We grew up in the Hudson Highlands, about 45 minutes north of New York City, just a few miles outside of the town of Peekskill. Alert reader(s) will recall Peekskill was the setting for The Facts of Life.
Peekskill lies on the Hudson River between the Tappan Zee (a nod to the region's Dutch settlers) and the Bear Mountain Bridge. Here the Hudson is no river but an inland sea, which is what the Dutch called it. Behold:
At this point the Hudson is about two miles wide. We cannot recall ever seeing a river that didn't seem like a piddle compared to the mighty Hudson. The Potomac? Please. Same for the Thames and the Seine last summer.
Just below the river line in the above photo is Route 9A, a four lane highway that takes one from northern Westchester County to southern Westchester county. Here it runs right along the Hudson, only a line of railroad track and a tidal wall of massive boulders separates one from the river.
During the 80's the Stroock Family had weekly Sunday dinner at our grandparents house in Southern Westchester. Afterwards, driving home along 9A in the fading winter twilight, we would look out the car window and see this:
The river and its mountains seemed at once awesome and foreboding, terrifying, really, as if Godzilla or King Kong would appear above them. For a child of the 80's the monsters were real, ABM missiles used to be based in those mountains. At this link is a classical piece depicting exactly what it felt like to us.
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