Tag: vistingamuseum.com

Volunteer Firemen’s Hall & Museum of Kingston 265 Fair Street Kingston, NY 12402

Volunteer Firemen’s Hall & Museum of Kingston

265 Fair Street

Kingston, NY 12402

(831) 331-0866

https://kingstonvolunteerfiremensmuseum.weebly.com/

Open: The hours vary by the season so please look to the website for the openings. School groups please call for an appointment.

Fee: Free but donations accepted

My review on TripAdvisor:

The Kingston Volunteer Museum during the ‘Kingston Snowflake Festival’

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g48003-d3367598-Reviews-Volunteer_Fireman_s_Hall_Museum_of_Kingston-Kingston_New_York.html?m=19905

The antique fire truck outside the firehouse during the Kingston “Snowflake Festival”

I was recently visiting Kingston, NY for an event and while walking around the downtown the doors of the Volunteer Firemen’s Hall & Museum of Kingston was open for visitors. Even if you are not a fire fighter it is such an interesting museum on the history of fire fighting and the role the Kingston Fire Department had in the formation of the City of Kingston.

The early horse drawn fire equipment

The museum welcoming people to the Kingston “Snowflake Festival” in 2022

On the main floor is four pieces of equipment from various stages of the department. The engines are from the turn of the last century featuring horse drawn ladders and steam engines and then the latest equipment from the early teens and twenties from the automotive stage. Each piece of equipment has been carefully maintained and is in pristine shape.

The museum decorated for Christmas for the recent “Kingston Snowflake Festival”

It is interesting to see how different each rig is at that stage of its history but how much has not really changed with the use of the equipment when fighting a fire.

The bay area of the old firehouse with the antique equipment

One of the more interesting pieces in the collection is the beautifully detailed Parade piece from the late 1800’s (circa around 1890’s) which has gorgeous details and intricate craftsmanship work to it. This interesting piece of equipment was the pride of the department on parade day and is one of the few of its type in the country.

The Fire Department Parade Piece

Along the walls is all sorts of pictures of old fires, men who were once members of the department, ribbons and awards, old systems for calling for firemen from the horns that used to sound the alarms to the more modern telegraph equipment to the current paging systems.

The roster upstairs

The fire department equipment pieces

Upstairs you can visit the furnished headquarters of a firehouse circa 1890’s to 1920 with vintage furniture, decorations and composites of firemen long ago. There is even a mannequin of a fire fighter sliding down a pole that leads to the first floor. Here and there are more decorative equipment pieces, furnishings and awards.

The upstairs of the Kingston Volunteer Museum

The museum has a little something for everyone and if you are interesting in knowing more of the history of the fire service and want to hear the stories by members current and retired from the Kingston Fire Department, then the Volunteer Firemen’s Hall & Museum is the place to visit.

Old decorations from fire equipment at the Volunteer Firemen’s Hall & Museum

History of the Museum and Fire Fighting in Kingston, NY:

Ulster County has a remarkable over 350 year history of noble fire fighting. See it up-close and personal at the Volunteer Firemen’s Hall & Museum of Kingston.

The award case upstairs at the firehouse

When Kingston City Hall burned on June 4th, 1927, the third alarm was sounded from the building’s own bell tower before it crashed to the ground. Fire calls in Kingston today are answered through the 911 system with a three minute response time. Ever watched a TV show about firemen and their firehouse? The ‘squawk’ to a call is unmistakable.

The upstairs in the firehouse

Seven volunteer fire companies and the Exempt Association of Kingston recognized the importance of preserving and protecting firematic artifacts as well as establishing a meeting hall for volunteer fire organizations in Kingston and Ulster County. They were charged with finding a permanent home and signed a lease with the City of Kingston for Fair Street’s historic circa 1850 Wiltwyck Fire Station and the rest is history.

The Ladies Auxiliary and rosters

Walk through the large wooden doors to the home away from home of the 19th century firefighters.

The old Kingston, NY firehouse that now houses the museum

Disclaimer: this information was taken directly from the Volunteer Firemen’s Hall & Museum of Kingston pamphlet and I give them full credit for it. Please check out their website for more information.

