Annandale-on-Hudson, New York

Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
Hamlet
Annandale-on-Hudson Location in New York state
Coordinates:
Country	United States
State	New York
County	Dutchess
Town	Red Hook
Elevation	154 ft (47 m)
Time zone	Eastern (EST) (UTC-5)
• Summer (DST)	EDT (UTC-4)
ZIP code	12504
Area code(s)	845
GNIS feature ID	942492

Annandale-on-Hudson is a hamlet in Dutchess County, New York, United States, in the Hudson Valley in the town of Red Hook, across the Hudson River from Kingston.

The town takes its name from an estate donated by John Bard and his wife to Columbia University so that a college could be formed there. Today, Bard College stands on the land that John Bard donated. Bard College houses the only post office for Annandale-on-Hudson's ZIP code, 12504. The land comprising Annandale-on-Hudson, sometimes shortened to just "Annandale", is primarily owned by Bard College, though there are a few private residences, some small businesses, and undeveloped land controlled by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

Municipal services

Emergency services at Annandale-on-Hudson are provided by the municipal Red Hook Police Department, the Dutchess County Sheriff's Office, New York State Police, Red Hook Volunteer Fire Company, and Tivoli Volunteer Fire Company. Students, faculty, and staff of Bard College also receive on-campus emergency assistance from Bard College Safety and Security and the student-run Bard EMS.

History

Despite its tiny geographic coverage, there is significant history rooted in Annandale-on-Hudson. Blithewood, a mansion originally designed by an alumnus of the architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White for Andrew Zabriskie in 1899, was donated to Bard College in 1951 by the Zabriskie family. The Blithewood mansion now houses the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College. The Manor Estate is another historical mansion located on campus.

Bard College resident-archaeologist Christopher Lindner has done extensive research on local history, including predominantly Native Americans and Dutch settlers, as well as the old money that used to reside in the area.

References to the location

The American jazz-rock group Steely Dan formed at Bard in the era when Chevy Chase and Blythe Danner attended, and make reference to being so angry about the college refusing to bail one of their girlfriends out after a raid by local police that they reference it in the song "My Old School" from their 1973 album Countdown to Ecstasy.

Annandale-on-Hudson is the fictional hometown of the X-Men character Jean Grey in Marvel Comics.

Further reading

• Great Houses of the Hudson River, Michael Middleton Dwyer, editor, with preface by Mark Rockefeller, Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, published in association with Historic Hudson Valley, 2001. ISBN 082122767X.

Gallery

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  Hannah Arendt's gravestone from the Bard College cemetery