New York Interesting Places to Visit
This state offers many different delights like mountains, rivers, lakes and different nature retreats.
Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge - is located midway between Buffalo and Rochester within the Atlantic Flyway. There are 10,818 acres of marsh, swamp, wet meadow and pasture which offer food, rest and protection for more than 200 species of birds, especially during the spring and fall migrations. There are also 42 species of mammals, plus reptiles, fish amphibians and insects. By mid-April the peak of the spring season there may be as many as 40,000 Canadian geese feeding at a single time. The great blue heron nests here. The autumn is the best time to view ducks such as wood ducks, mallards and blue winged teal. Permanent residents include great horned owls and downy woodpeckers. Great vantage points can be found along the trails and overlooks.
Griffith Sculpture Park in Ashford Hollow has a collection of 150 objective and nonobjective sculptures created from aluminum, bronze, steel, cast iron and wood. These sculptures were made by several different artists. There are trails that crisscross the park's 400 acres of meadows, ponds and lightly wooded slopes. Walking along you come upon the sculptures. A particularly striking sculpture is that of a woman striding across a field. Another sculpture is that of a bishop confronting a king and queen. Among the animal kingdom there are sculptures of a flight of giant geese, a life-size giraffe browsing for twigs at the edge of the woods, and within the woods there is a huge, silvery crab with a gigantic rust colored mantis and a king cobra. At one pond you can see aluminum bathers. Altogether the park features over 250 large-scale sculptures dispersed through miles of hiking trails. The park is open from May through October.
Rock City Park - found high in the Allegheny Mountains at an elevation of some 2,350 feet offering panoramic views. Here one can see gigantic boulders of dramatic shapes and formations. The rocks are estimated to be 500 million years old they're known as pudding stone, a quartz conglomerate formed at the bottom of a prehistoric sea. During the uplifting of this mountain system, the rocks were exposed to the surface. The trail winding through Rock City starts and ends near Signal Rock which was once used by Indians for their signal fires. Walking single file one squeezes through narrow passageways, passes beneath great overhanging boulders, and descends into crevasse carved out by extinct waterfalls. In June, pink and white mountain laurel blooms in profusion and many other plants flower beneath the maples, hemlocks, pines and oaks.
Montour Falls - in the village of Montour Falls. These beautiful falls are almost as high as Niagara, they descend in three tiers. A sketch of the falls, made in 1820, by Louis Philippe, later King of France hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris. The falls were named She-qua-gah (Tumbling Waters) by the band of Seneca Indians brought here from Pennsylvania in the 1760s by their matriarch, Queen Catharine Montour. The white people who settled here after the exodus of the Indians called the community Mills Landing and Havana. It was later renamed in honor of the Indian queen. The village's historic district is known for its Greek Revival buildings. Several of them are in the national registrar of historic places. At Havana Glen, a two mile long ravine on the edge of the village is a series of low waterfall cascades through the woods. Among the trees one can find an inviting picnic and camping area.
Lorenzo - in the village of Cazenovia. Dutch investors sent John Lincklaen to America in 1790. He purchased 120,000 acres of land by Lake Cazenovia and laid out the village of Cazenovia in 1793 building roads and mills. On a knoll overlooking the lake Lincklaen built a Federal-style mansion in 1807 and named it Lorenzo. The Lincklaen family occupied the property for 160 years when it was purchased by the state of New York in 1968 as a historic site. Lorenzo is now a museum surrounded by formal gardens, groves of trees, walks and a carriage house containing a wonderful collection of 19th century horse drawn vehicles. Well worth seeing is also the village of Cazenovia with a charming main street.
Frederic Remington Art Museum - is housed in a white Victorian mansion in Ogdensburg. It was the home of David Parish an early developer of large tracts of land and is now a museum which contains a comprehensive collection of Remington's work. Frederic Remington was born in Canton, New York in 1861 and spent most of his youth in Ogdensburg. He studied art at Yale University. The museum's collection of 70 Remington oils includes "The Charge of the Rough Riders at San Juan Hill" which depicts the famous battle in Cuba during the Spanish-American war, when Remington was a war correspondent for the Hearst newspapers. There are also 14 bronzes, 140 watercolors and many ink and pen sketches. Remington died in1909 in Ridgefield, Connecticut. After his death this home became the residence of his wife Eva. She and her sister, Emma lived there from 1915 to 1918 and the museum was founded as the Remington Art Memorial in 1923. Remington's last studio is reconstructed in the museum and here you can see many of his personal belongings. In addition to the Remington works a collection of period glass, china, silver, cameos and a group of 19th century American and European paintings and sculptures are shown.
