[Impala64ssa]

Some historical accounts of when the Hudson River between Tarrytown and Nyack froze over. Long before the construction of the Gov Cuomo Tappan Zee Bridge. Goes to show there's been always been crazy weather somewhere, long before the anyone thought up the man made climate change hoax.
I remember when that part of the Hudson froze over in 1977. The same year we had an insanely hot summer. We had days when temps hit 100° in parts of the Catskills which is unheard of. From one extreme to another in a matter of months. All this while we were being warned of an impending new Ice Age 🙄

[Jim W N]

A sleigh and a trotter are racing. The expanse of ice is amazing. Photo likely by Norman Burke in 1912.

OOPS!

Mistakes happen. This touring car found a soft spot in the ice while trying to cross the ice bridge. Norman Burke photograph.

[mairdie]

Wonderful thread. Know that area well but never heard of this.

[usurper]

We often think of our forebears as somehow different from us, a bunch of stiffs with no sense of humor. Seeing photos like these shows they were just as crazy and out for fun as we are.

“The only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys”.

[higgmeister]

What is this about?   Who, What, When, Where, How, and Why!

How could something be famous when very few have even heard of it?

[pierrem15]

I remember when that part of the Hudson froze over in 1977.

I lived near Cayuga lake in upstate NY that winter. It froze over for the first time in 80 years and some guys had too much to drink and decided to drive across the lake to go home. I think they got a couple of hundred yards across before the ice cracked and the car slowly sank.

They weren't cited for DUI, but did get a fine from the Coast Guard for depositing trash in a navigable waterway.

[SamuraiScot]

Ice bridges served as vital temporary highways in frigid years like 1873, 1888, and 1912, before the advent of icebreakers in the 1930s forever changed the river’s wintry dynamic. . .

. . . although, as you point out, periodically, the Hudson froze over anyway. My father grew up mostly on the west side of the river in Rockland County, NY. When he was in his teens in the late 1930s, he drove across the frozen Hudson and back in his dad's Model A. As I recall, he did this on more than one occasion.

Because, as we males periodically say, "It had to be done."

[dakine]

My Grandpa and Grandma honeymooned at Niagara Falls, in the Winter, great photo of them in front of frozen Falls. 1930 or 31...

The water was running under the ice...

[Gay State Conservative]

Yup:
Tappan Zee
Triborough
Redskins
Indians
Fort Bragg

And in Boston: Yawkey Station.

The Yawkey family funded a multi million dollar cancer center at Massachusetts General Hospital...among many other charitable acts. But Tom Yawkey,while owner of the Red Sox,was accused of racism in player selection so Maoists recently demanded that Yawkey Station (which is only feet from Fenway Park) be renamed.

[21twelve]

“...sparking annual debates in local newspapers about their arrival.”

At the family cabin in Northern Minnesota the bars would park a junk car out on the ice towards spring. Then bets would be taken guessing the day, hour, minute that it would sink through the ice. The bar kept some of the money, the winner took the pot.

At some point they probably had to start recovering the vehicles. I suppose it has been a long time since they’ve done it now with all of the regulations.

Although one could just make up a statue or something out of scrap metal and bet on that. (Probably would STILL be illegal.... Humpf.)

[Libloather]

...a playground for people of all ages. It hosted walkers, skaters, cyclists, cars, horses, and even motorcycles on its meticulously marked route across the nearly three-mile-wide Tappan Zee.

Sure, but what was the crime rate? Had to have been ASTRONOMICAL!

[TalBlack]

“There were even instances of two black bears making the journey“

Bears are up and about at a time of year when ice bridges are possible?

[abb]

My dad’s side of the family was originally from the Albany, NY area. We got to tour a good bit of New York in the spring of 23 - Niagara, Finger Lakes, Hudson Valley, Catskills. Very impressive natural beauty.

[CaptainPhilFan]

Thank you for posting this. My family is from Nyack, I was raised in North Rockland.

My mom and her siblings would tell stories of the frozen river in the 40’s and 50’s.

Cars, skaters, sleighs and horses. It sounded like a snow globe.

I don’t know when it stopped freezing so hard, but IMHO it stopped due to chemicals and pollution in the water rather than global warming.