The Saga of Tivoli, Part III: Bypassed, and Re-Invented
by Cynthia Owen Philip

Nobody needs telling once again that the Great Depression was a bleak time for Americans. In many ways the people of Tivoli got through it more easily than others, due not only to their resources but also to their steadfast resourcefulness. The trains did not stop running. In fact, since there were up to 17 a day and the village remained a principal wood and water station, many families were still supported by New York Central jobs. Farms in the vicinity continued to ship their produce to New York City by railroad and barge, although perhaps not in so great a quantity as during the Roaring Twenties. Everyone in the family helped out. Boys delivered newspapers and milk. Girls helped mothers do Leake and Watts orphanage and estate laundry. In between, the kids found time to play on the glass hearse left behind by the undertaker whose parlor had been located where the post office is now, and to dream up nicknames for one another that would last through life - "Zip", "Weasel," "White Dog," "Toppy," "Dolly, "Mink."

Nearly everyone fished for shad and sturgeon and scapped for herring, both for themselves and for the New York market. During the harvest, they picked and packed apples, peaches and pears. They kept kitchen gardens, preserving the excess for their winter tables. Moreover, city folk continued to journey up for the cockfights, boxing matches, clambakes and, especially before the prohibition amendment was rescinded, to stock up on bootleg liquor. When times were really hard, Johnston Livingston Redmond of Callendar House who had become mayor of Tivoli brought a barge full of coal to his dock and distributed it to everyone in the village who needed it. In short, times might have been lean, but nobody starved.

In fact, the Tivoli Free Union School, considered one of the best public schools in Dutchess County, expanded, taking in high school students from Nevis and Annandale. A Roman Catholic education was offered by St. Sylvia's Sisters of Charity and, although the DePeyster Industrial School for Girls on the North Road closed, the Leake and Watts orphanage at Rose Hill not only taught its boys well, but mounted an excellent baseball team that played against Tivoli and neighboring schools. Maintaining good relations with the village, it let the other boys and girls use its ball field.

Nevertheless, signs of decay were apparent. Shops went out of business. As artificial refrigeration came into its own, the work of ice harvesting ceased. The Hoffman House, by the riverfront, and the immense main building of the Industrial School for Girls on North Road were razed. At the same time, the village was improved by major infrastructure projects. Even though Franklin D. Roosevelt ran behind Herbert Hoover in this conservative, individualistic election district, Tivoli received handsome largesse from the federal government, a reflection not only of the president's deep interest in his home county but especially of the fondness his activist wife Eleanor held for Tivoli, on whose outskirts she had been brought up. (The affection was reciprocated, for in early November 1932 a very large group from Tivoli signed a "pledge of support to Mrs. Roosevelt," praising her as a warm friend and neighbor and looking forward to her becoming First Lady).

WPA funds made possible the straightening and paving of lower Broadway. Today it seems a pity that all but a short section of the wall that separated the 18th-century utopian Tivoli from Callendar House was sacrificed in the process, but the village was happy with the improvement. Hoping to attract new house construction, the Civilian Conservation Corps laid sewer and water lines in a huge piece of flat land on Woods Road. (Tivoli would have to wait a quarter century before they were utilized.) Water, and the tall, elegant tower that would become a village symbol, was brought to the village in 1938--a great event, because those who had no wells had been dependent on rains caught in cisterns; for drinking, they had carried water from the well at the school house.

World War II and Its Aftermath
A good deal of gaiety disappeared from the village when its men were drafted into the armed services during WWII. However, many railway workers were exempted as indispensable to the war effort, so it fared better than some communities. Still, 121 men and three women served from a population of approximately 760; three were killed. Even in the forces the Tivoli boys stuck together whenever they could. Five from the first draft went off together to the same training camps and two best friends, sent to the Pacific as tank drivers, stayed in the same company through the battle of Guadacanal.

One of the bright spots towards the end of the war were the "farmerettes" that came up from the Cooper Union college in New York City to help bring the crops in. They stayed in the the Leake and Watts dormitories and worked long days picking fruit and vegetables for the farmers in the neighborhood who were, with the men away , always short of labor. Some got to like Tivoli so much that they returned to the village afterwards; one married a returned soldier.