Huguenot Street - is located in New Paltz near the Wallkill River in the shadow of the Shawangunk Mountains. Many French Protestants known as Huguenots, exiled themselves, finding refuge in neighboring countries. In 1677 several Huguenot families from die Paltz (the Rhine-Palatinate) arrived in the Hudson Valley. The refugees were from what today is southern Belgium and northern France.
They bought land from the Indians, built log huts and named their settlement after their previous home. In the 1690s they replaced the huts with steep-roofed stone houses much like those of the Palatinate. Several of these quaint houses still remain on Huguenot Street, designated a national historic landmark with the claim of being "the oldest street in America with its original houses". The houses were originally one-room structures and the large family kitchen with enormous fireplaces and cupboards displaying pottery and old pewter are especially appealing. The visitor center has a gallery of historic pictures and offers tours of the site.
Ice Caves Mountain National Landmark - Here on a flat-topped mountain in the Shawangunk Range are massive rocks that were at the bottom of the sea 330 million years ago; a lost river from an unknown source; a dead lake; tunnels and deep, narrow chasms; ice caves; and layers of shale containing the million-year-old bones of mammoth. From the visitor's center a scenic loop road brings people to the major attractions - the ice caves and Sam's Point, which in an enormous monolith 2,255 ft. above sea level and give a view of five states. The point is named for Sam Gonzalez, a fur trapper who is said to have leaped from this point into the treetops far below to escape a pursuing party of Indians and survived, suffering only a broken leg. There are nature trails leading to springs, chasms and other scenic spots. Pink azaleas and mountain laurel bloom in the woods from late May to early June and in late July masses of blueberries ripen on the mountaintop. During the spring and fall great numbers of migrating hawks can be seen.
Sagamore Hill National Historic Site - located in Oyster Bay. Sagamore Hill was built in 1884 for Theodore Roosevelt, who in 1901 became the 26th president of the United States. The large house is surrounded by 155 acres and was the summer White House during Roosevelt's presidency years. The house has 25 rooms including a big piazza facing west to view the sunset, a drawing room across the entire west end and a library with a bay window facing south. The piazza overlooks Oyster Bay and Long Island Sound. The North Room an imposing 30 by 40 ft. hall was added in 1905 and became the center of family activity. It is paneled in black walnut, swamp cypress, hazel and mahogany. The hall contains Roosevelt's many hunting trophies, paintings, books and other treasures. Old Orchard, the Georgian brick home that Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt built on the grounds in 1937 is now a museum, exhibiting mementos of the president's political and family life. The small library of books and pamphlets by and about Theodore Roosevelt is available to researchers by appointment.
Griffith Sculpture Park in Ashford Hollow has a collection of 150 objective and nonobjective sculptures created from aluminum, bronze, steel, cast iron and wood. These sculptures were made by several different artists. There are trails that crisscross the park's 400 acres of meadows, ponds and lightly wooded slopes. Walking along you come upon the sculptures. A particularly striking sculpture is that of a woman striding across a field. Another sculpture is that of a bishop confronting a king and queen. Among the animal kingdom there are sculptures of a flight of giant geese, a life-size giraffe browsing for twigs at the edge of the woods, and within the woods there is a huge, silvery crab with a gigantic rust colored mantis and a king cobra. At one pond you can see aluminum bathers. Altogether the park features over 250 large-scale sculptures dispersed through miles of hiking trails. The park is open from May through October.
Rock City Park - found high in the Allegheny Mountains at an elevation of some 2,350 feet offering panoramic views. Here one can see gigantic boulders of dramatic shapes and formations. The rocks are estimated to be 500 million years old they're known as pudding stone, a quartz conglomerate formed at the bottom of a prehistoric sea. During the uplifting of this mountain system, the rocks were exposed to the surface. The trail winding through Rock City starts and ends near Signal Rock which was once used by Indians for their signal fires. Walking single file one squeezes through narrow passageways, passes beneath great overhanging boulders, and descends into crevasse carved out by extinct waterfalls. In June, pink and white mountain laurel blooms in profusion and many other plants flower beneath the maples, hemlocks, pines and oaks.
Montour Falls - in the village of Montour Falls. These beautiful falls are almost as high as Niagara, they descend in three tiers. A sketch of the falls, made in 1820, by Louis Philippe, later King of France hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris. The falls were named She-qua-gah (Tumbling Waters) by the band of Seneca Indians brought here from Pennsylvania in the 1760s by their matriarch, Queen Catharine Montour. The white people who settled here after the exodus of the Indians called the community Mills Landing and Havana. It was later renamed in honor of the Indian queen. The village's historic district is known for its Greek Revival buildings. Several of them are in the national registrar of historic places. At Havana Glen, a two mile long ravine on the edge of the village is a series of low waterfall cascades through the woods. Among the trees one can find an inviting picnic and camping area.
