would never return! There’s nothing appealing. I lived in Rhinebeck, it’s still quaint, but nothing compared to where I live now, which is a gorgeous vibrant city.
I moved from the HV down to Atlanta for work prior to the north of our son six years ago, and I always planned to move back.
Now when I visit, it feels like every time I walk out, I’m spending 100 bucks and driving 45 min somewhere.
Think we’re keeping our old, cheap apartment here in the city of Atlanta and buy something up in the Tennessee mountains.
Our rent for a 1.5 BR/1 bath is $1140 in a sick neighborhood - haven’t had our rent in 3 years and never will as the owner saw our son be born and grow up here over the last 5.5 years.
Anyway, I miss my family up there and wish my son be around his extended family more like I had growing up, but I’m not really feeling the area as much as I did when I went on active duty and moved back after that.
Bro its like a hipster/yuppie mall these days. Trails that used to be dead or so packed they got portapotties. Everyone is from the mid west or some “i lived in nyc for 4 years” types. After rona it just became such a stupidly obnoxious place. Hipsters and yuppies everywhere…
Bit of rose colored glasses I think OP. Newburgh has definitely gotten better over the past 8 years. Poughkeepsie (the largest city in the area) has had the same population count for past 4 years, despite other cities in the HV growing a bit since COVID urbanites moved to the burbs and exurbs. Traffic is always bad this time of year — it’s our high season for the weekenders. I live a bit north of you in Kingston, and that actually has changed dramatically in the past 8 years. We’ve gone from a dozen shootings per year down to about one or two.
I'm born and raised in Kingston. I've seen it change dramatically since I was a kid but the past 4 years have really changed. So many trendy spots, it feels like a Brooklyn I've never lived in. It's fun and definitely more safe.
Yah my rent on Henry street went up $600 in a year. And then my landlord was confused on why he couldn’t find any staff for his new restaurant venture. For context I’m a chef so this is ironic for me.
Wow so your rent is $650 dollars now? (totally kidding!) Sorry, many years ago Henry Street was the epicenter of drugs. Basically an open air market for whatever you want (including getting stabbed or shot). When I was a teenager I remember always getting pulled over on or around Henry street and the cops harassing us about being there for drugs. We decided to dress in suits and look like we were Mormons or Jehovahs Witness doing gods work. I went through this area a few years ago and have seen the dramatic change. It’s a good thing.
$800 to $1400 increase but the real kicker was my central Hudson bill went from $40 a month to $300 for absolutely no reason. The year I moved a dilapidated old crack house sold for $750,000 probably needed another $250,000 just to bring it up to code. Thing is I would have much preferred to live in Woodstock since that’s where I worked but it’s not like Woodstock businesses owners pay enough to live there. Less junkies in Kingston too funny enough.
Living in Woodstock sucks, it gets old quick. Being close for the drum circle at the monastery was nice, but I still drove up that hill, no fucking way I'm walking up that.
there's less junkies in Kingston than Woodstock? How is that possible?
if you can’t afford Kingston, a house in Woodstock might as well be on Park Ave.
Why am I being down voted for asking a question?
Because it's a well known fact that Woodstock has a healthy population of summer panhandlers.
ok, born and raised in woodstock here and really don't see that. I guess I'm living in a bubble as I'm driving by the green. I always just see the zombie junkies near the greenline in kingston.
Typically they lived at the house that Grandpa Woodstock (the old naked hippie with the three wheeled bicycles) lived in, but that was 10 years ago and Grandpa and Grandma are probably dead now. There were half a dozen or so folks other than them that let train hoppers stay in their yard and extra rooms. Some of them have moved but many are still there.
More woods for them to live in and the tourists just hand out money to them. They can just languish on the green all day and make hundreds. Then they hop trains or hitch hike to Florida or Nola for the winter and come back every summer. God damn Oogles…
I used to walk down Henry St to go to work and my housemate once asked me if it was for the 'thrill.' this was in the mid 2010s and it really wasn't that bad. He was also an idiot.
Wait… a Kingston native that’s not complaining about the “Brooklynification” and actually thinks the changes are fun and safer? Maybe the first comment like this I’ve seen and happy to read it.
love this about kingston specifically because i couldnt afford to live in brooklyn either 😂
Yep. Nostalgia is weird.
"You can never go home again"
Bingo
Very fair take here. As a lifetime resident of Newburgh, I can definitely agree that Newburgh has gotten nicer since the brewery opened (roughly).
