Rhinecliff Recommends

Leave your tree at Fireman's Field after the holidays and it gets burned in one large communal bonfire. Sponsored by the Rhinebeck Grange and Morton Library, with the fire company assisting.

• Take the ornaments off first.
• The date slips for weather and how muddy or icy the field is.

Neighbors swap seeds for the coming season, with a winter-sowing session alongside it — seeds started in milk jugs outdoors in February so they germinate on their own schedule.

• They collect clean 1-gallon milk and water jugs beforehand. Save yours.
• Usually mid-afternoon, around 3–5pm.

The hamlet's oldest tradition by some distance — the 2026 edition was the 17th. Neighbors of all ages get up and do a thing: music, dance, whistling, whatever they've got. An art show by hamlet artists opens the week before and hangs at the library through March.

• Doors 6pm, show starts around 6:30. The library closes at 5pm to set up.
• Sandy starts looking for performers in January — signing up is the whole audition process.
• Walk or carpool. Parking around the library has been ticketed.
• It ran virtually in 2021 and 2022, and came back in person after.

The hamlet's radio station runs one cocktail party a year to keep itself going, with a GoFundMe alongside it for people who can't make the party.

• Tickets have run around $150.
• The GoFundMe is the low-key way to support it.

The library's day. Potluck in the early evening, music, ice cream, cookies from Kips. Recent years have folded in the rummage sale and the Grange's plant swap so the whole hamlet is out at once.

• Community potluck runs roughly 5–7pm.
• Rain doesn't cancel it — it moves inside.

Chili cook-off and fruit pie contest run by the Rhinecliff Volunteer Fire Co and Rescue Squad, with games from 4pm and judging at 5. Amateur cooks only, and there is real prize money. The 15th ran in 2026.

• Enter a chili or a pie — you don't have to be good at it, but you do have to be an amateur.
• Bring your pot hot and register it by 4:50; judging starts at 5 whether you're there or not.
• Prizes are $100 for each winner, $50 for runners-up, plus a $100 People's Choice for chili.
• Games run alongside: a cornhole tournament at $10 a team, kids' games, and a North-versus-South Rhinecliff tug-o-war at 6. Kickball in earlier years.
• Free hot dogs and drinks. Fire company donations can also be made at the event.

A hamlet-wide tag sale. Houses sign up to be on a map that gets posted at the post office and the store, and people walk the route. If you're too far out to host a table, tables get set up near the store.

• Send your address to whoever is organizing to get on the map.
• Some years proceeds have been pooled for a cause; other years it's just a sale.

A hundred pumpkins get delivered for a carving session before Halloween. On the night itself, trick-or-treaters are sparse but they do come — houses post in the group to say they'll have treats.

• Kids are recruited to help unload the pumpkins.
• There has been talk of a trick-or-treat map, like the rummage sale one.

Radio Free Rhinecliff streams a purpose-built spooky soundtrack during trick-or-treat hours, designed by a hamlet sound engineer. The idea is that enough houses put speakers outside that the whole hamlet shares one soundtrack.

• Put a connected speaker on the porch and tune it to radiofreerhinecliff.org.
• Runs through prime trick-or-treat time, roughly 4–9pm.

The library hands out kits of candles and paper bags to line your walk, and the hamlet goes out walking to look at them. Described by its organizer as Halloween for the whole family — fewer costumes, more fire pits.

• It was canceled in 2024 on advice from the town and fire company over fire risk, so it isn't a fixture — watch the group.
• Walking radius has been about the same as trick-or-treating.

Plenty of the hamlet uses PO boxes, and some carriers won't deliver to one. The workaround is a USPS service called Post Office Box Street Address: address it to 15 Shatzell Ave, Suite [your box number], and it arrives.

• This gets the package to the post office, not to your door.
• If you want home delivery, that's a separate thing — PBSA won't do it.

Curbside pickup is Tuesday morning, by private subscription — most of the hamlet uses Welsh (also trading as Casella and Royal Carting). Holiday weeks usually push collection a day later.

• Recycling is a separate fee.
• Missed pickups happen. Neighbors have found that everyone calling, rather than one person, gets it fixed faster.

Spectrum is the long-standing option and Frontier fiber has been rolling out, at better speeds for less. Cell coverage is genuinely patchy and depends where you are and which carrier — Verizon works well for some and badly for others, AT&T has been rough, T-Mobile is fine in the hamlet but poor outside it.

