Beacon, New York
A road trip for contemporary art, a memorable salty pretzel, decadent donuts, and boutique shopping
At the height of the pandemic, a May 2020 episode of WCVB’s Chronicle got my husband and me thinking we should beeline it to Beacon, NY, once we were ready to venture out again. Beacon was billed as an artsy town with good food, galleries, a charming main street, and the Dia Beacon contemporary art museum.
Located in the Hudson Valley 60 miles from New York City, Beacon was a factory town known as the hat-making capitol of the US with nearly 50 hat manufacturing entities at its peak. But the town experienced a sharp economic downturn in the 1970s, resulting in empty industrial buildings and a virtually abandoned downtown. Beacon’s renaissance began when the Dia Beacon contemporary art museum opened in 2003.
Dia has been a pioneer in restoring and converting old industrial buildings into spaces for modern and contemporary art, and the museum building was donated to the Dia Art Foundation by International Paper. That and the proximity to New York City by train made it an idea site for a large museum.
We headed to Beacon on a cccccold November Saturday morning. The three-hour drive went by in a flash thanks to two episodes of Smartless featuring Anderson Cooper and Steve Carell (who grew up one town over from us in Acton, MA, and was a mail carrier before he pursued a career in comedy!).
Beacon eats
We had a boutique-ey lunch at Beacon Falls Café, situated at the end of Main Street that’s close to the Beacon Falls. The Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich, featuring a fried egg and Gouda cheese stacked between pillows of French toast plus a singing waitress with a penchant for Patsy Cline were highlights.
We saved room for donuts from Glazed Over and we were glad we did. A greeter instructed us to fill out a form to customize our donuts with the desired glazes and toppings. About 10 minutes later, we were presented with our made-to-order maple and chocolate donuts in a bakery box presented as a special gift.
Dinner was at the Roundhouse, part of a hotel and event complex. The property’s historic buildings, dating back to the 1800s, were manufacturing facilities for textiles, lawnmowers, and dyes. When a local family acquired the complex in 2010, they went to great lengths to restore and preserve the rugged structures as much as possible.
Restaurant patrons enjoy a spectacular view of Beacon falls.
After a restful night at an Airbnb, breakfast was blueberry pancakes and a breakfast taco at Beacon Bread Company.
Dia Beacon museum
Plenty of art critics have said their piece about the museum and what’s in the nearly 300,000-square-foot former Nabisco box manufacturing facility. Some visitors will argue that the building itself, with its repeating banks of skylights and preserved industrial features, is the most striking aspect of the museum.
Other visitors will argue (and I mean argue in the provoked and heated way) that some of the museum’s contents, such as the all-white paintings by Robert Ryman are not art. A docent suggested, perhaps belying her own skepticism, that part of the artistry is how the paintings were supposed to be hung. Ah…right.
Another gallery featured only this Robert Ryman painting:
You can picture a class of sixth-graders on a museum tour and the teacher asking them to think about why this piece is in a museum.
My husband said that the same “art” can be purchased at local art supply stores and online:
Two women gave us puzzled looks after glancing at a mass of brown torn things piled on the floor of one gallery. Piles of things, such as broken glass and a mountain of sand, was a repeating theme. One gallery featured barbed wire forming a screen, posing a serious hazard to unattended toddlers.
I admired John Chamberlain’s sizable sculptures constructed from crushed car parts. Small segments of these sculptures could be inspiration for a nice abstract painting.
Negative space was another repeating theme, and I don’t mean negative as in questioning whether something is art. In a minimalist way, strings were stretched from floor to ceiling to trick us into thinking they were outlining planes of glass. A very permanent exploration of negative space, the North, East, South, West installation consisted of huge, steel-lined cylinders and cubes that disappeared into the museum floor—an unexpected and impressive work by Michael Heizer.
These Richard Serra sculptures are mini spirals you can walk into and feel as though you are in an alternate, weathered-steel reality.
Farmers market
Despite a wind chill making it feel like it was well below freezing, the Sunday farmers market was bustling. Lots of local goodies on offer: kombucha, macarons, hot sauces, baked goods, crafts, energy drinks, and spiced wine. A very long line was for…organic vegetables!
We stocked up on snacks from All You Knead. Their salted pretzel, one of the best I’ve had, featured a salty crust and good-kind-of-chewy interior. It disappeared quickly. The bagels had a similar texture and didn’t make it home. The chocolate chip cookie had a rich browned butter taste, flat and crunchy with the right amount of chocolate, giving our favorite cookies some serious competition.
Main Street
Beacon’s Main Street has coffee shops, a cat café, antique shops, restaurants, art galleries, and specialty shops. There are also remnants of the town’s past, such as this silo, at one end of the street.
At Hudson Beach Glass, we watched as someone better at advanced planning than me—appointments are required for make-your-own ornaments—crafted a glass-blown ornament. Utensil was stocked with high-quality cooking gear and Weck jars in any size and shape I could want. Beetle and Fred is a crafters haven with specialty yarns, potholder weaving kits, sewing notions and supplies, and more. Stella’s Fine Market elegantly displayed curated pantry items and cookbooks.
Yes, I am a sucker for cute cats, including this one drawing people into the cat café.
One and a half days in Beacon was about right for this time of year. In warmer months, there’s the Bannerman Castle, scenic walks and hikes overlooking the Hudson River, curated gardens surrounding Dia Beacon, and lots of outdoor dining that will encourage us to return.
Scott and I took a daytrip to the Hudson Valley for my birthday in Fall 2021. Wish we could have extended our vacation for an adventure like yours! I really enjoyed the detour from your artist+food Q interviews, which I love reading. Thanks to you--and Michael, too!--for a lunch break with vicarious weekend travel! Your story made my salad taste even better, oddly enough.
What a fun trip- thanks for taking us along via P&P! We also enjoyed experiencing the Richard Serra sculptures- currently in the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain. I'd be more tempted to go to Beacon for the pretzels than the Ryman paintings- and that cat!