On what felt like the brightest, hottest day of the year @dante.vincent & I spen…
by @kirstenalana on Instagram on 14/08/16 at 3:27 pm
On what felt like the brightest, hottest day of the year @dante.vincent & I spent a silly amount of money yesterday to travel up the Hudson River for a long-overdue tour of Bannerman Castle & Pollepel Island. We’ve been seeing it for years now whenever we take Amtrak to or from his dad’s house. From the train tracks it passes by in a blink but it’s always a moment of mystery and fleeting fascination that has embedded itself in my memory as a place I simply needed to see up close sooner than later. Sooner finally came and we found out the hard way that a Zipcar is about the most ridiculously expensive way you can travel around NY state, one which we now don’t recommend, and the tour of the island itself is quite overpriced. BUT it was an unusual adventure that made my Scottish-loving heart exceedingly pleased because the name belongs to Scottish immigrant Frank Bannerman. He built the castle and this manor home on the island as the 1800’s were becoming the 1900’s and he invented the retail model that we now know as Army Surplus Stores. In the castle on the island he stored all of his goods for sale, then lived here surrounded by carvings of the Saltire and Thistle flowers, just a few minutes walk toward another side of the island. All of it is being lovingly restored by passionate volunteers who have given the island new life.??Check out @dante.vincent’s feed for a look at the castle and a little more insight into the history.?
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