The upstate New York animator behind The Aura of Upstate on turning a podcast into an animated show — and making great films with no studio behind him.
Hundreds of Hudson Valley creatives and small business owners gathered at Scenic Hudson's Northside Hub for a magical evening.
Nearly 300 people joined ConnectHV's first outdoor meetup at Water Street Market in New Paltz for food, drinks, and Hudson Valley community connections.
World-class modern art, a boutique-lined Main Street, and incredible access to the Hudson Highlands.
World-class modern art on one end, a mountain trailhead on the other, and a mile of Main Street in between.
Beacon spent most of the twentieth century in the shadow of its industrial heyday, and daytrippers often miss that this is a real place occupied by families who've lived here for generations. In 2003, the opening of Dia:Beacon, one of the largest contemporary art museums in the country, sparked a two-decade transformation in which Beacon became known for its galleries, boutiques, and restaurants spreading the length of Main Street.
What followed is the tension that still defines the place: a Main Street built for weekenders and a longer-running Beacon that pre-dates Dia by generations. Both communities live alongside Mt. Beacon, the Hudson, and one of the most concentrated creative scenes in the Valley.
Beacon rewards walking. A single mile of Main Street carries you from the riverfront and the train station, past galleries and the Howland Cultural Center, to the foot of the mountain — with a different version of the city in every block.
Beacon was stitched together in 1913 from two riverside villages, and Main Street still runs the mile from one to the other.
The West / River End
The Hudson end of Main, around the Metro-North station, Long Dock Park, and Dia:Beacon — the old steamboat-landing village, and the way most visitors arrive. Main Street's boutiques and galleries start here and run east.
The East / Creek End
The upper end of Main, toward Fishkill Creek and the foot of Mt. Beacon — the old mill village, now neighborhood bars, makers, and the Roundhouse hotel near the mountain trailhead.
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The artists, makers, architects, and creators who call Beacon home.
Artists, architects, designers, and makers — Beacon draws people who create things.
Emma M. Diamond is a communications and visual arts professional with more than 15 years of experience in visual storytelling, community engagement, and creative project management. She currently serves as Operations Coordinator for the Orange County NY Arts Council, as a consultant for arts programming and as founder of Beacon Photo Club.
I'm a poet, mystic, and medieval literature nerd based in Beacon. By day, I'm a marketing strategist for an NYC-based publishing house, focusing on EdTech platforms and content for college courses. When I'm not reading or writing while sipping a matcha, I love to sing, cook, collage, hike, explore museums and go to the theatre. I also write a Substack, Merchantess of Marvels, where I blend travelogues with literary/historical research and reflections on life as a young breast cancer survivor.
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I’m a fractional product leader fascinated by what helps people and businesses truly grow — not just scale. I love building products, improving systems, and helping teams move through fear, stagnation, and complexity with more clarity and humanity. Lately, I’ve become interested in the idea that the opposite of fear is love. That belief inspired Intespira: a gathering in nature to recharge, reconnect, and build from a more open-hearted place.
A film and music enthusiast, director, editor, musician, writer, pizzaholic, father of two, husband, and chill dude who thrives on creativity.
What's on, what's open, what's worth your time.
The days the whole city turns out, the outlets that cover it, and the art and the mountain people come for.
Annually, late September
Beacon's signature day: a unity parade and street festival down the length of Main Street, started in 1977 to mend the city's racial divisions and run by volunteers ever since. The one event most of Beacon turns out for.
Monthly, year-round
On the second Saturday of every month, Main Street's galleries, shops, and restaurants stay open late for a free, walkable art night. It's the engine that turned Beacon into a Hudson Valley arts town.
Annually, November
A five-day music-and-art festival that takes over Main Street each November, with hundreds of performers spread across galleries, cafés, breweries, and pop-up stages the length of town. Born from a pandemic-era neighborhood campfire, it closes with a Bonfire Finale featuring the Beacon Drum Circle and fire dancers.
Annually, late June
A free, self-guided weekend when scores of Beacon artists throw open their studios and pop-up spaces to the public — one of the largest open-studio events in the Valley.
Nonprofit weekly
A nonprofit weekly out of Cold Spring that has staffed a dedicated Beacon beat since 2015 — the most serious source for city-government and community news on this stretch of the river.
Hyperlocal · since 2011
Katie Hellmuth's independent Beacon blog and newsletter, beloved for its constantly updated guides to what's open, what's on, and where to eat in town.
Digital magazine
A hyperlocal digital magazine and newsletter built around Beacon's calendar and storefronts, named Hudson Valley Magazine's Best Blog in 2025.
Weekly newspaper
The print community weekly, covering Beacon city hall, the school board, and the legal notices that keep a small city honest.
Riverfront · since 2003
The Dia Art Foundation's flagship: a former Nabisco box factory turned into 160,000 square feet of skylit galleries for monumental work by Serra, Judd, Flavin, and Agnes Martin. The museum that remade Beacon.