The boom that lifted up much of the country when peace finally came passed Tivoli by, as it did most of the Hudson River Valley. The main culprit was the new nationwide highway system that shifted transportation of people and freight from rail to car and truck. The ferry to Saugerties, which had ceased operation in 1940, failed to start up again, its place taken by the Rip Van Winkle Bridge, a few miles to the north. As diesel engines replaced steam on the railroads, the supply of wood and water was no longer needed. The passenger station was closed in 1960. Some men got jobs working on mail cars, but they were few. To hear the trains whiz by without stopping, and know that a good way of life was irretrievably gone, saddened the hearts of old time residents.

Fortunately, a women's underwear factory took space in the long building east of Feroe Street in Madalin. Familiarly dubbed the Bloomer or Panty Factory or, the Beehive, because of its whirring machines - or, as has been suggested, because the women who worked there were so sweet. The money the women workers brought home not only made a big difference in the family budget, but helped preserve the independence they had earned during the war years. Moreover, most of them were from the village and the Beehive became a cheerful, gossipy addition to Broadway.

Nevertheless, it was obvious to all that Tivoli was in decline. By 1960 the population had fallen to 732, a huge decrease from its 1880 high of 1254 people. Interviewed in the early 60s, Mayor Raymond Murphy went so far as to lament that the village was "dying on the vine," that aging old timers stubbornly resisted all progress, and that the large families coming in seldom put down roots. The village, he said, was at a standstill at best. As if to emphasize his point, St. Sylvia's school closed in 1962, moving to the newly built St. Chistopher's in the village of Red Hook. In 1965, the pupils at the Tivoli Free Union School were sent to the Red Hook Central School, and its building was auctioned off and converted into rental apartments. The Leake and Watts orphanage returned to Yonkers from whence it came, its parting gift to the village its upper playing field, the present-day Memorial Park.

Some long time residents accommodated themselves to these changes. Claude Potts, a boy during the depression, profited from what those hard times had taught him. Married in 1953 to Margaret Tubeck, the Tivoli School's math and science teacher who had come up from Mt. Vernon, he worked for Lasher's Garage, which repaired vehicles, sold coal as well as gasoline, acted as contractor for the mail and railway express, and also ran a taxi service. (Mrs. Lasher, the first woman in Tivoli to get a license, was the prime driver of its big Buick.) Claude's job was to carry mail between the train and the two post offices--Tivoli and Madalin--and to handle railway express. As his father had just died, he also ran the family orchards--the seventh generation to do so. When Lasher closed his business because of age, Potts drove the school bus to Red Hook and, when needed on nights and weekends for a Bard College shuttle bus. When their youngest child was in third grade Margaret Potts took up teaching math and science again at the Red Hook school. Claude still maintains his apple orchards and farm produce stand on Route 9G, with support from his able wife.

The Catholic Worker Farm
It is not easy to describe Dorothy Day who, in 1964, dropped into Tivoli, somewhat like Mary Poppins in that few if any Tivoli residents knew where she came from, what she was up to and how the Catholic Worker farm she established on the dilapidated Rose Hill estate would affect their lives. In essence, she was a strong-minded, questing, mystical convert to Roman Catholicism, to whom sharing voluntary poverty was a joyous errand of mercy. By the late 1930s she had set up scores of communities of "wounded ones" and had become a national, even international, figure. Because of the beauty of the property and its proximity to Catholic Worker headquarters in New York City, she expected Rose Hill to be a prime expression of her ideals. Instead the high proportion of intellectuals it attracted were far more interested in sitting about and talking than in offering themselves as farm workers.

Yet, an early resident made the plumbing and electricity functional. A newspaper press was installed in one of the old mansion's rooms and a seldom used rug loom in another. During the summer, the earnest hard core "family" was vastly enlarged by up to four hundred "floaters"--bone fide visitors, vacationing campers and just plain drifters--whose interests were more attuned to admiring striking views of the river and mountains than its mission. Winters, between 40 and 50 full time residents enjoyed the wholesome food and simple lodging provided by the dedicated few. It soon became evident that the Catholic Worker's chief problem was that there was no one to provide direction. Dorothy Day was so preoccupied with lecturing around the nation and in Europe that she was seldom there to raise their self-sacrificing spirits with her vision, as well as her humor and her sharp tongue. In any case, decisive organization would have run counter to her belief in self-motivated voluntarism.