Which towns are you referring to? Just newburgh? I’d say Newburgh has gotten better in the last 8 years, not worse
Yah gentrification is awesome until you price out all the people that work in the businesses that attracted the rich people to move there in the first place. And then you go well they will just commute from Kingston, Newburgh or Poughkeepsie and then you remind them that those are the towns that the working class only lived in because they couldn’t afford the towns they worked in so now they have no where left.
I’m not cheering on gentrification. It’s a massive problem across the hudson valley and the country. Newburgh has a chance to get ahead of it before its too late. But newburgh has a long standing reputation for being corrupt from top to bottom, and i fear they won’t do things like establish rent control or approve more affordable housing. These problems go back to the establishment of the city of newburgh, which accelerated white flight. The city went into a financial spiral and has had unreasonably high taxes since, which has hindered investment. Mix in corruption, the war on drugs., and other societal trends and newburgh is where it is now.
Delgado was one of my regulars and I’ve asked him to his face if him and his colleges had any actual idea of what do do about the labor shortage in Kingston, he’d talk about how New Paltz still had plenty of college kids or the CIA lmfao and this was before covid... Like he 100% backs and supports the owners of the kingstonian Turning the stockade district into Disney land but the difference is proper resort town build company housing. Great big projects so the plebes have somewhere to shower and sleep between shifts and the best Kingston can do is apartments for trust fund artists.
Do you even live in Newburgh? Because I can tell you. I am totally fine with all the addicts and criminals being priced out and replaced by people who actually work for a living and do more than litter, blast music from their porch, use drugs, fight with their baby daddy, and shoot one another. Newburgh needs gentrification. Newburgh is not a ghetto. It’s a beautiful place, it’s just that the people that live there are ghetto and make it into a terrible place. So yea please price those people out!
Kingstons unofficial Motto is at least we ain’t Newburgh/s. the people that actually work for a living are the ones being priced out. The junkies still live on the street. Look at Woodstock, junkies everywhere but not like the high cost of living is keeping them out just the people needed to work in all the restaurants and shops.
Exactly - gentrification, despite being such a 'dirty' word, is in reality quite often simply a reversion to what existed *before* cities like Newburgh fell into disrepair. These were thriving, diverse urban environments for many decades - filled with great restaurants, nightlife, etc. That's what I find so ironic about people who treat gentrification like a horrific tragedy. No, the tragedy was what happened **in between**, when populations were decimated, tax bases plummeted, cities cut services, etc.
The architecture is so beautiful! I can only imagine those old buildings and brick rowhomes restored and maintained.
Amen. Was about to comment something similar but you basically said it. Bring on all the gentrification here.
Newburgh, Marlboro, Poughkeepsie, and Highland. Yeah maybe they have maybe I’m just so out of tune. 😂
Poughkeepsie was always fast while the outlying towns were slow. Used to be a bunch of diary farms, apple orchards & corn plots. No more. I used to do maintenance after they closed at the Juice Factory in Highland.
I'm from New Jersey, but visit the Hudson Valley frequently. The changes over the past 15 years or so have been extraordinary for the better in my opinion. The towns look cleaner and more vibrant then they did years ago. The amount of outdoor activities, particularly the growth of Rail Trails has been unbelievable (and they are free to use so far). I say keep up the good work.
That's the thing about the world, it doesn't stay the same just because you leave a place. The only constant is change. You're a very different person than you were 8 years ago, why would the Hudson Valley stay exactly the same?
This is important to understand.
This is sooo true. I left the Fishkill/Hopewell/Wiccopee area 10 years ago now. I visit home and feel like I barely recognize it! But, would 2014 me recognize 2024 me? Probably not
Covid happened, people came up, never went back down
Born and raised in Milton/Marlboro, and I moved back here in 2018. I still love it here, but it’s increasingly hard to afford living in the Hudson Valley. I’m heading to the Rochester area where I might actually be able to afford a house in the next few years.
Just like Charleston, right?
Population has grown; traffic is terrible on 9 & 9D. Home prices & rent has increased. I won’t comment on charm or vacancy, only been here 12 years.
9 is crazy. Don't get me started on that mid Hudson bridge loop-de-loop exchange on the PK side.
>Is it just me or is the Hudson Valley losing its charm over time? Just you.
No. Me too. It looks like the Disney world times square turned into. Its a joke. Place is for hipsters with daddies money and wanna be bankers from rye lol. Place became a clown show. Nobody that grew up in the Hudson valley is excited for what it became. No fair rent or opportunity but yea beacon got a cool trendy farmers market so who cares cause daddy’s a banker.
