29 What To Do’s All Summer Long

admin Posted OnJuly 9, 2018

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29 What To Do’s All Summer Long: Here’s 29 of the coolest things to do all summer long in & around town and up and down the Hudson Valley.

Summer Outdoor Yoga, John Jay Homestead – Sat, 7/14-9/1: 10-11am: Practice your downward facing dog and more at this weekly outdoor yoga class on the lawn at John Jay Homestead. Check out the farmers market when you’re done. And the monkey bread from Wave Hill Bread or the “crazy sinful” jelly donut muffins from Red Barn Bakery from Irvington. (400 Jay St., Katonah)

Yoga on the Patio, Harvest Moon Farm & Orchard, Sat, 7/14-8/18: 9-10am: Check in at the store at 8:45am. 130 (Hardscrabble Rd, North Salem)

Yoga with Alexander Calder at Storm King Art Center – Thurs, 7/14- 10/6: 10:15am: Relax outdoors with a Yoga class before you check out the sculptures of Alexander Calder, Louise Nevelson, Henry Moore, Mark Di Suvero, and many more at the 500 acre sculpture garden at Storm King. A top pick on WTD’s Bucket List you can read more about Day Tripping: Storm King Art Center here. (1 Museum Rd., New Windsor; www.stormking.org)

Hardscrabble Cider’s Pizza & Music Nights, Harvest Moon Farm & Orchards: Fri-Sat, 7/14-9/29: 6-9pm: Check out these mini-festivals at Harvest Moon in North Salem. The Hardscrabble Cider boys serve up local cider, wine and craft beer. The pizza oven is going all night and there are food trucks on Friday nights.Good music too, featuring Hudson Valley’s best including Griffin Anthony and Dan Zlotnick who will also perform at this year’s Pleasantville Music Festival. (130 Hardscrabble Rd, North Salem; www.hardscrabbleciderny.com)

Glass House Conservatory at Lasdon Park & Arboretum: The new Glass House Conservatory at Lasdon Park, Arboretum and Veterans Memorial in Somers is the first new attraction constructed at a county park in many years. The 2,500-square-foot, 28-foot high, glass and steel building is a similar structure to the New York Botanical Garden’s glass conservatory. Already a popular county park for hiking and strolling through its 234 acres of woodlands, meadows and formal gardens, the Glass House elevates Lasdon Park to our Bucket List for anyone living in or around our towns. Read more.

Rockefeller State Park Preserve: From Ward Pound Ridge Reservation to the Greenwich Audubon and Westmoreland Sanctuary, our area hosts a variety of great hiking trails and back to nature experiences. Our favorite by far is the system of 25 miles of carriage paths winding through 1400 acres of Rockefeller State Park Preserve in Pleasantville. Originally designed as horse and buggy carriage trails for the Rockefeller’s, the trails wind around a lake and through stream-line and forested hills and valleys and a pastoral landscape of hayfields and meadows in the Pocantico River watershed. These multi-purpose trails are ideal for year-round activities from strolling, jogging, horseback riding, hiking and cross-country skiing. Read more.

PepsiCo Sculpture Gardens: The Donald M. Kendall Sculpture Gardens at PepsiCo’s World Headquarters in Purchase, NY re-opened on April 1, 2017 after being closed to the public for four years due to a campus-wide renovation of Pepsico’s facilities and grounds. The Gardens features 45 pieces of large-scale outdoor pieces from some of the greatest sculptors of the 20th century. Including Henry Moore, Alexander Calder, August Rodin and Alberto Giacometti. This ninety minute stroll will take you in through stream-lined woods and park like settings with over 6,000 trees from 38 species, lawns, ponds, fountains and formal gardens with topiary, hedges and thousands of flowering bulbs. Read more.

Kykuit: A trip to Kykuit is more than a house tour on steroids. It’s a mini trip to MOMA, Versailles, Storm King and a classic car museum all rolled into one. Built in 1904 by John D. Rockefeller, and re-designed into a grand mansion in 1911 by John D. Jr., Kykuit was home to four generations of Rockefellers. Touring this neoclassical mansion, you will see the Rockefeller’s extensive collection of art from Ming Dynasty ceramics and Oceanus fountain to a Temple of Aphrodite. Then comes Nelson Rockefeller who brings in his collection of modern art from Warhol to Chagall, 20th century sculptures from Henry Moore and Alexander Calder, tapestries of Picasso’s greatest paintings including “Harlequin”, “Three Musicians” and”Girl with a Mandolin” and four generations of classic cars and horse drawn carriages. Read more.