During the second summer, the farm reached out to the Tivoli community, opening the swimming pool Monday through Friday afternoons to children for swimming lessons sponsored by the Red Cross. A conference entitled Peace Beyond Vatican II drew an immense number of participants from distant places as well as from the wider neighborhood. In the autumn of 1967, the Catholic Worker organized a Day Care Center for migrant workers' children offering, in addition to play groups, three square meals a day. Soon, however, the Center moved to the Red Hook Methodist Church, whose location was far more convenient for the migrants.

In fact, the farm was always verging on collapse. It was estimated that as many as 90% of the men were alcoholics sent by Day to dry out. (Her motto firmly remained: "Our door is never shut to those in need.") Day herself neglected it ever more as she turned to organizing national protests against the war in Vietnam and to advocating civil rights for blacks. The buildings steadily deteriorated. The patched-together plumbing failed and the furnace, too; a few woodstoves provided the only heat to be had. Finally, the State Board of Health stepped in and, together with the village government, closed the farm down. Most Tivoli residents were relieved when, in 1978, the "lunatic fringe" packed up and departed. Yet there were those who recognized an important experiment had taken place in their midst and missed the special luster it had shed on their lives. Dorothy Day died three years later, aged 83. (Although the Catholic Worker was not affiliated with the Roman Catholic church, she has been considered for sainthood.)

Hints of an Upswing
In the 1960s the Bloomer Factory departed and in 1970, the Tivoli congregation of the new Methodist church joined Red Hook's. Thereafter, the fine brick building was rented to a succession of evangelistic sects. (It was recently restored beautifully for a small grocery, restaurant and performance space.) The following year, the roof of the old Methodist church collapsed and the building, which had housed such enterprises as blacksmith and plumbing shops and a recreation hall, was torn down. In 1972 both the Industrial School's infirmary building and the railroad depot were demolished; the freight shed was taken apart and made into a village garage--a tough job, for it was so old its massive beams had been joined with pegs.

It seemed the only thing in the village that remained constant was the fire company. Still located in DePeyster Hall, it continued as a source of sociability and stability. It even kept its first hose cart, ornamented with a portrait of Frederic L. DePeyster as a reverence to old times. The Harris-Smith Post of the American Legion, next door in the former Baptist church, was also an anchor. It became famous for its enormously popular bingo nights. Both had strong women's auxiliaries. These organizations, together with the Masons, partly filled the role once played by the dwindling churches in the social functioning of the community.

Indeed, to those who looked very carefully, the village seemed to be exhibiting little tremors of growth. A sprinkling of newcomers bought houses for weekending and even full time living--the painter George Englert, the graphic artist Frederick Eng, Bard professors Richard C. Wiles and Bernard Tieger and their families, for instance. The illustrated booklet by Village Historian Joan Navins, published to celebrate the centennial of the incorporation Madlin and Tivoli in 1972, is at once a historical portrait of Tivoli and a snapshot of the village at that time. From the thick advertisement section it is evident that a variety of goods and services were still available right at hand. Businesses taking ads on Broadway included Morey's Hotel, Dino's Liquor Store and Deli, Broadmoore's Player Piano Shop, Vic's Village Variety, Frey's Florist and the Tivoli Confectionery.

In her final appraisal Navins speaks of Tivoli's "stolid stability," its "unpretentious rural charm" and its "relatively low real estate costs," then ponders its future. Would its loss of "off the beaten track intimacy" be balanced by the excitement new people and ideas would inevitably bring? "Change," she decides, "is the only thing that is certain."

