On the coldest night of winter this season (as  recorded on cell phones in the area), the Beacon Historical Society joined in February's Second Saturday fun with a gallery opening at Beacon Bath and Bubble. The event's purpose: to kick off their fundraising goal of raising money for a new physical home. The ever-expanding collection of more than 2,000 artifacts and historic materials including photos, letters, maps, and paintings has outgrown its current digs at the Howland Cultural Center. The Beacon Historical Society was formed in 1976 with the mission to "preserve, procure, and present Beacon’s heritage and history." To aid in that mission, a search has begun for a permanent location for a Beacon History Museum, which would serve as a place to store the heritage-focused collection, as well as being an educational destination for people to learn about Beacon across the centuries.

During the fundraiser, I interviewed Diane Lapis, a trustee at the Beacon Historical Society and one of the organizers of the night's event. Lapis ex planed to me how the Beacon Historical Society acquires its artifacts and why the organization needs a new home. The interview was originally broadcast live on A Little Beacon Blog's Periscope channel. If you're at home and want to catch live snippets with us out and about, definitely follow our handle @alittlebeacon! The broadcast only lasts for 24 hours over there, so we upload them to  our YouTube channel, to which you can also subscribe.



Despite the frigid weather, art galleries on Main Street did have people inside, but you may not have seen them, thanks to the steamy windows! Beacon Bath and Bubble, located in the former home of The Hop, was nice and cozy inside, filled with devout supporters of this community and of the Beacon Historical Society.


Beacon Bath and Bubble made a custom-designed green soap for the occasion, fitting for the Irish in Beacon's history, as well as a bright reminder for the  upcoming Irish parade.


During the gallery showing, captions were matched with pictures, enabling visitors to fall back into different decades of Beacon's history.

In this picture, a woman in a plaid dress, matching bonnet, and day gloves crosses the street with her daughter, who wears a matching outfit.

An aerial photo of the property now known as The Roundhouse. The caption reveals why the building was originally round - to accommodate the blacksmith stations built around a large, central hearth. The Beacon Historical Society has evidence that the building was once a place where the first lawnmowers were made in America, in 1860-1870. However, the building dates back to 1820, so it has had many lives.

In addition to snagging a bar or two of the special soap, visitors had several ways to donate during the evening, including buying the Beacon Centennial book and raffle tickets. Support - philosophical and financial - was apparent just by opening the book. Local businesses commemorate important times in Beacon's history, as in this ad from Antalek & Moore, which was founded in 1853, and who through their family-owned insurance business knows the history of most homes in this community.
 

The Beacon Centennial book is for the most part divided into two-page chapters. A chapter on Urban Renewal is a page-stopper. Just as you're flipping through the book, there's a picture of a Victorian home being pushed over by a bulldozer - shocking, and revealing a pivotal point in our nation's history.

In the 1960s, federally funded programs aided communities in clearing out abandoned, decaying, or outdated buildings, with the intention of restoring life to those properties.With a controversial vote of 3-2 from Beacon's city council at the time, 205 homes and 142 buildings were torn down, according to Beacon Historical Society. This included buildings on Main Street, as well as the waterfront. Structures like the one Bank Square Coffeehouse is in is not the original, but was rebuilt as a shopping center for the west end of Main Street to take advantage of the then-new 9D corridor and Newburgh-Beacon Bridge. Urban Renewal programs ended in the 1970s, when "inflationary pressures forced the federal government to withdraw funds for any future renewal," according to the book. Although more than 500 new housing units and 250,000 square feet of new industrial space were created by Urban Renewal programs, it is only because of the cease in funding that many buildings, considered historic today, are still standing.

Page 44 in "Beacon at 100, 1913-2013" that gives an overview of the controversial Urban Renewal project that Beacon participated in.