Boating, Fishing, and Travel Information for Kingston, NY

Kingston, in Ulster County, New York, has three recognized area neighborhoods. The Uptown Stockade Area, The Midtown Area, and The Downtown Waterfront Area. The Uptown Stockade District was the first capital of New York State. Meanwhile, the Midtown area is known for its early 20th century industries and is home to the Ulster Performing Arts Center and the historic City Hall building. The city is on the west bank of the Hudson River. Neighboring towns include Hurley, Saugerties, Rhinebeck, and Red Hook.

The downtown area, once the village of Rondout and now the Rondout-West Strand Historic District, borders the Rondout Creek and includes a recently redeveloped waterfront. The creek empties into the Hudson River through a large, protected tidal area which was the terminus of the Delaware and Hudson Canal, built to haul coal from Pennsylvania to New York City.

The Rondout neighborhood is known for its artists’ community and its numerous art galleries; in 2007 Business Week online named it as among “America’s best places for artists.” It is also the site of a number of festivals, including the Kingston Jazz Festival and the Artists Soapbox Derby.

Midtown is the largest of Kingston’s neighborhoods, home to Kingston High School and both campuses of HealthAlliance Hospital, part of the Westchester Medical Center Health Network; HealthAlliance Broadway Campus (formerly The Kingston Hospital) and HealthAlliance Mary’s Avenue Campus (formerly Benedictine Hospital).

While the Uptown area is noted for its “antique” feeling, the overhangs attached to buildings along Wall and North Front streets were added to historic buildings in the late 1970s and are not authentically part of the 19th century Victorian architecture. The historic covered storefront walks, known as the Pike Plan, were recently reinforced and modernized with skylights. In the Stockade district of Uptown, many 17th century stone buildings remain. Many of these old buildings were burned by the British Oct. 17, 1777, and restored later.

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There are several small-craft facilities on Rondout Creek. Berths, electricity, gasoline, diesel fuel, water, ice, marine supplies, launching ramps, a sewage pump-out facility, and wet and dry storage are available as far upstream as Eddyville. Lifts to 35 tons and a 75-foot marine railway can handle craft for hull and engine repairs.

Esopus Meadows Light, Mile 75.8, 52 feet above the water, is shown from a white brick lighthouse on the west side of the main channel. Shoals with depths less than 3 feet extend as much as 0.4 mile from either shore from about 1 mile below the light to Rondout Creek at Kingston. The shoal area on the east side of the river is marked by buoys.

Rondout Creek is entered from the Hudson River at Mile 79W through a dredged channel that leads between two long, submerged jetties to Eddyville, about 3 miles above the channel entrance. The jetties are marked by lights at the outer ends and by seasonal daybeacons. In 2008, the controlling depth was 13.9 feet from the entrance to the second highway bridge about 1.1 miles above the mouth, thence 6.6 feet to the southwest end of Gumaer Island, thence 4.8 feet to the head of the dredged channel at Eddyville. The channel is partially marked by buoys. The head of practical navigation is at the lock of the abandoned Delaware and Hudson Canal, 3.3 miles above the entrance. The lower 2-mile portion of Rondout Creek serves as a harbor for Kingston.

Rondout Creek is crossed by a fixed highway bridge with a clearance of 56 feet, about 1 mile above the entrance, a highway suspension bridge with a clearance of 86 feet, about 0.1 mile above the fixed bridge, and the fixed railroad bridge with a clearance of 144 feet, about 2 miles above the entrance. An overhead power cable with a clearance of 75 feet crosses the creek about 0.45 mile above the railroad bridge.