Things to Do in Cold Spring, New York

This 90-acre Scenic Hudson preserve works as an outdoor museum of the ironworks that once employed 1,400 people. Trails follow Foundry Brook past the ruins, and the surviving office building still stands. The foundry built the first iron ship in the United States in 1843, and the site became a National Historic Landmark in 2021.

★ Good to know It’s free and open dawn to dusk year-round; bring headphones for the self-guided audio-visual tour.

Main Street runs uphill from the river, lined with 19th-century buildings that now hold antique shops, boutiques, cafes and inns. The whole central village is on the National Register of Historic Places. Split Rock Books at 97 Main is a good stop, and Doug’s Pretty Good Pub at 54 Main is the casual dinner option.

★ Good to know Metro-North’s Hudson Line stops at the bottom of the hill, about 1 hour 10 minutes from Grand Central, so you can skip the car entirely.

The museum on Chestnut Street fills an 1830 one-room schoolhouse built for the foundry’s teenage apprentices and workers’ children. A permanent installation on the ironworks shows artifacts, documents and art. It’s a short walk from the Foundry Preserve, so do the two together.

★ Good to know The galleries open Wednesday through Sunday afternoons during the open season; check the museum site before you go.

More than 8,000 acres and over 70 miles of trail rise right out of the village’s north edge, with trails that run from easy to steep. Little Stony Point is the gentle option, a short walk from the train station. The ridges here were favorite subjects for Hudson River School painters.

★ Good to know The Breakneck Ridge trailhead and its Metro-North stop are closed for a multi-year trail and bridge project, so check the state park page before you plan that climb.

This outfitter rents kayaks and paddleboards from its base at 14 Market Street, near the waterfront. It also runs guided nature tours and classes out of Cold Spring. The village sits at the deepest point of the Hudson, with the Highlands rising on both banks.

★ Good to know Rentals run roughly late May through September, mostly Thursday or Friday through Monday, with tours only into mid-October.

The ruined castle on Pollepel Island, just upriver, was built by Frank Bannerman VI between 1901 and 1918. The island is part of the state park but can only be visited on guided tours through the Bannerman Castle Trust. Tour boats leave from Beacon, a short drive north.

★ Good to know Private kayaks can’t land on the island; to paddle around it, book a guided Bannerman tour from the outfitter’s Beacon base.

Just east of the village on Route 9, this museum and research center shows postwar and contemporary Italian art. Its permanent Arte Povera collection is joined by rotating exhibitions in a separate pavilion. A small herd of Sardinian donkeys lives on the grounds.

★ Good to know It’s open Friday through Monday and closed Tuesday and Wednesday, with Thursdays for booked school groups.

This Neoclassical mansion was built between 1804 and 1808, torn down in the 1950s, then reassembled from saved pieces 15 miles north and opened as a museum in 1961. It holds a strong collection of Federal-period New York furniture. The lawn looks across Constitution Marsh to West Point.

★ Good to know It’s just south of Cold Spring in Garrison and open Friday through Monday; the house is mid-restoration, so ask about guided tours.