These are only the most recent changes. If you ask people who’ve lived here many years, they’ll tell you Rosendale has always been in flux. “There’s always been that kind of feel here,” says Wayne Montecalvo, a musician and artist who also moved up from the East Village, but back in 1982. Montecalvo has watched people and places come and go here for going on three decades. He was a founding member of the popular Rosendale-based band The Fighting McKenzies, which played from the mid-’80s to about 2002, and also the creator of “Trash Town,” a summer-long art project in 1999 that culminated in a sort of musical performed in a minitown made of castoffs from the dump, in the parking lot of what is now the Rosendale Café. “New people are always coming here, from the city and elsewhere, and there’s always this sense that that town is on the verge of turning into something big, but then it never really does,” says Montecalvo. “I think that actually adds to the character.”
We hear it again and again: Rosendale is repeatedly declared the “next hot town.” Because it’s less affluent than nearby towns that are more attractive to weekenders, it always seems ripe for gentrification. But it never quite happens. There are many long-standing theories as to why the town never fully takes off—not enough parking, the main street doing double duty as a state highway with too high a speed limit—but the truth is, many of the locals are quite happy to keep it just the way it is.
I should probably bite my tongue, but it’s hard to imagine Rosendale ever becoming a major shopping destination. The downtown area is small, and there seems to be a particular critical retail mass the town can handle before stores start shuttering. On the edge of town, there’s The Shopping Plaza That Time Forgot, known more formally as Fann’s Plaza, which is less than half filled with stores. That said, those stores and restaurants—Rosendale Liquors, Peppino’s Pizza, Chinese Gourmet Kitchen, Tiny Bubbles Laundromat, Martin Dry Cleaners, Miss Peggy’s Hair Salon, and 32 Lunch, a greasy-spoon diner with great food and an animated chef—thrive, especially because many in the Rosendale community believe in supporting local businesses.
There are some great stores on Main Street too, and they all seem to be holding their own.
There’s The Big Cheese, selling—you guessed it—hundreds of delicious varieties of cheese, but also Middle Eastern foods and an impressive selection of secondhand clothes. Always busy is Favata’s Table Rock Tours, a relocated iteration of an existing bike shop that also sells skateboards, owned by professional mountain biker Christian Favata. Vintage fashion and furniture abound at Soiled Doves, and at Rosendale Wares. There are two nice art galleries in town, Roos Arts, and Wings Gallery. The Alternative Baker, relocated from Kingston’s Rondout neighborhood, offers fine baked goods, often using alternative grains for those with special diets.
Vision of Tibet, a gift shop featuring clothes, jewelry, books, and Buddhist-themed spiritual merchandise, was a welcome addition last summer from Manhattan’s West Village. Planet Pet offers dog grooming. You can get attractive cabinets designed for your home at Woodstock Custom Woodworking. And you can join a drumming circle, shop for drums, and purchase CDs at The Drum Depot.
When the town holds some of its many festivals, such as Frozendale Day in December, the shops are especially packed. One of Rosendale’s mottoes is that it is “The Festival Town,” and with eight or so, it seems like truth in advertising. The most renowned is the Rosendale Street Festival, which this year features 71 bands on five stages, plus a kids stage, and a wide variety of vendors offering food, clothing, jewelry, crafts and more.
Second in the running must be the International Pickle Fest, the 13th edition of which will take place at the Community Center on Sunday, November 21. Founded by town barber and character Bill Brooks after some friends from Japan who were coming to visit mentioned, “We like pickles,” the Pickle Fest attracts a diverse group of picklers, and thousands of visitors.
