News

Robert A.F. Thurman, a Woodstock-area resident who became one of the country’s best-known interpreters of Tibetan Buddhism and helped build Menla Retreat & Dewa Spa in Phoenicia into a Catskills center for Buddhist teaching and healing arts, died Tuesday, June 16, in Woodstock. He was 84. Thurman, a professor emeritus at Columbia University, was the […]

A coalition of Woodstock business owners is asking town officials for a stronger role in planning for the Route 212 overhaul, saying construction during peak tourism season could disrupt the summer revenue many downtown businesses rely on to survive the winter. Melissa Gibson, co-owner of the cannabis dispensary HERbal Woodstock, and Lea Haas, owner of […]

A state Supreme Court judge temporarily blocked the Town of Ulster from moving ahead with its review of Zena Homes until the town answers a zoning question at the center of the dispute: Does the Planning Board have authority to review the project, or does the Town Board need to take it up instead? The […]

In 1800, more than 2,000 enslaved people lived in Ulster County, according to Ulster County Historian Eddie Moran, citing that year’s federal census. Moran, a New Paltz resident who studies the history of enslaved people in the region, is descended from all seven founding families of New Paltz, each of which enslaved people. New Paltz […]

A “well-involved house fire” in Zena on Saturday, May 23, drew firefighters from Woodstock and five other departments, while two others remained on standby, authorities said. No injuries were reported.  Firefighters were dispatched to the Meher Circle home at 7:49 p.m. and battled the fire for almost five hours. It was sparked by the improper […]

The historic Woodstock building where Bob Dylan once lived upstairs is set to welcome another brand of celebrity on Friday—the stars of Bravo’s “The Real Housewives of New Jersey.”  Mike DuBois, who owns the Tinker Street building with his wife, Kelly Sinclair, said filming will take place on Friday afternoon in the couple’s downstairs business, […]

An Eastwoods Drive couple who have publicly argued that their road is too narrow to serve as access to the proposed Zena Homes subdivision received a warning from the developers over road use, along with a $1,040 maintenance bill. Eddie Greenberg and Evan Kleinberg, the developers behind Zena Homes, sent a May 15 email to […]

The Woodstock Reformed Church, led by its new pastor, the Rev. Kathryn Rivera Torea, is working with Kingston’s A.M.E. Zion Church to atone for a history that included early ministers and members who were slaveholders. Representatives of the Woodstock church and Kingston’s A.M.E. Zion Church, part of a historically Black denomination, met for the first […]

The Bearsville Bluegrass Festival has been postponed because of forecasts for severe weather in the region, organizers said. The festival, originally scheduled for May 24, will now take place from noon to 6 p.m. Saturday, May 30, at Bearsville Center on Tinker Street in Woodstock. Organizers said the decision was made to ensure that visitors […]

The Woodstock Town Board voted unanimously Tuesday to resume environmental testing at 10 Church Road in Shady, seeking to remediate a dispute over thousands of cubic yards of construction and demolition debris dumped near private wells, streams, and the town’s public water supply. The resolution authorizes the town to hire an independent environmental engineer to […]

Michael Berg said the decade he spent working weekly overnight shifts for Family of Woodstock’s crisis hotline, starting in the mid-1970s, was transformational. “It changed me,” said Berg, Family’s 81-year-old executive director. “I got to be really in touch with the pain and the stuff that people were going through.” For about six months, the […]

Woodstock developer Lizzie Vann said she hoped the first phase of Project Regeneration, her proposal to remake the former Woodstock Library and Lasher Funeral Home properties, could be finished in 2027, with the full project completed by 2029. Vann outlined that timeline on April 19 at a public meeting that drew about 100 people to […]

Bearsville Center in Woodstock, home to the historic Bearsville Theater, is no longer for sale, months after owner Lizzie Vann put it on the market for $7.995 million. “We have had a re-think about Bearsville and we are taking it off the market for a period while we work out what to do,” she said. […]

Tannery Brook Road north of Ohayo Mountain Road in Woodstock will close for about two months beginning April 14 as Ulster County replaces Sully Bridge over the Saw Kill. Drivers will be detoured east on Millstream Road, north on West Hurley Road, west on Route 212, and south on Tannery Brook Road, according to an […]

The ownership group behind the restaurant Silvia is preparing to open two new businesses on Mill Hill Road in Woodstock, taking over the property formerly occupied by Gemela. The larger building on the site will be called The Penny Tavern, while the smaller building will be called The Penny Cafe, according to Silvia co-owner Craig […]

Bread and Puppet Theater will perform at the Woodstock Playhouse on April 18 in a fundraiser organized by Stop Zena Development, a coalition opposing the proposed Zena Homes project. The 30-lot subdivision, planned on about 626 acres spanning Woodstock and Ulster, has become a flashpoint in a broader fight over environmental review, emergency access and […]

Ulster County’s plans to add a bus stop for Woodstock’s new library, a mile and a half east of its former location, are in limbo as officials seek to hire more drivers to expand its network. Ulster County Area Transit’s Route Z includes stops at the corner of Route 212 and Rock City Road, within […]

It was the kind of brilliant October day that speaks to life, not its end. The temperature was in the mid-60s and the sky an unblemished blue as Jim Reynolds gathered with family and friends on the second Saturday of the month at Woodstock Cemetery to bid farewell to his life partner. It was only […]

Woodstock will mark Earth Day this year by multiplying it sevenfold. From April 18 to April 25, the town will host its first “Earth Week,” a series of events that aims to bring together the community’s many environmental efforts. “I was thinking about all the different groups in this town that are fighting so hard […]

Woodstock officials are raising concern about mounting safety risks at Big Deep and Little Deep, the local swimming holes that draw swarms of local and out-of-town visitors in the summer months. Members of the Woodstock Environmental Commission said at their March 18 meeting that visits to the sites off Zena Road and Route 212 last […]

Bill Murray once wanted to take a late-night swim at The Lodge in Woodstock. The actor, who was in the area while filming the 2019 movie “The Dead Don’t Die” in Fleischmanns, became a regular at the bar, hotel, and restaurant tucked behind Woodstock Elementary School. He showed up at Levon Helm Studios, dropped by […]

Woodstock officials stepped back from a potential hike in summer camp fees, saying they want to avoid a “hardship” for families even as the program’s budget gap widens.  “What I want to start off with is to assure the public and parents that the town board has heard that increasing the cost of the camp […]

In October 1983, Marty Leffer was in a Lake Placid hotel, waiting for an elevator. He had two tie-dyed shirts from a bundle he hoped to sell to thousands of Deadheads, fans of the Grateful Dead, who had descended on the upstate village that had hosted the Winter Olympics about four years earlier. Nearly 8,000 […]

Keisha Hoerrner is leaving the Woodstock Land Conservancy, where she’s served as its communications and outreach manager for two years, for a new and more sustainable life in Bologna, Italy, seeking to cut her carbon footprint, better healthcare, and “a place where science is valued.” “I want to go from just educating people about this […]