From the porch of the historic "Hopper House," one may imagine a tall, reserved boy looking down Nyack’s Second Avenue towards the Hudson River dotted with boats at work and at play.

At Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center today, one may easily see much of what intrigued young Edward Hopper in the world around him and what became significant in his mature paintings and drawings. ​In any direction, the village of Nyack retains much of the scale and quality it had when Hopper was a youth. Permeating this locale is a quality of light that Hopper returned to throughout his long career as a painter.
 
Discover, through this walking tour, influences that helped shape this iconic American artist. 

 

LOCATION TOPICS (click link to "skip the scroll" to topic):

1. Hopper Home
(1a) "Stairway" 1949
(1b) "Summer Evening" 1947
2. Miss Dickey's School
3. First Baptist Church
4. "The Lee Shore" 1941
5. "Pretty Penny" 1939
6. "Seven A.M." 1948
7. "Hook Mountain" c.1899
     (Historic): Byron W. Church's Boatyard, Smith's Ship Yard
8. "Three Commodores" 1896
9. Nyack Neighborhood
10. Mazeppa Engine Co. #2
11. G. H. Hopper's Dry Goods Store
12. "Little Boy Looking at the Sea" n.d.
-- "Early Sunday Morning" 1930
13. Oak Hill Cemetery

     (Historic): Turn of the Century Nyack: Main Street & Broadway
     (Historic): Neighborhood Notes: Organ Factory, Victorian Houses
     (Historic): Heading toward Hook Mountain
     (Historic): Shipyards & Shoreline: Burd Street Dock, Nyack Rowing Club
     (Historic): Turn of the Century Transport: Trains, Ferries, Coaches, Cars
     (Historic): A Thorough Education: Rockland Female Institute, Liberty Street School, Shoe Factories
     (Historic): Leisure Activities: Cycling, Boats, Y.M.C.A, Staying Cool, Summer Destination

We have also included interesting historical aspects here with illustrative photographs and notes to help contextualize the time in which Edward Hopper lived in Nyack. The sites appearing in RED may not be extant, nor open to the public, and are APPROXIMATELY located. 

WALKING TOUR SITES 1-11

Private Homes spotlighted are NOT open to the public. Thank you for respecting our neighbors' privacy.

 

1 The Hopper House

= 82 N Broadway

82 North Broadway, circa 1882

​Edward Hopper was born and grew up in this clapboard and shingle house. The Federal south wing was built in 1858 by Edward’s maternal grandfather, John Dewint Smith (1806–1871), a farmer in Orangetown, and Martha Griffiths Smith (1817-1892), a daughter of Baptist pastor Joseph W. Griffiths. (John Smith was from the family who once owned the the DeWint House in Tappan, NJ, where George Washington headquartered during the Revolutionary War.) The lot was among the ‘handsome building sites’ advertised as a new residential subdivision in 1856-57 for $250 to $300 each on a newly subdivided 37-acre tract of land along the road to Hook Mountain and a block from the water’s edge. It is the only property on this stretch of N. Broadway that faces east with a now direct view of the Hudson River, the shore of which is a block away down 2nd Avenue.

Edward Hopper House in 1912

​In the year Edward was born (1882), his widowed grandmother (Martha) began adding a north "wing" onto the house to accommodate her expanding family which included her only child Elizabeth (1854-1935), “Lizzie”’s spouse, Garret Henry Hopper (1852-1913; married 1879) their two-year old daughter Marion (1880-1966), and infant son, Edward.

The Victorian north wing included a parlor and kitchen (completed by 1883/1884) on the ground floor, and a second story (begun 1884/1886) with a bathroom, large bedroom, and smaller space likely for a housemaid. The addition’s façade updated the original Greek Revival house with modest yet fashionable Queen Ann style details of a front gable, shingles, and bay windows. 

​The house’s location afforded "would-be artist”—as Edward inscribed on his childhood pencil box—a vantage point to observe and sketch. Set at the T-junction of North Broadway and Second Avenue, the house’s porch and windows offered a direct view of the Hudson River with its bustling traffic. Inside the house, shafts of southern light throughout the day streamed in the windows enlivening the living room, parlor, and Edward’s bedroom.

---

Edward's sister Marion lived in the family home throughout her lifetime; Edward and wife Josephine would often return to Nyack even though Edward resided after 1913 at 3 Washington Square North in New York City.

Marion died in 1965, Edward in 1967, and Josephine passed away in 1968. They are buried in a family plot at Nyack's Oak Hill Cemetery. ​After Hopper’s death, the house fell into disrepair. In 1971, Edward Hopper’s birthplace and family home was saved from demolition and founded as a nonprofit organization by people in the community who were devoted to preserving Hopper’s home and legacy in Nyack.

Restoration 1971

Volunteers at Edward Hopper House, circa 1973

jump back to map

---

 

(1a) "STAIRWAY"

​- 82 N. Broadway (Interior)

This 1949 painting depicts the central staircase of Edward Hopper's family home. The complete stairwell unit is said to have been ordered from an architectural trade catalog; his maternal grandparents built the house in 1858. 

Just imagine the number of times Hopper put his hand on the newel at the landing and slid his palm along the balustraded handrail to walk, or even scurry, up the stairs to his second floor bedroom. When you stand at the upstairs landing and look down the stairs, you don't see this view. Even standing halfway down the stairs, with the front door fully open, you cannot fully realize Hopper’s perspective.

In his chalk and graphite study (Whitney Museum) for this painting, Hopper rendered the scene more representationally, complete with the exterior entrance lamp that remains in place today, the porch railing, and an atmospheric view through the door towards the Hudson River.

Edward Hopper, (Study for Stairway), 1949, Fabricated chalk and graphite pencil on paper, 12 3/16 × 19 1/4in. (31 × 48.9 cm), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Josephine N. Hopper Bequest, © Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

In the painting, these details are not included. Hopper instead catches light reflections on the banister and carpeted stair treads, then replaces the view across the neighborhood, where he roamed as youth, with a dense green landscape. To the right of the stairs, Hopper characteristically inserts a fragment of a red velvet Victorian chair that is intentionally placed adjacent to a partially open green doorway curtain used to protect the main parlor from drafts. 

Edward Hopper, (Stairway), 1949, oil on wood, 16 × 11 7/8in. (40.6 × 30.2 cm), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Josephine N. Hopper Bequest, © Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

This painting reveals Hopper's compositional skills in rendering a confined, yet deeply familiar, interior space that he imbues with emotional and narrative ambiguity.

jump back to map

---

 

(1b) "SUMMER EVENING" 1947

​- 82 N. Broadway (Porch)

In the 1947 painting "Summer Evening,” Edward Hopper depicts a couple standing in near silence on a summer night. The pair lean against the front porch railing of a white clapboard house that seems to be directly inspired by Hopper’s family home.

