Newburgh doesn’t just have architecture—it has Architecture, with a capital “A.” Stacked brownstones, flamboyant Victorians, cast-iron storefronts, and ecclesiastical showpieces line its streets like a greatest-hits album of 19th-century design. With 445 acres of designated historic district, the city is practically a museum you can live in. From October 3 to 5, that open-air museum gets its own festival: Archtober Newburgh 2025.
Organized by The Fullerton with AIA Westchester + Hudson Valley, this three-day spin-off of New York City’s Archtober is less about sipping cocktails in glass towers and more about learning how to keep your gingerbread trim from rotting off the porch. With more than 25 free programs, the city becomes a hands-on lab in preservation, adaptive reuse, and good old-fashioned gawking.
Property owners with dreams bigger than their wallets can start with “Rehab 101: Historic Tax Credits with NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation,” covering tax credits, abatements, and ways to finance those cracked cornices. The Hudson Valley House Parts workshops lean practical: lime mortar tutorials, window repair, and a crash course in hardware restoration. Because what’s the point of a grand double-hung sash if it won’t actually open?
For voyeurs of the built environment, walking tours abound. Highlights include a survey of 19th-century ironwork and a youth-led bilingual “Look! Mira!” tour that reframes the familiar through fresh eyes. The Ritz Theatre opens its doors for an insider’s look, while the Community Land Bank leads a tour of Lander Street, a microcosm of preservation meets community struggle.
Not everything is bricks and mortar. In the Architect’s Bookshelf, practicing architects donate formative volumes to Newburgh students, capped off with a mixer that pairs future dreamers with current practitioners. Saturday night’s communal popcorn moment: an outdoor screening at 24-42 Johnes Street of Citizen Jane: Battle for the City, the Jane Jacobs vs. Robert Moses saga that still echoes every time someone proposes a highway through a neighborhood.
One of the weekend’s most innovative programs is “Rebuild Newburgh in Minecraft,” part of The Newburgh Project founded by Ember Beeler, a University of Texas alum now pursuing a Master’s in Architecture. Using the pixelated sandbox world, Beeler has recreated Newburgh as it stood before the sweeping Urban Renewal demolitions of the 1960s and ’70s, when more than 1,300 buildings were lost and 800 families displaced. In collaboration with Newburgh Creates, the digital model is opening up to the public, letting students, residents, and visitors explore the city’s past—and imagine what its future could be.
This year’s programs are made possible with support from the Kaplan Family Foundation, NBT Bank, Arts Mid-Hudson, Lamar Advertising, and City of Newburgh Councilmembers Giselle Martinez and Robert Sklarz—with additional thanks to the many collaborators and volunteers who power the “Look! Mira!” youth walking tours and the rest of the weekend.
Archtober Newburgh isn’t a nostalgia trip. It faces what’s at stake in Newburgh: Not just pretty buildings, but a chance to bridge the gap between residents, preservationists, and the ever-hovering specter of redevelopment. It’s also a weekend-long argument that the past can be a blueprint for the future—if you know how to shore up your lintels and keep the rain out of the attic.