Those changes came in the early 1980s with the sale of Callendar House to Wayne Karmgaard from Chicago, and his friend Jean DeCastella, a wealthy Belgian Count. Aiming to improve Tivoli in a more fashionable vein, they started buying up commercial property and renting it out at a great discount to shopkeepers who fitted their vision. Their effort proved premature: the bookstore moved, the restaurant in the factory building failed while still under construction, the vegetarian eatery went to Red Hook. Only the Santa Fe Mexican restaurant, which had started up independently, survived. It was convivial, attractive, relatively inexpensive, and it capitalized on the emerging ethnic food craze. It attracted patrons from miles around and became one of the cornerstones of Tivoli's revival.

Renaissance
By the end of the decade, the forces behind a renaissance had multiplied. The land along Woods Road that had been laid with sewer and water lines during the Depression was at last developed. The new neat houses and condominium apartments brought in young families who boosted the population to over 1,000 and gave new energy to community activities. At the same time Provost Park, a 24-unit subsidized complex for senior citizens and disabled persons, was built to the south of St. Paul's church, which had inspired it. And, in the center of the commercial district on Broadway, a young local carpenter named Martin Clarke brought the Bloomer Factory back from the ashes. The restored shops on the ground floor have become especially attractive to artists, The Tivoli Artists Coop, started in 1992, was the first to move in. The upper floor apartments, too, have had long-term tenants. The building has had a stabilizing influence on Broadway.

Equally important was the restoration of the Watts dePeyster Fire Hall. It would take six years, unceasing efforts from everyone in Tivoli as well as federal, state and county grants, but it has proved an extraordinary community binder. By moving the seat of government west, it tied together the settlements at Tivoli and Madalin. In addition to government offices on the second floor, the village hall's ground floor houses the library and a Tivoli Bays Visitors Center. On the third floor is a huge general meeting room with a breathtaking view north over Broadway, the park, the water tank (which happens to be at the geographic center of the village), and the fields and hills beyond

As if all this were not enough, in 1994 Marcus Molinaro, a recently graduated high school student, was elected a village trustee. The following year he became the mayor of the village, the youngest to accede to so high a position in the entire United States. (He is now also a county legislator, chairman of the powerful Budget Committee.) Smart, energetic and politically attuned, all agree that among Marc's many virtues is that he listens to everybody with equal attention. Moreover, during his first decade in office he has brought over six million dollars of grant money for purposes ranging from enhancing the streetscape and the Memorial Park to funding the visitors center, expanding the water sources, producing a comprehensive plan and laying the groundwork for "taking back the waterfront" for low impact use by boaters, artists, hikers, fisherman, birdwatchers, picnickers and the like.

Yet another grant helped the Kaatsbaan dance center, located on 153 acres of the former Callendar House property, develop its infrastructure. Of international status, Kaatsbaan's mission is to provide a stimulating, healthy working environment in which dancers and choreographers as well as costume and set designers can, in an unpressured atmosphere, expand and diversity their creativity. It has already built two key new buildings: a 160-seat performance theater with a dance floor the same size as that of the Metropolitan Opera stage and an inn with sleeping accommodations for dancers. Next on its list are a dining lodge and two dance studios.

The village's youthful population has also grown strongly since the mid-1980s, a positive development even if it leads to occasional frictions. Tivoli has become a favorite place for off-campus Bard students to live. Some are transient, some linger long after graduation. They are attracted by the parade of street celebrations the village sponsors throughout the year from Tivoli Days, to Fourth of July, to its street painting festival, village wide yard sale and antique car show. The bars in Tivoli's restaurants are perennially popular, too, especially those with music. It is mainly the decibel levels after midnight that cause friction. But the Village Board, recognizing that the influx of partying young people will be ongoing, has instituted a variety of out-reach programs and is proposing a late night noise law in its new Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Ordinance. In no way, however, does it want to drive Bard students away. They are part of the lively, slightly funky mix that makes Tivoli different from other villages and such a fun place to be.

Tivoli is a real community. People there truly enjoy its loose mix of residents and wayfarers. Everyone helps each other. As one resident put it: "If the proprietress of the tattoo parlor needs her tire changed or if a strong back is required to move a piano, someone will always turn up to lend a hand." Those who know Tivoli--and even those who are only acquainted with it--the Village of Tivoli is a great place to be.

This is the last in a three-part series on the history of the Village of Tivoli.