I grew up in the Hudson Valley. I like what it’s becoming. Although the Hudson Valley I grew up in had schools that taught basic, like, kindergarten-level grammar. I’m sorry yours didn’t.
I grew up in the Hudson Valley 40 years back. It’s definitely grown significantly but it’s also has many more options. Especially with hiking trails and places to eat. The only thing that bums me out is the transition from farm land to strip malls in many areas. But that’s pretty much progress over time.
Dur dur dur sorry my gramma mam isnt up to ur prerogative; il try to step it up for the cultured money folk. Don meen to sully you with my stupid, please forgive me and enjoy ur stay at the mall of america or as u call it the hudson valley. Enjoy ur brunch.
Your grammar isn’t strong enough for you to pass first grade.
So basically my opinion stands and you have no good points so you resort to talking about my grammar like a 8yr old lmao.
I did have a good point. You said no one who grew up in the Hudson Valley is happy with what is happening to it. If you knew how to read, you’d know I pointed out how that’s incorrect.
But you didn’t grow up in the HV. You are a Midwest transplant who lived in Williamsburg BK for 4 years then “had enough of the big city” and moved to beacon. Your parents bought you a modest 2 bedroom on main st for only 750k and you’re a local poly barista who runs a farmers market on weekends lol.
I grew up in Orange County, honey bunch of toast.
I’m with you on this one. All of the boring people are thrilled with the gentrification and “fun things to do” while the actual residents have always enjoyed the peace before now.
Agreed! I’ve been gone for over a decade for work but I can’t wait til I can move back to the Hudson Valley.
Traffic is awful. It’s the absolute worst on Friday afternoon/evening say from 2pm-6:30pm. There is a regular occurrence 84 is backed up from the bridge to NYS thruway during the afternoon - 84 goes from 3 lanes back to 2 lanes after the Gidney Ave overpass. 9D by 84 is awful. NYS seriously has to do something with this interchange. It gets worst every single year. 9W in Newburgh horrible. The worst is trying to make an unprotected left turn weekdays from 2-7pm….sometimes feels almost impossible. Sometimes I just go down to the next traffic light or plaza turn in and go the way I needed to go making the right.
Having to go to a light to make a left turn if something you do in every town or city during rush hour. But roads like 9D and 9W where you can’t take any other roads to go the same way without hitting the same traffic is so frustrating.
Sometimes I go the long way after the bridge and take the taconic up instead… it’s “longer” but often quicker
The interchange up on 9 at the mid Hudson bridge is crazy as well. The one where everyone coming off and on the bridge is trying to merge into each other down on 9.
Oh yes. Another hot mess area. New York State DOT needs to fully redo it…should have been done years ago.
The Pandemic Exodus seems to have had some impact...
COVID and investors happened.
Big answer here. I know so many people who have multiple properties up here it’s sick. Though many bought before 2020.
COVID changed pricing structures for everything. Also, investors destroy everything. I don't mean to repeat myself. It's just pretty clear that COVID really sped up the idea that people should get as much as possible for anything. New restaurants in the area are nice and all but very expensive and fairly awful in terms of food quality. It all come out of a bag from food service delivery. People don't seem to care. Investors came and bought up everything available for cheap and slapped dark siding on, did a basic remodel that looks minimal and modern, and gutted the market for buyers and renters. I realize this is how things go but the speed at which this happened in fairly disgusting. I bought up here 20 years ago for a decent price and I'm glad I did. I barely go out anymore because it's such a drag. Everything is the same mediocre thing. Maybe I'm just old
Covid happened. thousands of people left the city and purchased homes upstate. lots of businesses failed and buildings have changed hands or gone to rot.
A little thing called Covid-19 happened in those years, it changed everything.
It’s all NYC now and sure I’ll get all a lot of downvotes for saying this as the gentrification supporters are either in denial or feel some sort of deep shame that makes them lash out at people when you bring it up. But yah it’s not the same anymore, and now it’s deep into a new stage where the haves forcing out the locals is having tangible repercussions as they are now feeling the effects of not having anyone left to make the brunch. And yes it’s a gross over simplification but the brunch eating demographic for me is the easiest way to put the effects of gentrification into context.
The thing with this is that the blame gets placed on the people moving, when the blame needs to be placed on the politicians who aren’t responding by building more affordable housing. And one of the big reasons is locals, actually, who already own and don’t want anything to change, so they stop new builds and make matters worse. People coming from the city in my experience are more open to density and affordable housing because they’re not psychologically attached to the way things “used to be.”