A Day Trip to The Dia Beacon: Put a trip to the Dia Museum in Beacon on your What To Do Bucket List. We did. It’s unlike any museum experience you’ve ever had and once you’ve walked the 160,000 square feet (set your Fitbit and count your steps) you can skip your Zumba class. After the museum, if your feet aren’t barking too loud, there’s 90 acres of riverfront parkland adjacent to Dia’s grounds and lots of foodie fun in nearby Beacon. The Dia, which opened in 2003 is the museum for the Dia Art Foundation’s collection of art from the 1960s to the present. Housed in a former Nabisco box-printing plant situated on 31 acres on the banks of the Hudson, the museum’s permanent and temporary exhibits are dedicated to single artist, site-specific installations. It’s art on steroids in a museum on steroids. Read more.

Jones Beach Theatre Summer Concerts: For those looking to tie in outdoor music with the salty air of the Atlantic Ocean, (and maybe even tie in some tasty waves on a day at the beach) Jones Beach theatre offers a lineup fo big name acts from classic rock to contemporary pop, country and hip-hop. Including: Joan Jett & The Blackhearts with Styx, Fri, 6/29: 7pm; Rascal Flats with Dan + Shay: Fri, 7/6: 7:30pm; Govt Mule & The Avett Brothers: Thurs, 7/12: 7pm; Foo Fighters: Sat, 7/14: 8pm; Ms. Lauryn Hill, Sun, 7/15: 3pm; Dave Matthews Band: Tues 7/17: 8pm; Little Big Town & Miranda Lambert: Thurs, 7/19: tba; Jimmy Buffett: Thurs, 8/2: 8pm; Chicago & REO Speedwagon: Fri, 8/3: 7:30pm; Lady Antebellum: Sat, 8/4: tba; Brad Paisley w/ Dan Tyminsky & Kane Brown: Fri, 8/10: 7:30pm; Lindsey Stirling & Evanescence: Sat, 8/11: 7pm; Billboard Hot 100 Festival with DJ Snake, Future, Rae Sremmurd & 4o more up & comers: Sat-Sun 8/18-19: 12pm. (895 Bay Pkwy, Wantagh; www.jonesbeach.com)

Anything Goes, Westchester Broadway Theatre – Thurs, 7/5- Sun, 9/9: Anything Goes,winner of three 2011 Tony Awards including Best Musical Revival is considered one of the greatest Tap Dancing musicals of all time. There’s romance and laughter in this story about a nightclub singer, a stowaway and Public Enemy No. 13 on a transatlantic luxury liner. With an incomparable musical score from Cole Porter featuring timeless classics such as “It’s De-Lovely”, “I Get a Kick Out of You”, “You’re the Top”, “Friendship”, and “All Through The Night”. (One Broadway Plaza, Elmsford; www.broadwaytheatre.com)

Lyndhurst Mansion Tours, Tarrytown – Thurs-Mon, 5/4-9/24: 10am-4pm: Take a one-hour guided tour of the historic Lyndhurst mansion overlooking the Hudson River. The Gothic Revival mansion has been used as a movie set for six major motion pictures including House of Dark Shadows (1970), Reversal of Fortune (1990), Cradle Will Rock (1999) and Winter’s Tale (2013). It was built in 1938 by William Paulding, a former NYC Mayor, and purchased by Union Pacific Railroad tycoon Jay Gould in 1880 as a summer home. (635 S. Broadway, Tarrytown; www.lyndhurst.org

Public Sails on the Schooner Soundwaters – Fri-Sun, 6/30 – 8/5: check times: Board the 80’ Tall Schooner Soundwaters, the ship that Pete Seeger made famous, for a two-hour afternoon journey on the Long Island Sound. The Schooner Soundwaters, seats 40 and sails from Boccuzzi Park in Stamford. Sunset sails are also offered on Friday and Saturday nights and Fireworks Sails on Wed, 7/4 & Sat, 7/7. (Bocuzzi Park at Southfield, 166 Southfield Ave., Stamford CT; www.soundwaters.org)

