Ashokan Hello

  |  May 13, 2013
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Many of you are intimate with all things Ashokan: the sparkling reservoir; the Ashokan Farewell fiddle tune that serenades the images in Ken Burns’ Civl War documentary; and the fiddle and dance camp held several times a year by the authors of that tune, Jay Ungar and Molly Mason. (Full disclosure: an Upstater parent is a teacher at that camp.)

Today, the NY Times profiles the newest addition to the Ashokan family: Ashokan Center. As the Times describes it, it’s a “$7.25 million campus here dedicated to traditional music, Catskill history, environmental education, and local arts and crafts.” The land was owned by State University of New York at New Paltz, but until a real estate deal that allowed for this 374-acre parcel to remain for environmental and cultural use, it had some rickety cabins, a mess hall and not a whole lot else.

 

Now, the center includes “hikes along the 350-million-year-old Cathedral Gorge; an art show called ‘Catskill Waterscapes’; and a few impromptu performances by Mr. Ungar and Ms. Mason, with family and friends, playing songs like Bob Nolan’s ‘Cool Water’ and Guy Clark’s ‘Homegrown Tomatoes.'” The cabins have been upgraded, the lands protected, and the future ensured.

Read On, Reader...