The Northgate Ruins: Revisited

On Sunday my dude and I decided to return to Cold Spring, a town along the Hudson River about 1.5 hrs north of the city, for a hike. We had been in April and although we've been on a few more hikes since then, I think Cold Spring is my favorite for a few reasons. It's super convenient (the hiking trails are walkable from the Metro North station), relatively cheap, challenging but not impossible and most importantly the trails take you past the ruins of several different structures.

I wrote about the ruins of the old Cornish Estate after our first hike, but I was excited to explore the main house further after realizing that we had missed some things. On our first trip we missed the pool entirely and just glanced at the greenhouse, which are two of my favorite features of the estate. The weather and foliage situation was quite similar to when we went in April and although the bare trees afford great views, I definitely regret not catching the leaves at their peak colors this year.

The fireplaces are definitely a highlight of the estate ruins and help you to visualize how grand the house must have been before it burned down (yikes). There are just enough smaller details like tiles on the fireplaces and inlay tiles on the ground to make me wish I could step back in time and see the house and its furnishings intact.

I'm so glad that we got to take our time and revisit the estate ruins—I feel like I could go back many more times and still find something new each time. It's become a joke now that on every hike we take I say "I bet it's beautiful in the fall," but I'm sure that's true of these ruins—and I'm sure they're magical in the snow, if winter ever decides to show up for real this year we might have to go back.

Cold Spring, NY

A few weeks ago—before we explored the cemetery or hiked through the Cornish Estate ruins—we explored a bit of the town of Cold Spring, New York. Cold Spring is a stop on the Hudson line of the Metro North Railroad, about 1.5 hrs north of the city, on the banks of the Hudson River.

It's an adorable small town, filled with antiques shops, an actual Main Street, a few restaurants, bars and coffee shops. The houses and brick buildings were almost all absurdly cute, with mansard roofs, porches, porthole windows and red doors. Cold Spring reminded me of other Hudson Valley towns I've been to or through—Tarrytown, Irvington, Ossining—but slightly less expensive.

I would have loved to explore the antique shops, but we had a full agenda and couldn't carry anything with us, which means I would have 100% found tons of things I couldn't live without.

The hiking trails are located really close to the center of town, and our hike through the highlands was incredible. Aside from the ruins, we saw so many rock sculptures that they began to look like little cities (or little people) and the views from the top are breathtaking. I might have complained (mostly in my head) about being tired on the trek up, or almost died of thirst (dramatic exaggeration) but the views of the Hudson Valley and beyond were totally worth it.

At one point we could even see the city—looking like a tiny, toy Emerald City—which is the best part about the Hudson Valley. You feel light years away from New York, but you're only a short train ride from home.

The Northgate Ruins

When we went on our hike through the Hudson Highlands upstate in Cold Spring, New York, it was mentioned that there were ruins scattered throughout the trails. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but as soon as we came upon the site of Northgate (aka the Cornish Estate) I was entirely delighted.

A fire destroyed most of the mansion that stood on the site in 1956 and the property later became a part of the park in the 1960s. Although a majority of the house is gone, you can still get a feel for how it used to look—there are fireplaces, doorways, windows, tiles, a porch and a few outbuildings including what looks like it used to be a greenhouse. It's especially creepy seeing so many fireplaces, knowing that the place eventually burned down, and it's disorienting to see them stacked on one another without discernible floors in between.

After a few more miles, we came across the Dairy—also part of the Cornish Estate—which includes a few buildings that used to house prize-winning Jersey cows. Now the buildings are crumbling, with trees growing through things that trees don't normally grow through. There's a rusty fence, some old pipe and an iron gate, all in various stages of being swallowed up by tree trunks.

We saw a particularly busted raccoon shuffling around the ruins which only added to the creep factor, and some NSFW graffiti. There was an old wood-paneled silo, some rusted antique farm machinery, a milk bucket and a lot of unidentifiable rusty pieces of metal strewn about.

It was fascinating to walk through the open, arched doorways and to squint and imagine the dairy in operation. The hike was pretty long and strenuous, but there were enough things along the way to keep me interested and looking for more. I love how open and accessible the ruins are and I would love to go back and explore them even more.

Cold Spring Cemetery

The weather has finally been appropriately spring-like and warm, so we've been trying to get outside every chance we can get. Two weekends ago my dude and I decided to go 1.5 hrs. upstate to Cold Spring, NY for a hike. Of course when I did a little bit of research, I found a cemetery about a mile from the Metro North station, so we added it to the itinerary.

Cold Spring is an adorable town on the Hudson River, with a Main Street containing a few antique stores, a bar, a deli, and a coffee shop. The cemetery was established in 1862—it wasn't as historical or as crumbling as I prefer my cemeteries to be, but there were a few highlights that made it definitely worth seeking out if you're ever in the area.

My favorite section of the cemetery was a seemingly-abandoned portion set off from the main area. The majority of the cemetery was very well-maintained, but there was a mausoleum and a handful of graves up a hill that looked strangely out of place. The first thing I noticed was the mausoleum because the door was wide open. This isn't something I'm used to seeing so I was super excited to check it out. Disappointingly there wasn't anything inside of the mausoleum, but it was still super creepy with its rusty door inexplicably propped open by a rock.

The oddly-placed graves were covered in leaves and mostly belonged to the Young family. Some of their headstones were quite intriguing, with my favorites being "Annie Weir Young, Student and Mystic," and "J. Henry Weir Young, Asst. Physician Bellevue Hospital, Died of Disease Contracted in the Discharge of Duty."

Another feature of the cemetery was a row of elaborate mausoleums (and an excellent receiving tomb), which I'm not really used to seeing in more rural, smaller cemeteries like Cold Spring. I noticed that while none of them were completely open like the one on the hill, a few of them had gates instead of full, solid doors. It was mentioned that it might have something to do with the fact that we weren't in the city anymore, so security was less of a concern, but whatever the reason it made spying inside that much easier, which I always appreciate.

I really started to notice some great typography towards the end of our walk, which is always one of my favorite parts of any cemetery visit. There is a remarkable amount of variation from stone to stone in style, technique and materials which I find endlessly fascinating. I love sneaking cemetery visits into my trip itineraries—in East Hampton or Philadelphia or Sleepy Hollow—and I'm so grateful to have found someone who is game for a creepy little detour every now and then.