Hudson Highlands
A steep climb up the route of the old Mount Beacon Incline Railway — once billed as the world's steepest funicular — past its ruined powerhouse to a restored 1931 fire tower with a view from the Highlands to the Catskills.
Pollepel Island
The Scottish-baronial ruins of an arms dealer's surplus arsenal, built on a Hudson River island in the early 1900s. Boat and walking tours run out from the Beacon waterfront across from the train station.
Main Street
An ornate 1872 building designed by Richard Morris Hunt as a library, run since 1979 as a nonprofit home for concerts, chamber music, and exhibitions. A cornerstone of the Main Street arts scene.
Teller Avenue
Built around 1709, the oldest standing house in southern Dutchess County — home to seven generations of one family before becoming a house museum kept by the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Hudson riverfront
Scenic Hudson turned a contaminated brownfield into a 14-acre riverfront park with a kayak pavilion, restored wetlands, a Hudson-side sculpture, and a red-barn river center. The best front-row seat on the water in Beacon.
From a coworking space that helped seed the modern Beacon scene to the architects shaping its next chapter, Beacon's business community reflects the art scene at its core.
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Welcome to The Roundhouse located in the heart of Beacon, NY. Our restaurant serves modern American cuisine inspired by the agricultural richness of the region. Our menu highlights local farms, wineries, distilleries, and all of the amazing food and beverage craftsmen of the Hudson Valley. All of our tables have waterfall and creek views from the Roundhouse building’s floor-to-ceiling windows. Visit our website or give us a call to make a reservation today!
Flora Good Times is an unconventional, artful wedding florist and Hudson Valley flower shop creating playful, garden-inspired florals and a thoughtfully curated houseplant selection.
Pioneering hives for work + belonging. Born in Beacon in 2009.
Beacon is best known for Dia:Beacon, the blockbuster contemporary-art museum that sparked its revival, and for a mile-long Main Street of galleries, boutiques, and restaurants that hosts a monthly Second Saturday art night. Add Hudson Highlands hiking up Mount Beacon and a Budget Travel "Coolest Small Town in America" title in 2018, and you have one of the Valley's most-walked small downtowns.
The land along the river at Beacon was home to the Wappinger, an Eastern Algonquian, Munsee-speaking people whose territory stretched across what is now Dutchess County and down the Hudson's east bank. Archaeology at Mount Gulian shows their ancestors camped in the area seasonally for thousands of years, farming corn and fishing and hunting the highlands. The 1685 Rombout Patent transferred their ancestral lands to colonists, and after the devastation of Kieft's War (1643–1645) and continued displacement, most Wappinger were forced to leave the valley.
Beacon is one of the easiest Hudson Valley day trips from the city: Metro-North's Hudson Line runs from Grand Central straight to Beacon station on the river in about an hour and a half. Main Street is a short walk or local shuttle from the platform, and you won't need a car once you're in town.
If you have any interest in modern and contemporary art, yes. Dia:Beacon shows monumental works by Richard Serra, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, and Agnes Martin across a vast former Nabisco factory lit almost entirely by skylights. Note that it is generally open Friday through Monday and closed midweek, so plan around its schedule.
Yes. The popular Casino Trail climbs steeply from Mount Beacon Park — starting with a long staircase — about two miles round trip, passing the ruins of the old incline railway. Strong hikers can continue to the fire tower on the South Beacon summit for a 360-degree view of the Highlands and the Hudson.
Fall is the headline season, with peak foliage in the Highlands usually arriving in the second and third weeks of October, but Beacon is a year-round town. Spring and summer bring riverfront festivals, Bannerman Castle boat tours, and the longest Main Street strolls; winter is quiet, but the galleries and breweries keep going.
Beacon's food scene is independent and clustered on Main Street — from Quinn's, with its Japanese soul food and live jazz, to the multi-vendor Hudson Valley Food Hall — backed by a serious run of breweries in Hudson Valley Brewery, Two Way, and Industrial Arts. You can browse the full list on the ConnectHV Beacon directory.
The city takes its name from the Revolutionary War signal fires lit atop Mount Beacon — part of a network that warned the Continental Army of British movements on the Hudson. Washington would later make his headquarters just across the river in Newburgh, from 1782 to 1783.
Dramatic Hudson views, world-class architecture, and a waterfront that runs late.
Historic colleges, a thriving culinary scene, and the world's longest elevated pedestrian bridge.
The first capital of New York and a gateway between the Hudson and the Catskills.
America's oldest art colony, a music-history landmark, and a walkable village on the edge of the Catskills.
A whaling port turned design capital, where a mile of nineteenth-century Warren Street climbs from the river.
Hudson Valley makers, neighbors, and small businesses are already on ConnectHV — add your name to the map.
