Crossing the Hudson at Poughkeepsie, New York

WHERE: The Mid-Hudson Bridge and the Walkway Over the Hudson

START/FINISH: Poughkeepsie station (Amtrak and Metro North Railroad, Hudson Line), fully accessible

DISTANCE: 3.1 miles (5 kilometers)

Photographs by Michael Cairl. Map courtesy Google Maps.

This was a walk I had had in mind for a long time and finally did. I had biked across the Mid-Hudson Bridge in 1993 and had never been on the Walkway Over the Hudson.

Poughkeepsie (pronounced po-KIP-see) is a small city on the east bank of the Hudson River, midway between New York City and Albany. The train ride between the two cities is one of the most scenic in the United States and is along the Hudson shoreline almost the entire way. Along the way we passed Sing Sing prison in Ossining, the village of Cold Spring where many of the Union Army’s cannons were produced in the Civil War, the ruins of Bannerman’s Castle just south of Beacon, and, on the opposite shore, Bear Mountain and the United States Military Academy at West Point. Poughkeepsie is home to Vassar College and Marist College, and is the county seat of Dutchess County.

The walk began at Poughkeepsie’s beautiful train station, whence we made the short walk to the Mid-Hudson Bridge. Dedicated by New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1930, this bridge carries U.S. Route 44 to Highland and on to New Paltz.

At the bridge towers there is a site-specific work, Bridge Music by Joseph Bertolozzi, composed entirely of sounds from the bridge and commissioned for the 400th anniversary (2009) of Henry Hudson sailing up the river that bears his name. For more information on the composer and his work, visit https://josephbertolozzi.com/bridge-music/

*The Mid-Hudson Bridge from Johnson-Iorio Park on the west bank.*

From the western end of the bridge we walked uphill along Haviland Road to the Walkway Over the Hudson, the entry to which is a pleasant little plaza with a pavilion reminiscent of an old railroad station. The Walkway is on a former railroad bridge, the Poughkeepsie-Highland Bridge, which opened in 1889 and was an important freight connection for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, and later the Penn Central Railroad, until a fire in 1974 closed it to traffic. The bridge lay derelict for many years until local activists succeeded in getting the bridge restored as a bike and pedestrian path. The Walkway opened in 2009 and has become extremely popular.

*The Walkway Over the Hudson, seen from the Mid-Hudson Bridge.*

*The Mid-Hudson Bridge, seen from the Walkway Over the Hudson.*

The Walkway is beautiful and wide, with benches at intervals where one can sit, relax, and enjoy the sweeping views. At the east bank of the river there is an elevator down to a riverfront park. The Walkway continues east to the east side of Poughkeepsie.

From the bottom of the elevator we continued to lunch at the River Station restaurant and then to the train back to the city.

While this walk was not particularly long and was not too physically taxing, the views, the Bridge Music, the getaway from the city, and the good company made it exhilarating and worth a repeat visit. I have certainly done more taxing walks but this one gave me particular satisfaction.