Best Summer Events July 2018

Brand-New & Terrific: Alex Katz in the 1950s, Neuberger Museum – Wed – Sun, 7/1-10/14: This exhibit organized by Colby College presents 60 works from Alex Katz, whose brightly colored, flat, recognizable, figurative works of everyday scenes of middle class life was a response to the Abstract Expressionism that dominated the art scene in the 1950s. By reintroducing and reinterpreting the figure, Katz opened the door for the subsequent Pop Art movement. (735 Anderson Hill Rd., Purchase College; www.neuberger.org)

Editors Choice! The Taming of the Shrew, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Boscobel – Thurs, 6/7 – Fri, 8/24: check dates & times: With its breathtaking views of the Hudson River, Boscobel provides a world-class setting for summer Shakespeare and picnicking. Here their a critically acclaimed troupe, takes on William Shakespeare’s comedy about the shrewish Kate, her sister Bianca and Petruchio the gold-digger. Bianca would be an easy match for Petruchio but Dad, the wealthiest man in Padua has ordained that Kate must marry first! Good luck Petruchio.(Boscobel, 1601 Rt. 9D, Garrison; www.hvsf.org)

ALL AGES! The Heart of Robin Hood, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Boscobel – Fri, 6/8 – Sat, 8/25: check dates & times: HVSF takes on David Farr’s reimagined adaptation of Robin Hood, commissioned in 2011 by The Royal Shakespeare Company. In Farr’s telling, Maid Marion bands with Robin Hood to escape an impending marriage to Prince John and his evil plan to betray the king. Only to discover a roguish band of hoods whose pilfering of the wealth never quite makes it to the poor. Marion has some work to do on the heart of Robin before she can save the kingdom. (Boscobel, 1601 Rt. 9D, Garrison; www.hvsf.org)

Richard II, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Boscobel – Sat, 6/9 – Sun, 8/26: check dates & times: Here Artistic Director Davis McCallum assembles a huge cast of HVSF’s finest for their first ever production of Shakespeare’s historic drama of the absolute ruler Richard and how he splits his kingdom in two by banishing his cousins Henry Bolingbroke. (Boscobel, 1601 Rt. 9D, Garrison; www.hvsf.org)

Editor’s Choice. Andy Warhol: Subject and Seriality, Neuberger Museum – Wed – Sun: 7/22-12/23: This new exhibit, organized by The Neuberger Museum, examines Warhol’s method of repeating images of his subjects in various and multiple ways – concurrently and across time, and in diverse media. Included are the artist’s prints, photographs, and multiples, created between the 1960s and 1980s, that come from the Neuberger Museum of Art’s own collection and those of four other Hudson Valley museums, and various galleries and foundations.

What To Do: With the Kids All Summer Long

Rye Playland – Daily except Mondays 6/1-9/9: check times: There’s 42 carnival rides, entertainment in Kiddyland and the Music Tower Stage every day at Rye Playland – except Mondays! Plus a beach nearby. There are kiddy rides like the Kiddy Coaster, Carousel and Whip and family rides like the Gondola Wheel, Family Flyer and Bumper Cars. Plus thrill rides like the Sky Flyer, Dragon Coaster and the Playland Plunge. And fireworks every Friday at 9:15pm from 7/1-9/1. Gotta go once! www.ryeplayland.org

Pride of the Hudson River Cruise, Newburg – Sat, 6/2- Sun – 10/28: check dates & times: See the majestic beauty of the Hudson River on this 2-hour narrated river adventure from Newburgh to West Point taking in the sights of Washington’s Headquarters, World’s End, Mt. Beacon, Bannerman Island, Constitution Island, Breakneck Mountain, and the town of Cold Spring. (Blu Pointe Landing, 100 Front St., Newburgh; www.prideofthehudson.com)

Sheffield Island Lighthouse Cruises, Norwalk Harbor – Sat-Sun: June & Sept, * Daily Jul-Aug: 11am, 2 & 3:30pm: Board the 45-foot C.J. Toth catamaran for a cruise to Sheffield Island on the Long Island Sound for a lighthouse tour, a hike through Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge and a picnic and beach front activities. Sails run on weekends & holidays in June and September and daily in July & August. (Norwalk Seaport Association Dock, 4 North Water St., Norwalk, Ct.; www.seaport.org)