Lorenzo - in the village of Cazenovia. Dutch investors sent John Lincklaen to America in 1790. He purchased 120,000 acres of land by Lake Cazenovia and laid out the village of Cazenovia in 1793 building roads and mills. On a knoll overlooking the lake Lincklaen built a Federal-style mansion in 1807 and named it Lorenzo. The Lincklaen family occupied the property for 160 years when it was purchased by the state of New York in 1968 as a historic site. Lorenzo is now a museum surrounded by formal gardens, groves of trees, walks and a carriage house containing a wonderful collection of 19th century horse drawn vehicles. Well worth seeing is also the village of Cazenovia with a charming main street.
Frederic Remington Art Museum - is housed in a white Victorian mansion in Ogdensburg. It was the home of David Parish an early developer of large tracts of land and is now a museum which contains a comprehensive collection of Remington's work. Frederic Remington was born in Canton, New York in 1861 and spent most of his youth in Ogdensburg. He studied art at Yale University. The museum's collection of 70 Remington oils includes "The Charge of the Rough Riders at San Juan Hill" which depicts the famous battle in Cuba during the Spanish-American war, when Remington was a war correspondent for the Hearst newspapers. There are also 14 bronzes, 140 watercolors and many ink and pen sketches. Remington died in1909 in Ridgefield, Connecticut. After his death this home became the residence of his wife Eva. She and her sister, Emma lived there from 1915 to 1918 and the museum was founded as the Remington Art Memorial in 1923. Remington's last studio is reconstructed in the museum and here you can see many of his personal belongings. In addition to the Remington works a collection of period glass, china, silver, cameos and a group of 19th century American and European paintings and sculptures are shown.
Huguenot Street - is located in New Paltz near the Wallkill River in the shadow of the Shawangunk Mountains. Many French Protestants known as Huguenots, exiled themselves, finding refuge in neighboring countries. In 1677 several Huguenot families from die Paltz (the Rhine-Palatinate) arrived in the Hudson Valley. The refugees were from what today is southern Belgium and northern France.
They bought land from the Indians, built log huts and named their settlement after their previous home. In the 1690s they replaced the huts with steep-roofed stone houses much like those of the Palatinate. Several of these quaint houses still remain on Huguenot Street, designated a national historic landmark with the claim of being "the oldest street in America with its original houses". The houses were originally one-room structures and the large family kitchen with enormous fireplaces and cupboards displaying pottery and old pewter are especially appealing. The visitor center has a gallery of historic pictures and offers tours of the site.
Ice Caves Mountain National Landmark - Here on a flat-topped mountain in the Shawangunk Range are massive rocks that were at the bottom of the sea 330 million years ago; a lost river from an unknown source; a dead lake; tunnels and deep, narrow chasms; ice caves; and layers of shale containing the million-year-old bones of mammoth. From the visitor's center a scenic loop road brings people to the major attractions - the ice caves and Sam's Point, which in an enormous monolith 2,255 ft. above sea level and give a view of five states. The point is named for Sam Gonzalez, a fur trapper who is said to have leaped from this point into the treetops far below to escape a pursuing party of Indians and survived, suffering only a broken leg. There are nature trails leading to springs, chasms and other scenic spots. Pink azaleas and mountain laurel bloom in the woods from late May to early June and in late July masses of blueberries ripen on the mountaintop. During the spring and fall great numbers of migrating hawks can be seen.
Sagamore Hill National Historic Site - located in Oyster Bay. Sagamore Hill was built in 1884 for Theodore Roosevelt, who in 1901 became the 26th president of the United States. The large house is surrounded by 155 acres and was the summer White House during Roosevelt's presidency years. The house has 25 rooms including a big piazza facing west to view the sunset, a drawing room across the entire west end and a library with a bay window facing south. The piazza overlooks Oyster Bay and Long Island Sound. The North Room an imposing 30 by 40 ft. hall was added in 1905 and became the center of family activity. It is paneled in black walnut, swamp cypress, hazel and mahogany. The hall contains Roosevelt's many hunting trophies, paintings, books and other treasures. Old Orchard, the Georgian brick home that Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt built on the grounds in 1937 is now a museum, exhibiting mementos of the president's political and family life. The small library of books and pamphlets by and about Theodore Roosevelt is available to researchers by appointment.
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