This is a curiously Scottish looking ruin on the Hudson - I spotted it first on the train going up, and was waiting for it (a window seat! on the river side!) coming back. It's Bannerman Castle, built by a military goods (think Spanish American War) entrepreneur called Frank Bannerman VI - he'd had his arsenal here, and in 1909 built the deliberately Scottish, towered, crenellated castle - which held the family business, selling weapons old and new, and military uniforms, and so on, until 1967, when they sold it back to NY state. Only two years later, before it could be opened to the public, as was the plan, it burned down - and now is a pretty magnificent set of ruins.
Hudson, this morning, was foggy and damp - but this didn't prevent me wandering around and admiring walls with creeper on them.
Only later, when I was heading to the station, did the skies clear for the first time in days - ironically, my first site of the Catskills without clouds on them was from the train.
I'd earlier been for a short walk into the country - which in at least one direction is bang up against the edge of town.
Coming back up this road - which is maybe a couple of hundred yards out of town - a late middle-aged Black man slowed down in his car, and rolled down the window, and yelled, in a very friendly way "Don't let them kick your ass! You got this one! God bless!" - I gave him a thumb's up, and only then realized that I was heading straight for the court house. I don't know what kind of trouble he thought I was in, but I much appreciated his support.
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