Sleeping with Wolves, Wolf Conservation Center – Friday & Select Saturdays 6/2 -10/21: 6pm- 8:30am. Camp out overnight with 20+ wolves that call the WCC in South Salem home! It’s cheaper than a trip to Yellowstone – and you’ll leave a much smaller carbon footprint. The evening includes a pizza party with Ambassador wolves Atka, Alawa, Nikai and Xephyr, movies under the stars, tents for all campers, fireside snacks and a light breakfast. Pre-registration is required at www.nywolf.com)

Backyard Wilderness, IMAX Movies, The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk – Daily: 3/24 – 9/3: 11am, 1 & 3pm: This new Imax movie was filmed outside the Croton on Hudson home of the Academy Award-nominated (Children of Fate) filmmakers Andrew Young and Susan Todd. “With input from our science advisors, we worked on filming scenes of the animals that actually live in our backyard, which is part of the eastern forest ecosystem,” Young told Westchester Magazine. Featuring local blue jays, raccoons and (you guessed it) coyotes! (10 N. Water St., Norwalk, www.maritimeaquarium.org)

Cool! Marine Life Study Cruises, Maritime Aquarium Norwalk – Weekends in Jun & Sept & most days Jul-Aug: 1:15pm – check dates: Study the biodiversity of Long Island Sound’s interdependent marine life. Participants utilize such sampling techniques as a plankton tow, biodredge, mud grab and otter trawl that may bring up fish, crabs, lobsters, sea stars and more. A video microscope and touch tank on board enhance observations. Check dates. (10 N. Water St., Norwalk; www.maritimeaquarium.org)

Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome Air Shows, Sat-Sun 6/2-9/16: 2-4pm: This “living” museum of antique aviation, offers one of the largest collections of early aero-planes (1909 to 1939) in the world plus weekend airshows and bi-plane rides (shown here). The museum displays aircraft from the Pioneer Era, World War I and the Lindbergh Barnstorming era. Museum hours are 10am-5pm daily. Air shows 2-4pm Sat & Sun. (9 Norton Rd, Red Hook; www.oldrhinebeck.org)

Planetarium Shows, Hudson River Museum, Sat-Sun: 12:30, 2 & 3:30pm in June: HRM presents three star shows every weekend, for kids 5+ and 8+, from a repertory of ten feature shows. The age appropriate shows range from One World, One Sky produced by Sesame Workshop and the Liberty Science Center for 5+ and featuring Big Bird and Elmo to We Are Aliens a 360° digital planetarium show narrated by Rupert Grint (from Harry Potter films) that takes an epic ride in search of evidence of alien life for 8+. (511 Warburton Ave., Yonkers; www.hrm.org)

Essex Steam Train & Riverboat Ride, Sat-Sun, 5/12-6/10, Daily 6/16-8/26, Sat-Sun, 9/1-23 & Daily 9/28-10/21: Take a 2 ½ hour narrated train and riverboat ride through what the Nature Conservancy calls “one of the last great places on earth,” the Connecticut River Valley. The train passes farms, waterfalls, and wetland habitats with blue heron and egrets. The riverboat cruise on the Connecticut River passes the historic Gillette Castle, Goodspeed Opera House and Haddam Swing Bridge. Check out their special Dinner Train, Riverboat Lunch and Sunset Excursions. (1 Railroad Ave., Essex, CT; www.essexsteamtrain.com)

Public Sails on the Schooner Soundwaters – Sat-Sun, 6/23-8/5: 3pm & 9/1-29: 2pm: Board the 80’ Tall Schooner Soundwaters, the ship that Pete Seeger made famous, for a two-hour afternoon journey on the Long Island Sound. The Schooner Soundwaters, seats 40 and sails from Boccuzzi Park in Stamford. Sunset sails are also offered on Friday and Saturday nights and Fireworks Sails on Wed, 7/4 & Sat, 7/7. (Bocuzzi Park at Southfield, 166 Southfield Ave., Stamford CT; www.soundwaters.org)

Boundless Adventures, Purchase College – Fri-Sun, 4/27-6/8, Daily 6/9-9/3 & Fri-Sun, 9/4-11/26: The new Boundless Adventures Aerial Adventure Park on the Purchase College Campus is an aerial obstacle course that incorporates zip lines and climbing with a host of ladders, bridges, rolling elements and even aerial skate boarding into the ultimate tree-top monkey bar experience for kids and adults. (Read more.) (735 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase; www.boundlessadventures.net)