The living area upstairs in the firehouse decorated for Christmas

Hamilton-Van Wagoner House Museum 971 Valley Road Clifton, NJ 07013

Hamilton-Van Wagoner House Museum

971 Valley Road

Clifton, NJ 07013

(973) 744-5707

https://www.cliftonnj.org/256/Hamilton-House-Museum

Open: Sunday 9:00am-5:00pm/Monday & Tuesday Closed/Wednesday-Saturday 9:00am-5:00pm

Fee: Suggested Donation $5.00

My review on TripAdvisor:

The front of the Hamilton House in the early Spring

I visited the Hamilton House Museum this afternoon which is right down the road from Montclair State College and sits at the border of the Clifton-Montclair border. The interesting part of the house location is that it still sits the farm land of the Van Wagoner Family but the house was moved from its location to the current one because of the building of Route 46 in 1973.

The front of the house in the Spring

When talking with curator, the house is going through a transition from the City of Clifton ownership to the County of Passaic Historical Society’s site. They are currently cataloging every piece in the house and putting it online. They want to view the collection to see what they can work with within the home.

Each room represents a different time in the history of the house. There is a living room from the Victorian age, the kitchen is from the late 1700’s to the early 1800’s and the dining room is from the mid-1800’s. These rooms are furnished to represent a certain time in the house.

There will be many revisions in the future for the house so there are some changes on the way. The upstairs is currently being used for storage and there will be revision there as well. I got a quick tour of the rooms with the curator and he said there will be more changes in the future as they catalog each piece. The grounds are currently being replanted.

The Hamilton House Museum sits at the Clifton and Montclair border

The house is one of the last examples of early 19th century stone houses in Passaic County. The house was built in 1817 by John and Ann Vreeland and then passed to the Van Wagoner family. It changed hands a few times until 1856 when the Hamilton Family bought the house (no relationship to Alexander Hamilton). The house remained in the Hamilton Family until 1972 when the last living relative died and no one in the family wanted possession of the house (Tour Guide & Wiki).

The oldest section of the house

That’s when the City of Clifton bought the house from the family of its historic value. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 13th, 1982 (Wiki).

The outside grounds of The Hamilton House Museum

The Grape Arbor on the grounds of the Hamilton House

History of the Hamilton House:

(taken from the City of Clifton website)

This 18th Century Dutch gambrel-roofed homestead was once the home of the Van Wagoner and Hamilton families. This basic of the house does not greatly differ from its Dutch antecedents.

The sturdy one and one half story cut sandstone structure, flanked by a grainery, spring-house and gardens reflects almost two hundred years of American history. It brings back memories of an uncluttered horizon with farms, orchards, fresh brooks, forest full of game and filled with scent of wildflowers.

Hamilton House & the Clifton Community:

Although the City of Clifton was incorporated in 1917, a community had existed since 1679. Prior to 1917, the area was known as Acquackanonk Township and included parts of : Little Falls, Passaic, Paterson and West Paterson.

The Indian Chief Captahem deeded 11,000 acres to the early Dutch settlers on the shores of the Passaic River. Predominately rural, this sparsely populated village thrived and grew.

The farmhouse was presented to the City of Clifton by the developers of the late Henry Hamilton. The Hamilton family had bought the 96 acre property in 1856 and for over 100 years until the death of Mr. Hamilton in 1970, it had been the family home.

The old outhouse in the back of the property

Current Location and Future Plans:

The house was moved to its present location in Surgent Park in 1973. Infinite plans have been taken with examination and documentation of the building’s structural elements. Extensive research has been conducted including the records and treasured memories of Miss Caroline Hamilton as well as: Artifacts, Deeds, Manuscripts, Maps, Photographs and Wills.

The old Ice House on the property

Scheduling Tours:

The museum is opened for tours on Sunday from 2:00pm-4:00pm (except on holidays). The house is going through a transition right now with the change over.

Dia: Beacon 3 Beekman Street Beacon, NY 12508

Dia: Beacon

3 Beekman Street

Beacon, NY 12508

(845) 440-0100

https://www.diaart.org/visit/visit/diabeacon-beacon-united-states

https://www.diaart.org/visit/visit

Open: Sunday & Monday 11:00am-6:00pm/ Closed Tuesday & Wednesday/Thursday-Saturday 11:00am-6:00pm

Fee: General Admission $20.00/Seniors $18.00/Students $12.00/Children 11-5 $5.00/Free to Children under 12

My review on TripAdvisor:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g47291-d273538-Reviews-Dia_Beacon-Beacon_New_York.html?m=19905

The front of the Dia: Beacon

I visited the Dia: Beacon in Beacon, NY many times and I have to say that is an interesting space to display art and the pieces themselves make a statement. The museum is sited on thirty-one acres on the banks of the Hudson River and is adjacent to ninety acres of riverfront parkland. The museum is located in a former printing plant built in 1929 by Nabisco (National Biscuit Company) (Wiki). The space square footage gives the museum the opportunity to display larger statement pieces of well known artists.