The people moving to the HV have RUPCO NO! signs in their yards right next to their BLM signs. To them affordable housing projects is exactly what they are leaving the city to escape. Plus it would lower their property values. It’s just your classic kick the ball down the road argument. Well cool it’s too late, the working class are leaving as fast as new people are moving in, thing is these people moving here are simply not filling the jobs people are leaving vacant. To really just some it up perfectly from my own experience was after I left I get a text from my old land lord in Kingston. He had the brainiac idea to open a restaurant, and asks me because I manage restaurants for a living if I happen to know anyone looking for kitchen jobs as he could find plenty of FoH but just absolutely no Chef, Cooks are Dishwashers like wow so weird because even on the slumiest of slums in one of the worst cities in NY the people he needs to hire can’t afford the apartments he’s renting out! Just so little self awareness. And nothing will be done and just think about all the abandoned resorts dotted all over the Catskills… this has all happed before. It’s a cycle and it will happen again unless people not only build employee housing yesterday and then do some sort of incentive for the workers to come back.
The Hudson Valley prices are worth it - obviously. Yes it's growing.
I left Newburgh as a kid in 1970. Talk about not recognizing anything anymore! My home isn’t even there- the base housing for Stewart was bulldozed and replaced by a multi story apartment building. But my Little Britain Elementary is still there!
I’m a Catskills native who also lives in the Charleston area now. The same can be said for both places. Lots of growth and a huge shift in population. Houses are going up everywhere, more traffic with no change to the roads. I haven’t been back to NY in 2 years but I imagine like most places, it changes with the times.
I work a bit off of Meeting St. and in the 8 years I’ve been here the growth has been insane. Especially in the upper downtown area.
All these people complaining about traffic and I honestly have no clue what they are talking about. I commute 3 days a month to Long Island and yeah it sucks but all my traffic is in the Bronx. Rte 9 I wait for a bit at lights, nothing crazy. I genuinely don’t know if I’m just missing this traffic people are talking about or it’s just a perspective.
Yeah I'll take 15 Hudson Valley miles over 15 Long Island miles any day. I have co-workers who live on the island and sometimes have to be in the Bronx. They tell me it takes 3 hours to Levittown. It's 30 miles. I can be in Syracuse in three hours from Ulster County.
My relative goes from Lindenhurst to RVC on Long Island and it takes him over an hour. I go from North Westchester to Lake Success in an hour and a half on weekday mornings… it’s all perspective.
There is traffic anywhere where people want to be. You don’t want traffic, go to a place nobody likes.
Yeah I agree with you. I just don’t know if I genuinely am missing all of this traffic or I have different perspective than most on what bad traffic is.
I think it’s just a different perspective. I work nights, so I’m on the Thruway/Newburgh-Beacon bridge between 5:30-6:30 pm. If I leave early, no traffic. But if i’m a little late all of a sudden there’s a ton of cars and we’re doing 20mph
Appreciate the correct spelling and capitalization of Lowcountry, as a former South Carolinian.
I wouldn't recognize this country if I had left 8 years ago
Came back to the U.S. 2015 and ever since I've been like 
I have no idea what you’re talking about. I live in Putnam county and it’s full of charm. Lots of houses got renovated and rehabbed during the pandemic. That’s a good thing. More people moved from nyc bringing their culture and experience into the aging community. There’s farmer’s markets and restaurants and food cafes opening up. Go to Pawling for example. Charm is alive and well. And the old racist white people who once dominated are getting voted out. Up here our vote counts more than in Manhattan. Our neighborhood just did a big block party with shared drinks and food and we talked and celebrated late into the evening. We have a neighborhood text thread and we look out for each other. We’ve got gay neighbors and older folks who have lived up here for decades all talking and chatting and sharing. Maybe Beacon and Cold Spring got extra bougie - but there’s literally tons of towns elsewhere where you can explore and see the positive energy.
Born and raised in Dutchess County but moved to Summerville, SC briefly while I attended school. Came back a couple of years ago, and it definitely feels different. Traffic is a nightmare now. Cost of living has skyrocketed and barely any options if you're looking to rent. Parents moved out of state because they couldn't take it anymore. I might end up leaving as well. Sucks because I love the HV.
So do I. But fun fact! Charleston is also changing and not for the better. Upper king is littered with pseudo-contemporary apartment buildings that cost 4x what they should. Wild what 8 years can do.
It's coming up to Albany/Troy. Population is going up....as is rent and home prices.
