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municipal boundary, and as a result, 90 percent of Beacon residents live within a half mile of a park. The highest peak in the Hudson Highlands, the 1,611- foot Mount Beacon, o ers spectacular vistas and is a popular hiking spot for Beaconites and visitors alike. The mountain was once home to a casino and incline railway, and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Beacon also has a public waterfront area, anchored by Long Dock Park and its 15 acres of trails, a kayak and canoe launch, and picnic areas; and the Pete and Toshi Seeger Riverfront Park—named after the city’s famous folk-singing activist couple—which hosts annual festivals in the summer and fall.
Though he died in 2014, Pete Seeger’s in uence in Beacon looms large. Seeger moved to Beacon in 1949 and built a log cabin and house at the foot of Mount Beacon by the Hudson River. Around 1966 he began campaigning to clean the river, founding Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, an organization dedicated to clean-water advocacy.
Seeger’s e orts to clean up the Hudson River have improved Beacon’s quality of life, helping to make it an attractive place to live.
“The proximity to Mount Beacon and the Hudson River is amazing,” saysJeremyPyles,creativedirectorat Niche Modern, a hand-blown pendant lighting manufacturer that moved from Brooklyn to Beacon. “I enjoy my time in New York City, but when I cross the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge and see the river and the mountain, I am always happy to be coming home.”
“A lot of younger people are coming up here, because that generation likes to be in a city,” says Mayor Casale. “They like to walk where they need to go, and they want recreation and like open space.” As more people are discovering Beacon’s combination of natural beauty and urban vitality, it’s evident that the city has a bright future ahead of it.
NICHE MODERN
Business owners looking to develop in an area with accessibility to New York City have found Dutchess County to be a perfect place to grow.
Niche Modern, a designer of
hand-blown modern pendant
lighting, manufactures in a 20,000-square-foot former bronze foundry in Beacon. Niche previously had its manufacturing facility in Brooklyn, but Creative Director Jeremy Pyles moved to Beacon for popular reasons: lower costs, a better quality of life for his growing family, and more space and opportunity for his business.
“We knew we needed to be poised for massive growth, not incremental growth,” says Pyles. “Looking back, I don’t think we would have had the appetite for growth had we had the constraints of New York City. It would have been too overwhelming.”
Niche had one part-time employee when it moved to Beacon; today, it employs 23 full-time workers. Helping to fuel that growth has been international sales, which now account for 20 percent of the company’s business.
“For high-level positions, having our beautiful facility in an area like Beacon is a huge selling point in convincing people to relocate,” says Pyles. “And that goes for younger people, too, who are looking for excitement and energy, but can’t necessarily a ord to live in New York City.”
Beacon
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