The history of the Dia: Beacon:

(from the museum website)

The Dia: Beacon presents Dia Art Foundation’s collection of art from the 1960’s to the present as well as special exhibitions, performances and public programs. The Dia invited artist Robert Irwin to conceive the master plan for a twenty-century museum that retained the original character of the factory’s interior spaces, Irwin also designed seasonally changing garden throughout the surrounding landscape. Following the renovation, the Dia: Beacon was added to the National Register of Historic Places (Dia: Beacon Museum).

Dia Art Foundation:

(from the museum website)

Founded in 1974, Dia Art Foundation is committed to advancing, realizing and preserving the vision of artists. In addition to Dia: Beacon, Dia maintains a constellation of iconic, permanent artworks and installations in New York City, the American West and Germany (Dia Museum).

Each of the galleries are devoted one artist’s work and these galleries make their own statements. There is also a really nice bookstore and gift shop on the extension of the museum and small restaurant.

It is nice to just walk around in your own time and visit each of the galleries. Plan about two hours to see the whole museum. It is an interesting place to see contemporary art in a gallery that is devoted to one artist at a time. The outside grounds of the museum and the parking lot makes it own statement. There is not much parking so plan on getting there early or later in the afternoon.

The museum has clean lines and big halls and a minimalist landscaping

The one thing about the Dia is that the works are quite large and pack a bold statement. The museum uses a combination of both American and Foreign artists and their works make a bold statement. The museums galleries are large and airy and can show larger works of art. The museum shows many of the artists largest pieces of work.

The inside of the Dia: Beacon’s large galleries

These larger pieces were interactive

Inside the museum, many contemporary artists are featured each season. Many of their larger works were featured in their galleries. While the shows rotate collections of many artists, these were the pieces that stood out to me on my visits to the museum over the years.

The Artists I most admired and their works that most stood out to me:

Artist Louise Bourgeois has displayed some interesting sculptures that dominate the upper floors. One of the most fascinating pieces was that of a large spider that dominates the corner of the floor.

This Louise Bourgeois work is a rather creepy piece of art like something out of the movie “It”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Bourgeois

https://diaart.org/collection/collection/bourgeois-louise-crouching-spider-2003-l-2007-012

In Bourgeois’s works on view in these galleries, organic formations fuse with the inorganic materiality of the media in which they are rendered, be it marble, wood, or bronze. The artist’s repertoire of materials spans traditional media and new textures, such as latex and synthetic resin. In her work, representation often entails the creation of a surrogate for the body and its suffering organs (Dia: Beacon museum website).

Artist Dan Flavin has some interesting light sculptures on display along the walls and floors of the gallery. Things are made of long fluorescent lights of various colors.

Artist Dan Flavin’s light sculptures

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Flavin

After 1963 Flavin’s work was composed almost entirely of light, in the form of commercially available fluorescent tubes in ten colors (blue, green, pink, red, yellow, ultraviolet, and four whites) and five shapes (one circular and four straight fixtures of different lengths). Initially arranging these fixtures in varying autonomous configurations, Flavin increasingly made work in relation to architecture, such as his monumental barriers that physically block a passageway or segment of a space with light (The Dia: Beacon museum website).

In the main gallery as you walk in are the large geometric shapes of artist Charlotte Posenenske who created these pieces in various colors and shapes. These pieces line the floors and walls.

The geometric shapes of Artist Charlotte Posenenske

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Posenenske

https://www.diaart.org/exhibition/exhibitions-projects/charlotte-posenenske-exhibition

Embracing reductive geometry, repetition, and industrial fabrication, she developed a form of mass-produced sculptural Minimalism that addressed the pressing socioeconomic concerns of the decade by circumventing the art market and rejecting established formal and cultural hierarchies. Posenenske employed playful conceptual devices to oppose compositional hierarchy and invite the collaborative engagement of the public in the continual reconfiguration of her variable sculptures (The Dia: Beacon website).

Artist Andy Warhol has one of his largest works displayed in the main gallery on the first floor.

The artist Andy Warhol gallery

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol

The large Andy Warhol piece

What I loved about the work by Warhol was the continuous colorful pattern of the work and the way it wrapped around the room. The pattern took form in many colors and showed consistency and balance.

