HISTORICAL WALKING TOUR

The Museum in the Streets© is a fun and informative walking tour of Hastings-on-Hudson, suitable for both adults and kids. While on the tour, visitors can choose to explore 34 sites of local historical interest. Each stop is marked by a sign with text in English and Spanish. The signs display more than 80 wonderful old photographs of Hastings’ past taken from the Historical Society’s collection, as well as a description of the significance of the site. Of interest to locals, day-trippers and potential residents, the walk gives one a good feel for the village’s rich history.

Featured are homes of notable early Hastings residents, places of business and worship, and other points of interest. Many of the stops are located within a few blocks of downtown Hastings, some require a longer walk, and a couple of the last few (#30, 33 and 34) may be better reached by car.

Brochures with the map and descriptions of the stops can be picked up at several places in the village. These include Suburban Renewal (1 Main Street), the Hastings Center Restaurant (540 Warburton Avenue), and the Municipal Building and Hastings Public Library — both at 7 Maple Avenue, just up the hill from the Metro North station. The brochures are also available at the Historical Society at the Observatory Cottage in Draper Park at 407 Broadway. The brochure, with map, can also be downloaded.

THE TOUR

While the tour can be done in any order, for those who want to do it numerically, it begins with stop #1 at the large map sign at Boulanger Plaza parking lot. This is located in the heart of downtown at the rear of the walkway adjacent to the Hastings Center Restaurant (the diner at 540 Warburton Ave). There are two other large map signs near downtown, with one located at the bottom of the steps to the overpass at the train station and the other at the Five Corners intersection of Broadway, Chauncey Lane, Farragut Avenue and Main Street.

These large signs show the tour map framed by small photos of each of the 34 stops on the tour. For those who don’t have time to visit all the stops, these large maps provide all the information on the tour, just not the experience of being there, to see each site in context. A fourth large map sign is located at stop #34, Andrus on Hudson. Allow up to two hours to complete the tour if all stops are visited.