Edward Hopper, "Summer Evening" 1947, Oil on canvas, 30 x 42 (76.2 x 106.7 cm), Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert H. Kinney

In the painting, the household seems quiet too. The home's interior is at once partially concealed by the closed and curtained front door, and partially revealed by porch light which dimly hints at the interior seen through the half drawn window shade and curtains of the parlor window on the left.

Edward Hopper, (Study for Summer Evening), 1947, Charcoal on paper, 8 ½ x 11 in. Private Collection

Hopper’s use of an implied late hour, stark light from the overhead entry lamp, and dormancy of the household all work together to create a scene imbued with tension between the young man and woman. As with Hopper’s other paintings, this painting prompts the viewer to wonder what he intentionally made unknown to the viewer.

This painting reveals Hopper's compositional skills in rendering a confined, yet deeply familiar, interior space that he imbues with emotional and narrative ambiguity.

jump back to map

---

 

2 Miss Dickey's School For Young Boys and Girls

​- 36 Marion Street

This is a private residence and is not open to the public. Please respect our neighbors' privacy.

​Garret and Lizzie Hopper sent their two young children, Marion and Eddie, to “Miss Dickey's School,”’ a preschool located just around the corner at Marion Street and Third Avenue.

Built in 1867, the Dickey house is still distinguished today by its colonnaded wrap-around porch, ornamental hooded window details, and lofty gable roof with fishscale slate shingles.

The head of Miss Dickey's School was Alta Virginia Dickey (1851-1926). She opened her private school for young girls and boys at her family home in 1880, the year Edward’s elder sister Marion was born. In 1895, the school remained popular and regarded as “an excellent institution of learning for the young people.”

36 Marion Street is a private residence and is NOT open to the public. Please respect our neighbors' privacy. The photo of 36 Marion St. is courtesy Veronica Cordaro at Ellis Sotheby’s International Realty

In Hopper’s era, Edward and his older sister Marion could run out the rear door of their house and across the backyard directly to Marion Street to attend school. At that time, the Hopper property was a long lot, extending from N. Broadway to Marion Street. Edward's parents built two additional residences (#19 and #21) in the 1890s on Marion Street, which they leased for supplemental income.

While both children had moved on to the local Liberty Street school (See: A Thorough Education: Rockland Female Institute, Liberty Street School, Shoe Factories) by the early 1890s, Marion would still stop by and help Miss Dickey. In a letter dating from 1890, Marion’s friend Clarissa Ball writes that she “hopes everything is going well over at Miss Dickey’s.”

Education, and that of women, was important to Miss Dickey’s family. Her father William Dickey (1808-1892) was a founder in 1855 of the Rockland Female Institute, where Edward Hopper’s mother attended. He was also a member of the Board of Education and assisted in establishing public schools in Nyack. (See: A Thorough Education: Rockland Female Institute, Liberty Street School, Shoe Factories)

William was even more prominent in town as a ship carpenter and builder of steamboats and sailing vessels. One of his most famous ships was the “Chrystenah,” built expressly for the New York-Nyack ferry route on the Hudson. (See:Turn of the Century Transport: Trains, Ferries, Coaches, Cars)

jump back to map

---

 

3 First Baptist Church

​- 140 N Broadway

This location is a working school, and is not open to the public as an historic site.

In Edward’s Hopper’s era, this brick and stone building housed Nyack’s First Baptist Church, a congregation organized in 1854 with the help of Hopper’s great grandfather, Rev. Joseph W. Griffiths (1782-1860). The church is Romanesque in style and originally had a distinctive tall spire.

The First Baptist Church (1910, photo by Norman A. Burke, courtesy Nyack Library).

Behind the pulpit stood a distinctive pipe organ, built in 1893 by F. J. N. Tallman who operated a piano and organ factory on Third Avenue, just north of Hopper’s home. When the church disbanded, this “Tallman Tracker” organ was disassembled and taken to the Chautauqua Institute, where it was rebuilt and is in use today.

In 1904, the First Baptist Church had a fiftieth anniversary celebration and the sanctuary was bedecked with flowers. Behind the pulpit stood the pipes and the organ built by F. J. N. Tallman. Courtesy Nyack Library.

This two-manual, twelve-stop, mechanical-action organ in a free-standing case was given to The Chautauqua Institute in 2000, where it was rebuilt and is still in use today. Courtesy The Chautauqua Daily (Julie Ciotola, June 25, 2018)

Rev. Griffiths helped raise the $3,000 needed to erect the church in 1857. A year later, his daughter Martha Griffiths Smith (1817-1892) and her husband John De Windt Smith (1806-1821) bought property on North Broadway and built their home (today’s “Hopper House”) just three blocks south.

The First Baptist Church and its Christian teachings were focal points of family life in Edward Hopper's youth, as he was born and raised in his grandmother Griffith’s house. Martha and her daughter Elizabeth (“Lizzie”) Hopper cultivated the religious vibrancy of the household. Lizzie served on the church’s women’s auxiliary and with the local Temperance Society, while her husband Garret was a church trustee. 
The Hopper children’s Christian education was taught, and early friendships formed, through the Baptist Sunday School where their father was assistant superintendent. At this church, Edward and Marion learned the Gospels and moral discipline, groundings that privately stayed with them. While Marion stayed tightly connected to this church all her life, Edward would reject organized religion after relocating to New York City.  

Today this church building houses the India Pentecostal Fellowship and the Montessori Center of Nyack.

jump back to map

---

 

4 "The Lee SHore"

​- 1 Laveta Place

This is a private residence, and not open to the public. Please respect our neighbors' privacy.

The foremost residence on the south side of LaVeta Place is marked by a turret and veranda similar to those seen in the waterside house central to Hopper's painting, "The Lee Shore." Painted in 1941, the painting’s title may reference a chapter of Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick,” a meaningful book to Hopper.

Edward Hopper, The Lee Shore, 1941, Private Collection © Licensed by Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York

The three-story clapboard Victorian house was built in the mid 1890s when Hopper was a teenager.

1 LaVeta Place is a private residence and NOT open to the public. Please respect our neighbors' privacy.

After relocating to New York City around 1908, Hopper returned on occasion to Nyack to visit his family and also to pick up his car for summer sketching sojourns with his wife Josephine. In 1938, Edward was back in Nyack for a rare commission to paint a portrait of “Pretty Penny.” At that time, he may have sketched this house at LaVeta Place and the view from the property of a sailboat aloft on the river as studies for “The Lee Shore.”