A single painting in multiple parts, Shadows is one of Warhol’s most abstract works, yet one that cohesively synthesizes key elements of his practice, including film, painting, photography, and screen-printing. Originally commissioned by Dia and acquired in 1979 for a solo exhibition at 393 West Broadway in New York, Shadows includes a total of 102 canvases; the final number of canvases on view in each installation is determined by the dimensions of an existing exhibition space (The Dia: Beacon museum website).

Artist Senga Nengudi Gallery

https://www.sengasenga.com/

American artist Senga Nengudi had a some interesting works on display, one resembling melted ‘freeze pops’, which I thought was rather clever. Her large works took liquid forms and were colorful and spontaneous. These large works had lots of color and looked whimsical and fun.

One of Artist Senga Nengudi works

I thought this was a large ‘freeze pop’

One of her non-liquid works

Made of everyday materials such as vinyl, water, nylon, sand, dry-cleaning bags, lint, paper, and tape, Nengudi’s installations are at once proxies for bodies and sites for performance. The works accommodate a variety of cultural references from African, Japanese, and South Asian rites to Western avant-garde art. Characteristic of her openness to multiplicity, the artist, born Sue Ellen Irons, has assumed pseudonyms that inflect her creative identities as sculptor (Senga Nengudi), painter (Harriet Chin), photographer (Propecia Leigh), and writer (Lily Bea Moor) (The Dia: Beacon museum website).

Some of the other works that I liked as I walked around the museum:

Displayed on the first floor of the Dia: Beacon

Another interesting work on the first floor

The large galleries and open air space give patrons a chance to walk around the works and really get a feel for what the artists are trying to express. You really get to see the art up close and that is why I like the way they display their art. We can engage with each piece and develop our own meaning from it.

The grounds and the proximity to the river gives the museum a picturesque spot. It is nice to walk around the lawn on a warm day and enjoy the paths around the museum. The museum also has a very interesting gift shop featuring many books and gifts. The small restaurant can be pricey but offers a place for a light lunch or a quick snack.

The Wyckoff Historical Society The Barbershop next to the Pond Wyckoff, NJ 07481

The Wyckoff Historical Society

The Shop next to the Pond

Wyckoff, NJ 07481

http://www.wyckoffhistory.org

Hours: Please check the website above

Fee: Please check their website

My review on TripAdvisor:

The Wyckoff Historical Society was established to research, preserve and educate about the rich history of Wyckoff, NJ. The organization was founded in 1974 and is incorporated. Recent programs included a walking tour of Wyckoff.

The Society recently restored the old Wyckoff barbershop that was donated to them and now sits on the town property by the Zabriskie Pond and the historic Zabriskie Home. Inside the building houses all sorts of local artifacts, farm tools and vintage furniture along with historic photos of the town of Wyckoff, NJ.

The little building sits right on the Zabriskie Pond.

The Zabriskie Pond in Wyckoff, NJ

History of the Museum:

This 1890’s structure was recorded as being a barbershop in 1905 when it was owned by John Lawrence, who worked for the railroad by day and cut hair at night. It was also a cobbler shop for several years and again a barbershop. The building was on Main Street and Everett Avenue relocating to its current home and donated to the Wyckoff Historical Society by resident and member, Sebastian Gaeta.

The farming display at the Barbershop Museum

The history of the building

The building was neglected for several years and was restored several times, most recently in the summer of 2018 by the society including a full paint job of the interior and exterior and refinishing the bare floors.

The barber chair from the old barber shop

On display are artifacts from Russell Farms, a barber chair from longtime Wyckoff barber, Frank Muscara, a 1905 child’s dress, Lenape artifacts, a Hoosier cabinet and photographs.

The Native American Collection

Artifacts from Wyckoff’s past

Artifacts from old businesses in Wyckoff and the surrounding areas

The tiny museum has a display of its own history as a barbershop on the Main Street of Wyckoff, NJ and how the building served as a local center for its citizens. It was eventually moved as times changed and became the museum it is today telling the story of the Town of Wyckoff, NJ.

The history and movement of the building when it left its original location

The history of the barbershop

The history of the building and the barbershop and of Wyckoff, NJ

Where the building was located in Wyckoff, NJ

Please check their website for opening dates.

The beauty of the Zabriskie Pond on a fall day in 2022. The area is just beautiful.

The Zabriskie Pond in Wyckoff, NJ

Disclaimer: This information was taken directly from the Wyckoff Historical Society pamphlet and I give them full credit for the information. Please email them for more information.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: