Bricks and Brick Ruins of the Hudson Valley

New York State was once one of the great brick making centers of the world, with scores of brickyards on both sides of the Hudson River.

Countless mansions, houses, schools, and factory buildings were built from Hudson River bricks, whose legacy can also be found in piles of reject bricks found along the shoreline today. Many of these bricks were molded with the name of the brickyard owner or company.

As part of Thomas Rinaldi and Robert Yasinsac’s 2016-17 exhibit at the New York State Museum a display was produced of “40 Hudson River Bricks” that identify a some of these brickyards. That display was also shown at Arts Westchester’s “Brick By Brick: The Erie Canal & the Building Boom” exhibition in White Plains in 2018-19.

In an adaptation of their Hudson Valley Ruins presentation, Rinaldi and Yasinsac will highlight brickyard ruins as well as notable ruins constructed from local bricks in a virtual and in-person presentation Wednesday December 13, 2023 from 7 until 9 pm.

The in-person event will take place at the Hudson River Maritime Museum, at 50 Rondout Landing, in Kingston, NY.  The cost is $7 per person with Museum members free. You can register here.

Thomas Rinaldi grew up near Poughkeepsie. He is the author of Patented: 1,000 Design Patents (Phaidon, 2021), and New York Neon (W.W. Norton, 2012). His photographs have been published in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the New York Observer, Westchester Magazine, at CNN Online, and elsewhere. He currently works as an architectural designer in New York City.

Robert Yasinsac has been documenting historic and distinctive architecture in the Hudson Valley since 1994. His photographs have appeared in the New York Times, The Journal News, Preservation Magazine, TOKION Magazine, and other publications. He is the author of Briarcliff Lodge (Arcadia, 2004) and a life-long resident of Westchester County.

Rinaldi and Yasinsac are the co-authors of the book Hudson Valley Ruins: Forgotten Landmarks of an American Landscape” (University Press of New England, 2006). Their photographs have been exhibited at the New York State Museum at Albany and at the Municipal Art Society of New York.

Photo: “HUTTON brick fragments on Kingston Point Beach (courtesy BrickCollecting.com).