Edward Hopper, Study possibly for "The Lee Shore" courtesy Provincetown Art Association Museum

The Provincetown Art Association Museum’s collection includes several studies of this painting and a drawing Josephine Hopper made of her husband at their Truro summer home with The Lee Shore on his easel.

Josephine Nivison Hopper, Study (Edward at Easel) possibly working on "The Lee Shore", courtesy Provincetown Art Association Museum

jump back to map

---

 

5 "Pretty Penny"

​- 235 N Broadway

This is a gated private residence, and not open to the public. Please respect our neighbors' privacy.

The 1850s Italianate house, portrayed in “Pretty Penny.” was built by Eli Gurnee. In the 1930s  it was home to the acclaimed “First Lady of American Theatre Helen Hayes” and her husband, playwright and screen-writer Charles MacArthur. They nicknamed the house ‘Pretty Penny’ because, as MacArthur joshed, ‘that’s what it cost.’

Aerial view of 235 North Broadway, courtesy Ellis Sotheby's International Realty

Painted in 1939,the canvas was the only private commission that Hopper ever accepted, and he took it begrudgingly, complaining that  “there’s no light and there’s no air that I can find for that house.” (Avis Berman, Prelude exhibition, May 2011, Edward Hopper House Museum)

Edward Hopper, "Pretty Penny" 1939, oil on canvas, 29 x 40 in. Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA

​235 North Broadway is a private residence and NOT open to the public. Please respect our neighbors' privacy. Photo courtesy Nyack Library, by Milt Laster 1984

New York Times art critic John Russell also spoke on the painting in August of 2000, which had been gifted by Helen Hayes to her alma mater Smith College:

The Hayes house in Nyack was joyous, carefree, light-inviting and altogether out of sync with Hopper. He agreed to go see it. But Hopper and Hayes did not exactly hit it off. After his visit, she said: ''I had never met a more misanthropic, grumpy, grouchy individual in my life. He was like a big hellcat of anger and resentment at the whole thing.''

But these problems were resolved when Hopper finally produced, after careful preliminary drawings and a painting that is direct, straightforward and almost ecstatic in its rendering of the Hayes house. It looks, in fact, like a real estate agent's dream. 

The famed loneliness and alienation that so often permeated Hopper's paintings of houses were banished, and all parties seem to have been pleased with the result. 

- New York Times (John Russell, August 4, 2000)

Edward Hopper, Study for the MacArthur's Home, "Pretty Penny", 1939, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Josephine N. Hopper Bequest, © Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

jump back to map

---

 

6 "Seven A.M."

​- 318 N Broadway

This is a private residence, and not open to the public. Please respect our neighbors' privacy.

Hopper’s well known and beguiling painting, Seven A.M. at the Whitney Museum, depicts an anonymous storefront cast in the shadows and cool light of early morning, and with lush foliage at the left.

Edward Hopper, Seven A.M., 1948, Oil on canvas, 30 3/16 × 40 1/8in. (76.7 × 101.9 cm), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; © Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

The store’s shelves stand empty, and the few products – tonic bottles and illustrations – displayed on the window ledge along with an inactive ornate cash register set on the counter provide little evidence of the store’s function. A clock on the wall confirms the time given in the title, while the painting seems to depict a specific moment and place.

In her diary entry for September 22, 1948, Josephine Hopper recorded the completion of Edward’s most recent painting: “E. has done this canvas in 16 days. I find on looking back he stretched it on Labor Day Sept. 6.”

Edward Hopper, sketch possibly for Seven A.M., courtesy Provincetown Art Association Museum

While no location is provided in the Hopper record book, the storefront at 318 North Broadway has striking similarities to this Upper Nyack building that dates to 1884/1885. Not only do its ground floor entry, cornice, and windows align, but so does the configuration of  two sash windows on the floor above. 

318 North Broadway is a private residence and NOT open to the public. Please respect our neighbors' privacy.

Hopper would have known this Upper Nyack building, which is only a half mile north of his home. Plus the Hopper’s family butcher had operated from here.

Local historian Winston C. Perry, Jr., gives us more detail about this location:

"My grandfather Harry H. Perry was a storekeeper in this building in the 1890s. It also served as a post office, with  just a set of cubby-holes on the counter. The merchandise was displayed on… [the] first and second floors. He went bankrupt after a few years. I guess maybe it was a little too ambitious a business for this little neighborhood." 

Courtesy "A Walk with Win Perry," Nyack Library Local History Collection.​

Responding to the painting’s mysterious quality, Jo quipped that the storefront may have been a “blind pig”- slang for a blue collar speakeasy. 

jump back to map

---

 

7 "Hook Mountain"

​- as seen from the Corner of Ackerman Place and Gedney Street

The parking lot is reserved for apartment residents only. Please do not park in the parking lot.

​Looking north from the corner of Ackerman Place and Gedney Street, you can view the 728-ft high Hook Mountain, with its distinctive columnar geological formations.

Hook Mountain in 2018, seen from a local's pier

Why is it called “Hook Mountain”? Early Dutch sailors who found themselves either becalmed or experiencing sudden storms at this river bend called the area a "tedious angle" (verdrietege hoek). “Hoek” was later anglicized to ‘Hook.’

Around 1899, Hopper painted a watercolor of the Hook, as locals call it, which is in the Whitney Museum’s collection. At that time, Hook Mountain was the site of a large-scale mining quarry. The quarrying of trap rock, a sturdy igneous rock forming the Palisades, began earnestly in the 1880s and led to the denuding and scarring of many promontories along the Hudson River. 

Edward Hopper, (Hook Mountain, Nyack), c. 1899, Watercolor and graphite pencil on paper, Sheet: 5 1/16 × 6 7/8in. (12.9 × 17.5 cm), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Josephine N. Hopper Bequest, © Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

At Hook Mountain, stone was dynamited from the mountain face, crushed, and shipped on large barges to help build New York City roads, buildings, and railroad tracks. The quarry is clearly seen in the lower middle ground of Hopper’s watercolor as a light brown area below the scarred red and brown rock face. Hopper accurately, but diminutively, references the quarry operation: buildings and equipment that crushed the harvested basalt; a loading dock that stretches out into the river; and a power station for the quarry (this building is all that remains and in the 1930s was converted into a bathhouse. 

Hook Mountain is now a New York State Park and a National Natural Landmark with walking trails, hawk-watching, and stunning views.  Working with the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, New York State acquired the 676-acre quarry property in 1911 with generous contributions by members of the Rockefeller, Harriman, and Perkins families who wished to protect the area for future generations’ use. These families, who had estates across the river in Westchester County, recognized the importance of Hook Mountain, for not only its scenic qualities but also its significance culturally and naturally, 

Along with Hook Mountain, Haverstraw Beach and Nyack Beach State Parks serve as a chain of river parks providing public access and recreational facilities along the Hudson River shoreline.

jump back to map

 

The places indicated by a letter code ("BW") and boxed in red are no longer extant, but we include them here to give you a fuller picture of what Edward may have experienced while he was living in Nyack.

BW: Byron W. Church's Boatyard

Byron W. Church's boatyard, circa 1900, at the north end of Gedney Street near the foot of Fifth Avenue and Ackerman Lane. In the background is the spire of St. Ann's Church. Courtesy collection of T. Robins Brown, Nyack Library.

This circa 1907 colored postcard shows the same view of the picture above (Byron W. Church boatyard), with an additional note that the yellow house in the middle is "20 Ackerman Place" (Lane). Courtesy the Historical Society of Rockland County, Nyack Library.

jump back to map

SY: Smith's Ship yard

J. E. Smith's Ship Yard appears on the June 1887 "Sanborn" map (a copy of which is located in Edward Hopper's Bedroom at Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center). This shipyard no longer exists; where it was located, large apartment buildings now sit. 

"Nyack Store at Smith's Ship Yard, Nyack, N. Y." Smith's shipyard sat at the bottom of Fourth Avenue, Nyack. Courtesy The Bob Knight Postcard Collection owned by his estate, digitized with permission by the New City Library.

1870: Twelve shipbuilders and a young boy, along with a wagon and mule, are arrayed in front of several boats under construction at Smith's Shipyard at the foot of Fourth Avenue in Nyack. The yacht, Gracie, for more than five years the swiftest boat of her kind in America, was built here in 1868 for William Voorhis, prominent Nyack businessman and yachtsman. Boatbuilding was a major industry in Nyack for much of the nineteenth century. Courtesy Nyack Library.

Smith's Ship Yard, 1890, was located on Gedney Street, between Third and Fourth Avenues, just north of the present-day Nyack Boat Club. Courtesy Frank Brush, Nyack Library

Edward Hopper, "Smith's Dock" 1900, ink on paper

jump back to map

---

 

8 "Three Commodores"

- 59 Gedney Street (Nyack Boat Club)

This is a private club and is not open to the public. Please respect the privacy of the organization and its members.

The Nyack Boat Club on Gedney Street is headquartered in a charming  building that was a private home in Hopper’s youth. The house, perched on a slope above the river, had porches and bay windows affording delightful views of the river traffic. It also overlooked the Smith Shipyard situated on Gedney between Third and Fourth Avenues. The property also included an orchard to the south and a long high dock with stairs down to the Hudson. In 1914, the private sailing club bought the property as a new clubhouse.​

This 1915 postcard shows a large house on the Hudson River, perched on a slope above the river. A perfect location for a sailing organization, the porches and bay windows afforded delightful views of the sail boats and other craft on the water. In 1914 the Nyack Boat Club bought the site for about $5500. Courtesy The Nyack Library Local History Image Collection

The building appears on an 1884 “Burleigh” map, and in a “Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal map from 1890, C. M. Van Houten is noted as the property owner (Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, The New York Public Library. "Nyack" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1890.)

(1880?) Six boys and seven men pose in front of a boat that they are building in Upper Nyack. Another man sits on top. A few letters, UTOR, can be seen on the right side, above the two propellers. The main part of the boat is sheathed in polished wood; the upper deck has many windows. Photo by Frank Brush. Courtesy Winston C. Perry, Jr. Collection, Nyack Library.

As teenagers, Edward Hopper and his friends Harold Randall “Harry” MacArthur and Louis L. Blauvelt were members of a "secret” sailing association they created in 1896 and named "Three Commodores." As the name suggests, the club revolved around sailing.

Sons of merchant fathers, the trio of boys kept the club active during their high school years. They drew up bylaws, held regular meetings, charged five cent dues, and kept minutes and treasury accounts. Plus, they had colorful insignia flags for the club and each “commodore,” designed by none other than Edward Hopper. 

In one notebook, Hopper drew a small pen and ink sketch of docks and annotated it, “Where TC started.” While the location is not known, this site at the Nyack Boat Club, a member-owned and operated club with a century-long history of getting people out on the water, reflects love of sailing fueling the boys' enthusiasm for the "Three Commodores" club they founded together. 

Edward Hopper, "Where T.C. was founded" 1896

Late in life in 1966, Hopper shared an interview with Arlene Jacobowitz of the Brooklyn Museum, “I thought at one time I’d like to be a naval architect because I am interested in boats, but I got to be a painter instead.”

jump back to map

---

 

9 Nyack Neighborhood

- 1st-4th Avenues, Ackerman Place, Gedney Street

The homes in this area are private residences and are not open to the public. Please respect our neighbors' privacy.

Hopper's family home was among the many single family residences built along North Broadway and First to Fourth avenues between the 1830s and 1880. This building boom created new residential neighborhoods within the commercial maritime village and rich in Dutch, Federal, Greek Revival, Carpenter Gothic, Queen Anne, and Italianate style buildings.

In the mid-1830s, George Washington B. Gedney was a real-estate developer, entrepreneur, and inventor who acquired properties in Nyack, the largest being 25 acres from Tunis Tallman, a prominent landowner whose ancestors first settled Nyack.

In 1838 G.W.B. Gedney, as he styled himself, filed a plan for a new subdevelopment on the Tallman property from the Hudson River to the Great Hook Road (now North Broadway). His plan created 171 lots with narrow plots–30-foot wide by  90-feet deep, on a quadrant of new streets, including one named after him and First through Fourth Avenues. Gedney sold his first lot in 1839 then remaining lots on a regular basis until 1857.

(1907?-1915?) First Avenue, looking towards the Hudson River.

Some of Hopper’s friends from church and school lived on First Avenue. A stroll along this street, or any other leading to the river, provides a glimpse of what Edward Hopper’s world looked like .Today, many of the historically picturesque single family residences appear just as they did when he was a youth. 

Edward Hopper, " 2nd Ave", 1900, Graphite pencil on paper, 9 7/8 × 7 7/8in. (25.1 × 20 cm), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Josephine N. Hopper Bequest, © Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Art historian and curator Avis Berman wrote for the Museum’s 2011 “Prelude” exhibition:

“The kind of architecture that Hopper liked to chronicle in his work were low-rise vernacular structures similar to those he had seen in turn-of-the century Nyack and surrounding Rockland County…. Hopper equated these eclectic buildings with integrity and authenticity. What he wrote about the work of his friend and contemporary Charles Burchfield (1893–1967) applies also to his own work:

"Our native architecture, with its hideous beauty, it's fantastic roofs, pseudo-Gothic, French Mansard, Colonial, mongrel or what not, with eye-searing color or delicate harmonies of faded paint, shouldering one another along interminable streets…these appear again and again, as they should in any honest delineation of the American scene.”’

The house at #16 First Avenue was built circa 1850 by William Dickey (see site 1: “Miss Dickey’s School”). #8 was built by the Burr family who owned a shoe factory, #12, an Italianate-style house, was built by Dr. Davison, and #16 was built in a carpenter gothic style by the Dickey family who later moved to Marion Street.#8, #12, and #16 appear much as they did when teenage Hopper visited childhood friends from Liberty Street School (#16) and Miss Dickey’s School (#24).

jump back to map

---

 

10 Mazeppa Engine Co. #2

- 68 Main Street

This is a working fire station and is not open to the public as an historic site.

Mazeppa Fire Engine Co. No. 2 is one of eleven fire companies active during Edward Hopper’s youth and was the closest one to his house. Organized in 1851 and incorporated in 1861, Mazeppa Fire Engine Co. #2 began with a quota of fifty active members that was upped to 76 in 1884, when Hopper was two years old. Built in 1878, the brick firehouse with its hooded windows and elaborate brickwork was located in the center of the village.

Lower Main Street was unpaved in 1890, lined with businesses and houses, many of which are still standing today. On the left, Mazeppa Fire Company remains an active volunteer firestation. Courtesy Nyack Library.

While traversing the village as a youngster, Hopper made drawings revealing his interest in steam powered fire engines of his day. It must have been exciting to see the company’s firemen guide the horse-drawn pumper engines out of the Main Street station and then hasten the team down local streets to answer alarm calls.

Edward Hopper, (Study of Fire Engine and Two Fire Fighters), 1896. Graphite pencil on paper, 4 1/4 × 6 11/16 in. (10.8 × 17 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Josephine N. Hopper Bequest

The firemen from Empire Engine Company display their new pumper pulled by horses in front of their firehouse on Piermont Avenue in 1895. Courtesy Nyack Library.

Perhaps equally exciting for Hopper was to watch the annual parade of the Nyack Fire Department when each company’s firefighters marched in uniform and proudly with their pumper engines through town. A newspaper account (Rockland County Journal) from October 1886 described the civic preparation for that year’s annual parade:

“Early in the morning the citizens of this village began decorating their places of business and their residences, so that by noon the place was elaborately dressed in holiday attire. Bunting was plentifully used, and store entrances and windows were tastefully trimmed in honor of the occasion. The people of Nyack feel a large degree of pride in their gallant fire department, and well they may; for the men who compose the various companies never fail to respond promptly to the call to duty when the dread alarm of fire is sounded.” 

Members of Nyack’s Mazeppa Engine Company No. 2 pose in front of the firehouse, ready for a parade in 1893. Courtesy Nyack Library.

Mazeppa Fire Engine Co. is an active volunteer fire station today, and is the oldest operating station in Rockland County.

jump back to map

---

 

11 G. H. Hopper'S Dry Goods Store

​- 10 S Broadway

This location is a working business, and is open to the public. 

At the time of Hopper’s birth in 1882, Nyack’s economy was evolving from local manufacturing and maritime businesses towards a new commercial economy tied more closely by the railroad to metropolitan New York and to seasonal tourism and recreation. The center of this new thriving business arena was at Broadway and Main streets.

In this village center is where Edward’s father Garret Henry Hopper (1852-1913) owned and operated a dry goods emporium at 10 South Broadway in the Commercial Building, the same storefront which now host’s Grace’s Thrift Shop. The original building, erected in 1845, had four floors topped by a mansard roof but now stands only two stories high due to a later fire which destroyed the upper floors.

Circa 1900, South Broadway from Burd Street, looking north. On the left is the original Commercial Building with a mansard roof. An ice wagon is making a delivery to the Moeller Block on the right. Courtesy Nyack Library.

The Commercial Building at S. Broadway and Burd Street n 1873. G. H. Hopper occupied the shop on the first floor right in 1892. This photo appears in the book Old Nyack, and is used here courtesy Nyack News and Views (Mike Hays, "Edward Hopper’s Father: An Underwear Salesman", August 17, 2023)

Looking south from Main Street, every building is both a business and a residence. On the left is #1 South Broadway, the first three-story commercial building in Nyack, which housed Abram Merritt’s dry goods and furniture store. Next to it was Blauvelt’s pharmacy. On the right is the newly built Rockland County Trust Company bank, and at the end of the block, the four story Commercial Building.

Garret worked as a retail clerk from his marriage to Elizabeth Griffiths Smith in 1879 through their early years of marriage. He started his retail store in 1890 by buying out, with the help of his wife's family support, the local competitors Morris & Minnerly in 1890 and William O. Blauvelt in 1892. That year, Garret moved into the Blauvelt storefront, complete with its stock, housed in the Commercial Building on South Broadway.

On March 9, 1895, The Rockland County Journal ran an article, titled “Mr. Hopper's Dry Goods Establishment In Fine Condition.” The reporter noted:

"Mr. G.H. Hopper has just completed extensive alterations and improvements in his dry goods establishment, on Broadway, and the store is now more attractive than ever before. Painting and decorating have been done on a large scale, new fixtures have been added, and a number of notable changes made. The store is bright and cheerful looking in its new dress, and expressions of admiration are heard on every hand. New goods are being received daily, and Mr. Hopper is fully prepared for the Spring trade. Drop in and take a look at the popular establishment.”

The adjoining building at 8 South Broadway, with its slender cast iron columns demarcating the entrance door and windows, was in Hopper’s time the Everett Hotel, and today is an antiquarian book store. While Edward was in high school, he helped at the family store stocking and selling goods from flannel, muslin, and blankets to men’s shirts, socks and undergarments. In between store chores, he no doubt kept an eye out for interesting people who were coming to town via the nearby ferry and to the hotel to study and sketch.

G.H. Hopper closed the store upon his retirement in 1905, before Edward headed abroad for the first time to study in Paris in 1906.

Ad in the Nyack Evening Star, 1897. Courtesy Nyack Library

Garret Henry Hopper, Courtesy Nyack Library

Garret Henry Hopper and son Edward Hopper

jump back to map

---

 

12 "Little Boy Looking at the Sea"

- Village of Nyack Memorial Park, 4 Depew Avenue

This location is a public park.

Hopper's fascination with rivers and portrayals of waterways began on the shores of the Hudson in Nyack, and continued in adulthood along the banks of the Seine in Paris, the coasts of Maine and Massachusetts, and the waterfront of New York City. 

As a youth, Edward enjoyed spending his free time watching the constant parade of working and pleasure boats under sail or steam ply the Tappan Zee from his front porch or on the shoreline. In the 1600s, Dutch explorers and traders called the 10-mile stretch of the Hudson River between Rockland and Westchester counties,  that is about 3 miles wide in places, the “Tappan Zee.” The name originates from Native American Tappan people and the Dutch word for sea.

On the Nyack riverfront, Hopper also sketched vessels at dock, under construction in the shipyards, or ferrying passengers to Tarrytown and New York City. While the boatyards of Hopper’s era no longer survive, Memorial Park in Nyack offers panoramic views of the “river that flows both ways,” a moniker that reflects the meaning of the original Lenape name for the river, “Muhheakantuck.” 

Here at Memorial Park you can stand imagining yourself as the reflective youth in Hopper’s pen and ink wash drawing known as “Little Boy Looking at the Sea,” executed on the blank reverse side of a  school report card from October 1891. This young boy seen here  is an early example of the solitary contemplative figure that Hopper would masterfully draw, etch, and paint throughout his life and that became a hallmark of his acclaimed career.

Edward Hopper, model boat, c. 1894-1900, Wood with metal and cloth fittings, Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center; Sanborn-Hopper Family Archive

Little Boy Looking at the Sea was drawn on the back of a report card (dated October 23, 1891) when Hopper was nine years old. It is an early example of one of the many solitary, contemplative figures that Hopper would draw and paint for the rest of his life.​

Courtesy Collection of Steve Oifer

jump back to map

---

 

-- "Early Sunday Morning" 1930

​- 58-83 S Broadway, Nyack

These locations are working businesses, and may be open to the public. 

“Early Sunday Morning” (Whitney Museum) is one of Edward Hopper’s most iconic paintings. Here, the artist reduced an urban block of three attached buildings, all two stories tall, with shops on the street level and apartments above them to bare essentials. 

Stand anywhere along the 58-83 stretch of South Broadway, as if you are viewing the street scene of “Early Sunday Morning.” Today, the commercial heart of Nyack retains much of the architectural and topographical character and scale present during the artist’s era and is still dominated by privately owned stores rich with commercially produced goods and advertising, and some also vacant.

Edward Hopper, Early Sunday Morning, 1930, Oil on canvas, 35 3/16 × 60 1/4in. (89.4 × 153 cm), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, © Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Although Hopper described this painting as "almost a literal translation of Seventh Avenue" in New York City, the horizontal canvas may also recall, perhaps nostalgically, the storefronts along Nyack’s Broadway and Main of his youth. In this shopping corridor, Edward walked daily to attend school, shop with his mother for household goods and art supplies, work at his father’s dry goods store, or to catch the ferry and train for New York City.

South Broadway street view courtesy Google Maps

As in “Early Sunday Morning,” Nyack’s blocks are marked by similar low-rise buildings with storefronts and walk-up apartments. Also of likely interest to Hopper was how the direct  sunlight that shone on these buildings from morning to afternoon offered contrasts of light and shadow, similarly highlighting a succession of verticals and horizontals along the simple and stylish facades. 

Hopper’s early routine of sketching his surroundings, including architectural details of local commercial and residential buildings perhaps influenced his emphasis on such simplified architectural forms and studiously constructed compositions.

jump back to map

---

 

13 Oak Hill Cemetery

​- 140 N Highland Avenue

This location is a public cemetery. Please respect the dignity of the persons buried here.

Marion Hopper (1880-1965) and her brother Edward Hopper (1882-1967) were born and died two years apart from one another, then Edward’s wife Josephine (Jo) Nivison Hopper (1883-1968) passed away just ten months after her spouse of 43 years.

Each is buried beside one another at the Hopper family plot in Nyack at Oak Hill Cemetery which overlooks the Hudson River. Nearby are Elizabeth Smith Hopper (1854-1935) and G. H. Hopper (1852-1913), among other family ancestors.

The Rev. Arthayer Sanborn, minister of the First Baptist Church in Nyack, presided at Edward Hopper’s funeral at Jo’s request. Sanborn had attended to Marion, his longtime parishioner, and also looked after Edward and Josephine in their waning years. Edward’s funeral was private, with Josephine inviting only eight people to attend. Artist and author Brian O’Doherty, a longtime friend of Hopper’s, was one of those eight.

(Circa 1900) The superintendent's house at Oak Hill cemetery in Nyack. Highland Avenue (Route 9W) is in front of the house. Courtesy Norman A. Burke, Nyack Library.

Other artists also buried in Nyack's Oak Hill Cemetery are actor Helen Hayes and playwright Charles MacArthur (Pretty Penny’s homeowners); assemblage artist Joseph Cornell (whose sister fondly remembered the Nyack art classes Edward taught); and Carson McCullers (author of “The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter” 1940); and actor James MacArthur (known for Hawaii Five-O “Book ‘em, Danno”),

jump back to map

 

TURN OF THE CENTURY NYACK

The sites contained in this section may not be extant. We have pointed to interesting historical aspects here with illustrative photographs and notes to help contextualize the time in which Edward Hopper lived in Nyack.  These sites appear on the "Discover Edward Hopper's Nyack" Google map in RED, and are located approximately. Please respect our neighbors' privacy. 

Aerial View of Nyack, circa 1900. Courtesy Dr. J. T. Gilchrest, Nyack Library.

Hopper’s key Nyack years extend from the late 1880s to 1899, when he graduated from Nyack’s high school. He then began commuting from his family home to New York City to attend school for illustration, then fine art with Robert Henri. In 1908, he relocated to New York to pursue his career.

When the 1858 Hopper residence was built, the village hosted makers of shoes, hats, and agrarian markets; foundries alongside farmers and boat builders. By Edward’s birth, Nyack’s thriving economy brought with it the typical turn-of-the century low-rise brick buildings with storefronts on street level and walkup apartments. Hopper regularly walked and cycled the corridors of Broadway and Main streets. Here, he headed to school, attended church with family, shopped with his mother, helped at his father’s dry goods store, exercised at the Y.M.C.A., and caught the ferry or train for New York City.

Hopper investigated and rendered his surroundings. His early drawings make clear an emerging attraction to themes of storefronts, lone workers and figures, and interiors.

Ebersole Brothers Grocers on Main Street in Nyack, c. 1900. Courtesy Nyack Library.

Main Street, 1890, looking west near the corner with Broadway. On the right, signs read: Fabbrini Fruits, Schmitts Candy and Ice Cream; on the left, Venekamp’s Cigar Store. Courtesy Nyack Library.

North Broadway, c. 1905: The brick Voorhis Building (built 1878) on the corner of Main and North Broadway held several businesses, from a clothier to a gaslight and fuel company. Courtesy Nyack Library.

jump back to map

 

Neighborhood NOTES

In 1887 streetlamps and utility poles carrying new technology of electrical and telephone service shot up across the town. By 1900, the Hopper family’s house was now nestled in a mixed residential-commercial area (as the village hub of Nyack remains today) with a piano and organ factory across the street and seasonal hotels at the river’s edge which accompanied the nearby docks and boat yards.

---

TF: ORGAN FACTORY

From the 1893 to 1904, Francis John Newton Tallman operated his pipe organ factory across the street (on the NE corner) from Hopper's home. F. J. N. inherited the business from his father, John Tallman, who began building pianos in Nyack in 1832. Mr. Tallman was secretary of the Nyack Board of Education in 1902 (Edward Hopper had completed high school in 1899). 

Tallman was a famous organ builder and the inventor of the tracker organ. In 1893, Tallman & Co. built a "Tallman Tracker Organ" for the sanctuary of the Hopper's church (#3). (The organ was given to Chautauqua Institution's Hall of Christ in 2000.)

​The organ was #34 of the 50 organs that F. J. N. Tallman built. The larger pipes were held up by hand-carved bowls on either side of the console, and the wood carving was done by Katherine Morse, an artist and long-time member of the First Baptist Church. Katherine's husband, George F. Morse, was the church organist for a time and was the Sunday school superintendent from 1878 until 1904 (this was while Edward and Marion attended Sunday School). 

This three-story building housed Francis John Newton Tallman's Piano and Organ Factory on North Broadway between Second and Third Avenues, date unknown. Courtesy Nyack Library.

Tallman Tracker Organ as seen in the Hall of Christ at Chautauqua Institution. Photo courtesy Steve Godowns.

jump back to map

---

MORE THAN JUST 'PRETTY PENNY'

Not only was "Pretty Penny" (235 North Broadway) a beautiful home in Edward Hopper's neighborhood, but also along North Broadway were many particular Victorian homes with bargeboards, brackets, gingerbread, cupolas, towers, and wraparound porches. Further north were many estates built by wealthy Nyackers. 

LV: Victorian residences line the east side of North Broadway, where La Veta Place cuts down to the river. (Photo may be likely taken from between 188-198 North Broadway.)

Circa 1900, East side of N Broadway, and LaVeta Place. Nyack has electrical power and sidewalks, but Broadway is still a dirt avenue. This photograph is on a cardboard displayed in the Ackerman & Dutcher shop, showing customers photographs that were for sale. Advertisements on the back of the cardboard are for J. N. Wesel, Painter and Decorator - and there is a picture of the store; Nyack Steam Laundry; and Collins Brothers, Fresh Fish, Oysters, and Clams. These were Nyack businesses. Courtesy Ackerman and Dutcher, Nyack Library.

NB: A lofty view looking south (from perhaps 309 N. Broadway) where 301 N. Broadway appears prominently with its 2-story octagonal unit. The house with the pointed tower may be the north neighbor of Pretty Penny (235). 

1895, 301 N. Broadway appears prominently with its 2-story octagonal unit. A note added to the picture says, "George C. Woodward, clerk, lived at Broadway near Tallman, 1897 directory." Courtesy Noel Ousler Collection, Nyack Library.

jump back to map

---

 

HEADING TOWARD Hook Mountain

North Broadway, the street where the Hopper House is located, was called “Great Hook Road” at the time the family home was built (1850s). 

With artist materials in hand, the young Hopper regularly took walks and bike rides along town, shoreline and rural roads and trails that traversed and ringed Nyack. In fact, each of the one-block long roads across from the Hopper House lead directly to the Hudson and to spots that afford views of the rocky promontory of Hook Mountain.

EV: Ellen & Van Houten Streets
SC: Old Stone Church
CG: Crumbie's Glen

A small cluster of houses and outbuildings lines the roadsides at the intersection of Ellen and Van Houten Streets in Upper Nyack in 1890. A light on a tall pole stands at the left. Frank Brush was a photographer who lived in Upper Nyack on Van Houten Street near Broadway. In the 1890 Directory he's listed as a shoe cutter, but in 1906, as a laborer. Courtesy Frank Brush, Nyack Library

The "Old Stone Church" in 1889 on North Broadway in Upper Nyack was the first home of the Nyack Methodist Episcopal congregation, and it is the oldest church building in Rockland County (built 1813). Congregants worshipped here served by circuit clergy riders from 1813 until 1842. Courtesy Winston C. Perry Jr. Collection, Nyack Library.

Crumbie's Glen, Upper Nyack 1905. Frank Crumbie, the owner, was mayor of Upper Nyack from 1912-1937. Courtesy Nyack Library

Upper Nyack, NY, in 1910 (Hook Mountain faintly appears in the background). This very neat homestead has a house, a large barn which may be partly a residence, and behind a fence, and an outhouse. Courtesy Frank Brush, Nyack Library

jump back to map

 

SHIPYARDS & SHORELINE

BD: Burd Street DOCK

A frozen Hudson River enabled the photographer to take this scene showing the ferry house at the foot of Burd Street with the ferry "Rockland" and freight boat "Raleigh" tied up for winter. Up the hill can be seen the Commercial Building, then four stories high. At the right is the Ofeldt factory. On the left is the Nyack Rowing Association building. In the Nyack Business clippings file is a note about this picture: "This is a picture of Nyack, NY, taken from the frozen Hudson River in 1895." The picture has also been dated 1925. Another note identifies a great-great grandson of F. W. Ofeldt: Ronald E. Ofeldt, Monroe, NY 10950. An additional comment was "This is when Hudson River really froze over." Courtesy Bob Goldberg / David Croll, Nyack Library.

A pleasure craft and a barge are tied up at the foot of Burd Street in Nyack, circa 1900. The dock was the property of the North River Steam Ship Company. The sloop was the "Spray," in which Joshua Slocum sailed alone around the world. The letters PRAY are visible. On the sepia copy historian Virginia Parkhurst has written: "Old Raleigh [Ferry] dock at foot of Burd Street - Lighthouse Boutique stood there - Raleigh was a freight boat that ran daily excepting Sundays and holidays - identified by Kenneth Mooney." Courtesy of Zabriskie Collection, Nyack Library.

NR: NYACK ROWING CLUB

Circa 1890: The Nyack Rowing Association Boat House was one of the finest club houses along the Hudson River when it opened in 1882. The bowling alleys were the finest in the area. It was the scene of many social events. The lower floor was for the storage of boats, etc. On the second floor was an office, judges' balcony, and smoking and reception rooms. Many Nyack residents were members. The building was destroyed by a nor'easter in 1950. Courtesy Nyack Library

The north side of the Nyack Rowing Association Boat House, circa 1885. Courtesy Isaac M. Van Wagner, Nyack Library

jump back to map

 

TURN OF THE CENTURY TRANSPORT

Hopper took routes to view the flow of well-dressed visitors disembarking from steamboats and yachts or arriving by carriage from the railroad station. Such comings and goings were likely entertainment for the artist who was developing an eye for water and sky, costume and bearing, and his hallmark voyeurism.