• Wifi calling solves most of the cell problem at home.
• Worth calling Spectrum to renegotiate — neighbors have had rates cut by naming Frontier.
• If Frontier trenches your property, watch what they do to it.

Rhinecliff sits inside the Local Waterfront Revitalization Program area, which means planning standards here are stricter than elsewhere in the town. Things that would be routine — replacing a furnace with heat pumps, putting up a shed — can trigger a site survey or a planning board appearance.

• Budget time for the process, not just the work.
• Neighbors have written letters of support for each other's applications. Ask.

New York State bans open burning from mid-March through mid-May. It catches people out annually, usually someone burning leaves in April.

• Set by NYS DEC, not the town — it isn't negotiable.

The town picks up leaves, and brush separately — but brush pickup has stopped and restarted over the years, so confirm rather than assume. There's usually a second leaf pickup later in the season. When brush pickup isn't running, the transfer station takes it free.

• The Highway Department will tell you if you call.
• Rhinecliff gets town pickup; the village's more frequent schedule is a different thing.

The village flushes hydrants over a few days in October. Your water may run brown or the pressure may drop. It isn't a problem with your house.

• Notices go up on the village website, and usually in the group.

Central Hudson, and outages are a normal part of living here — the July 2025 storm took several days. Rhinecliff sits across two supply zones, so your neighbor having power tells you less than you'd think.

• Report it even if it's already reported — more reports may raise the priority.
• A camping-style battery keeps a fridge going; several neighbors run these.
• The store has opened for free coffee when the hamlet was dark.

Low pressure or no water usually means a main break, and the Rhinebeck Water Department is generally already on it. Someone in the group normally knows within minutes.

• Ask in the group before calling — you'll often get the answer faster.

For an injured bird or animal, Ravensbeard Wildlife Center in Saugerties takes rescues, and Countryside Animal Hospital in Staatsburg is the closest option.

• Ravensbeard Wildlife Center — (845) 901-0633
• Countryside Animal Hospital, Staatsburg — (845) 889-4168
• For a stray or loose dog, the town's dog control officers are hamlet residents.

Far more than books. The library lends museum passes, runs the composter, and is the venue for most of what happens here — the talent show, the seed swap, chess club, Richard's acoustic nights, yoga, book events, Morton Day. Sandy runs it and knows everything.

• Museum passes to Hudson River Maritime Museum — free visits, borrow like a book.
• Food scraps go in the composter; add a layer of browns on top.
• In December they hand out luminaria kits — candles and bags to line your walk.
• It's a 501(c)(3) and runs an annual fundraising drive in January.

The hamlet's own volunteer fire company, at the firehouse on Orchard Drive. Beyond the obvious, they run the Christmas tree bonfire, host the Grange, and turn up in this group first whenever a road closes.

• Donations: rhinecliffirerescue.org, or PO Box 6, Rhinecliff NY 12574.
• The firehouse is also where the Grange meets — use the side door.

An active agricultural fraternity that does a lot of the hamlet's food and plant events — soup sales, First Fridays, the plant swap, co-sponsoring the tree bonfire. Anyone can join.

• Meets at the Rhinecliff firehouse — side door.
• Soup sales are announced in the group; they sell out.

The hamlet runs its own streaming radio station at radiofreerhinecliff.org, with shows hosted by neighbors — jazz, interviews, serialized fiction, local journalism. The Tattler is the printed hamlet newsletter.

• Shows stream live and are available as podcasts afterwards.
• Both are made by people who live here.

The hamlet roads are narrow, and there has been a long-running effort to get the speed limit down to 25 through Rhinecliff. Deer are a genuine hazard after dark — more than one neighbor has written off a car.

• Mill Road subsides regularly; the same section has been patched for decades.
• Parking near the station is now governed by a town parking plan passed in late 2025.

Rhinecliff has an Amtrak station on the Hudson line, which is a large part of why the hamlet exists in its current form. It has been undergoing a long, slow, federally funded renovation, and parking has been the hamlet's most persistent political question for years.

• The station elevator has been unreliable — the fire company has rescued people from it.
• Station parking spills into hamlet streets, which is what the parking plan addresses.