Pandemics seem to change the migration of people from busy cities? 😅
I get what coming back to ‘home’ feels like when you’ve been away for a long time. I moved to the US from the UK 12 years ago. And out of my home town 30 years ago. It’s completely alien to me now. I moved to Beacon 8.5 years ago, and whilst I wish for somethings to go back to when I was first here, it absolutely feels more ‘alive’ to me on both sides of the river. And c’mon- losing its charm? It never will. In spitting distance of one of the most iconic cities in the world. Along one of the most iconic rivers in the country. Tons of towns with walkable main streets. Outdoor recreation galore- famous climbing cliffs, oldest gravel roads in the country, unique gnarly trails. No wildfire season. Great water supply. There will be certain streets and towns, maybe, that might feel a little overdeveloped but not the region as a whole. Maybe its former sleepiness was a charm, but historically, that’s an anomaly for the HV. There’s a reason the Vanderbilts and the Rockefellers built their mansions around here. If you want to call what I describe an ‘NYC suburb’, well…plus ca change.
Yawn
You can't step in the same river twice.
You might be interested in Richard Ocejo’s book 60 Miles Upriver. It’s a deep dive into the changes of newburgh in particular https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691211329/sixty-miles-upriver
I’ll tell you what happened in the case of my husband and I, because I’m guessing it happened to many others. We were renting a small run down house in Cortlandt Manor for 15 years. Rent was cheap at $1,600 for 2 bd 1 bath house with a huge yard (landlord did nothing to repair or enhance in all those years). Aug ‘21, we come home and there’s a “for sale” sign in front of the house. No notice at all and we never paid late in all those years. He was a complete AH. We were panicking and looking for another place to rent in the area and just a 1 bed apartment was $2000. So we look up the line for a house we can afford and find a mother-daughter in Fishkill that we absolutely love. My elderly mom lives downstairs now and we love the town and the people. Lots to do and eat locally. The part that really sucks is that we now live 90 minutes from our grown sons in nyc area. Used to be an hour. We are def not trust fund babies. Just couldn’t afford to live in Westchester anymore.
You paid that man $288,000 in rent over 15 years.
grew up in the HV. from the time I graduated HS (2006) to now? population has gone way up and traffic is way worse, pretty much all the time. people coming from the city and the pandemic didnt help. and they don't know how to drive, which is the worst part.
Same thing in reverse. In NY now, want to go back to Charleston but the traffic is horrible now. And prices are crazy.
As someone that lived in NB, it's definitely weird going back. Why are there so many distribution centers? A casino in the Newburgh mall? And this one is random but I swear no one in Newburgh weeds their yards. People always lived in NB and worked in the city but it definitely had its own identity. Now it really feels like a bedroom community. It's the distribution center for NYC.
It’s the politicians that have been voted in by the populous. You see the big negative changes because you have been away. People who never left dont see or feel it. Boil the frog syndrome.
As someone that lived in Beaufort, bluffton, Hinton head until 2011 and originally from Clifton park, op, anything compared to down there will be pricey.
Oh don't tell anyone that. They'll say it's always been traffic like this and it has nothing to do with all the new people that moved here and the culture DEFINITELY hasn't changed just because a whole bunch of yuppies came up here and brought their terrible way of life with them
I left that area ten years ago. I recently was back. To me, Poughkeepsie is a toilet! Every corner had groups of dealers. Uptown Kingston is nice, but everything everywhere else is run down. Hyde Park has so many vacant stores. I would never return! There’s nothing appealing. I lived in Rhinebeck, it’s still quaint, but nothing compared to where I live now, which is a gorgeous vibrant city.
Ironic that you're saying this and you're coming from Charleston.
Did it feel like a NYC suburb ?????
I moved from the HV down to Atlanta for work prior to the north of our son six years ago, and I always planned to move back. Now when I visit, it feels like every time I walk out, I’m spending 100 bucks and driving 45 min somewhere. Think we’re keeping our old, cheap apartment here in the city of Atlanta and buy something up in the Tennessee mountains. Our rent for a 1.5 BR/1 bath is $1140 in a sick neighborhood - haven’t had our rent in 3 years and never will as the owner saw our son be born and grow up here over the last 5.5 years. Anyway, I miss my family up there and wish my son be around his extended family more like I had growing up, but I’m not really feeling the area as much as I did when I went on active duty and moved back after that.
Bro its like a hipster/yuppie mall these days. Trails that used to be dead or so packed they got portapotties. Everyone is from the mid west or some “i lived in nyc for 4 years” types. After rona it just became such a stupidly obnoxious place. Hipsters and yuppies everywhere…
Beacon gentrified and moved all the minorities out.