Rosendale

Rosendale Businesses

Main Street Rosendale resembles the main drag of some frontier town in the Old West. The road is narrow, the buildings close to each other and the sidewalk, and the façade of the Astoria Hotel looks like a set piece from a spaghetti Western. Sure enough, this was originally a mining town, built to accommodate the natural cement companies that set up operations here in 1825, when construction began on the nearby Delaware & Hudson Canal. The cement was of such quality that it was used in the Brooklyn Bridge, the Capitol building in Washington, and the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, but its prominence declined when Portland cement became the standard. Sleepy though it appears, Rosendale draw throngs of visitors from all over the Valley during annual events including a street fair, a musical festival and the quirky International Pickle Festival. The town’s name is a corruption of Rose & Ale, words that can be found on bumper stickers throughout the town (another popular bumper sticker proclaiming this “The People’s Republic of Rosendale” gives some hint of the town’s political bent).