vip in the city

Saturday in Saugerties

The dreaded stomach virus that has been running rampant throughout the city continued to wreak havoc on my social calendar when both gatherings scheduled for this weekend were canceled due to friends’ illnesses. (Get well soon!)

So instead, a one-day getaway to Saugerties, probably best known as the site of the 1994 Woodstock Festival revival. This quaint, historic town is located in Ulster County, in the heart of the Hudson River Valley. We were just 100 miles out of the city, but here, the streets were patched with winter snow. (Remember snow?)

In 1677, New York’s Governor Edmund Andros agreed to purchase the land which now comprises the town from the Esopus Indian tribe for the price of a blanket, a piece of cloth, a shirt, a loaf of bread, and some coarse fiber. The deal recalls a similar transaction half a century earlier, between the Director-General of the Dutch colony of New Netherland, Peter Minuit, and the Lenape tribe, in which the island of Manhattan was exchanged for 60 guilders — those 24 famous dollars — worth of beads and trinkets.

Tags: day trip, Saugerties