---

TRAINS

NT: The Nyack Station was sited just north of the T-junction of Elysian Ave and South Franklin Street. Here the the tracks came to an end, and there was a turn-table to reverse the engines. The railyard is now home to Nyack's Community Garden (who have a nice article about the history of the property). 

1901, the Nyack Station sits to the east of the tracks (looking north). In the background are the turnabout for the engines and the sewing machine factory. Courtesy Nyack Library.

The Nyack Station, and Park (this photo likely taken from where the playground now sits in the park). The twin Erie Railroad stations of Nyack are nearly identical, with double windows and gray roofs. On the left, a passenger train waits on the tracks. In the background is the huge sewing machine factory, a large employer of men and boys in the area. Courtesy Nyack Library

SN: The South Nyack station (Mansfield Avenue & probably South Broadway) was demolished when the NYS Thruway was built. The "Old Erie Path" and "Raymond G. Esposito Trail" is now a rail trail where the Northern Railroad of New Jersey tracks used to be. ​

The South Nyack Station in 1910, with caption: “School’s out in South Nyack and the bicycle brigade is on hand to see what the photographer is up to.” Courtesy Nyack Library

TR: The railroad station in Tarrytown was conveniently located steps away from the Nyack Ferry dock. ​Edward Hopper made an etching of a "House in Tarrytown" (1923).   

N. Y. Central Railway Station, Tarrytown, N.Y., between 1900 and 1915, photograph, courtesy Library of Congress

Tarrytown Train Station Depot Square, 1907, Russell and Lawrie Post Card, courtesy SleepyHollowCountry.com

Edward Hopper, "House at Tarrytown" 1923, drypoint, courtesy Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Josephine N. Hopper Bequest. © Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

jump back to map

---

Ferries, Coaches, Cars

To travel between New York City and Nyack, Hopper could have taken a ferry across the Hudson River. There were nearby ferries from Piermont to Irvington, and Sneden's Landing to Dobb's Ferry, as well as many ferries to New York City from Hoboken and Jersey City. The "Tappan Zee" Bridge (now the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, constructed 2017) was established in 1955; the George Washington Bridge was erected in 1931.

CH: North River Steamboat Co. 

The ferry 'Rockland' heads towards the Nyack shore in 1900. "Rockland" began its runs across the Hudson in 1888. Courtesy of Marion Wanamaker, Nyack Library.

1890, A stagecoach is stopped by the ferry landing at the end of Main Street in Nyack. In the background is a huge piece of steam equipment. Courtesy Winston C. Perry, Jr. Collection, Nyack Library.

1902, many young boys wait at the Nyack ferry landing, standing in the mud between the ramp to the boat and the terminal building which says 'Chrystenah.' The Hudson River is in the background; it looks like high tide. Courtesy Ackerman and Dutcher, Nyack Library.

The “Chrystenah” was built in Nyack by William Dickey in 1865-66. Courtesy Nyack Library, Bob Goldberg.

One of the best known ships was the “Chrystenah,” built expressly for the New York City - Nyack ferry route on the Hudson. (She was built by William Dickey, the father of Edward Hopper's preschool teacher, and was named for the mother of the Smith Brothers shipbuilders.) When she first appeared in 1866, the “Chrystenah” left Nyack in the morning, sailing to New York and returning in the afternoon. She was one of the fastest one-pipe steamboats that ever plied the lower Hudson River and was in service to World War I. 

This advertising flyer appeared in the 1899 Nyack Hospital "Kirmess" program. The Kirmess was a fundraiser for the hospital. The handbill described three ferry boats: The "Chrystenah" sailed to Yonkers, Tarrytown, Nyack, Rockland Lake, Haverstraw, Grassy Point, Verplanks, and Peekskill daily except Sunday, from West 10th Street and West 22nd Street, New York City. The freight boat "Raleigh" sailed daily to Hasting, Dobbs Ferry, Nyack and Haverstraw. The Nyack and Tarrytown ferry "Rockland" made ten trips daily, including Sundays, and could be chartered for evening excursions. All were owned by the North River Steamboat Company. Courtesy Nyack Library.

jump back to map

---

LH: Tarrytown / Kingsland Light House (now Sleepy Hollow Lighthouse)

1910: A view of the Tarrytown Lighthouse and Kingsland Point. Courtesy Norman A. Burke, Nyack Library.

(1912?) Two early automobiles pause on the ice of the frozen Hudson River in front of the Tarrytown lighthouse. Fred Koenig and Bob Hopkins in one car and a Mr. Maxwell and Mr. Chadwick in the other were racing to Albany. They had to turn back at Newburgh because the Newburgh-Beacon ferry kept the channel open. Hook Mountain is visible in the background. Courtesy Collection of John Scott, Nyack Library.

jump back to map

---

"S.T.E.A.M." in the Twentieth Century

OF: The Ofeldt family were builders of launches (sloops/boats), boilers, and (steam-powered) automobiles (which ran at 10 mph) in the early part of the twentieth century. 

The Ofeldt family were builders of launches (sloops/boats), boilers, and (steam-powered) automobiles (which ran at 10 mph) in the early part of the twentieth century. (Possible date of photograph: 1895, or 1825) Courtesy Nyack Library.

(circa 1895?) Before the Ofedt firm opened a business in Nyack in the old Seabury building, it had one in Brooklyn. Courtesy David Croll, Nyack Library.

1900: The Ofeldt steamer was built by Frank Ofeldt of Nyack. Cars were constructed like carriages so as not to scare horses. Ofeldt and his brother George had a factory on Main Street where they built steam boilers and launches. Courtesy of Mrs. Jennie Russell, Nyack Library.

(1895?) Five workmen are aboard a two-masted sloop or launch built by F. W. Ofeldt and Sons. Courtesy David Croll, Nyack Library

jump back to map

 

A Thorough Education

The education Edward received was undergoing rapid changes across America. Nyack had free public schools since 1859. By 1876, the village of 3,800 offered robust choices for public and private primary, secondary, professional, and finishing schools. 

---

RF: Rockland Female Institute

Edward's mother, Elizabeth "Lizzie" Griffiths Hopper was educated at Rockland Female Institute (est. 1856) in South Nyack. It was located in South Nyack between Piermont Avenue and the Hudson River, near what are now Mansfield and Cornelison Avenues. 

The Institute, modeled after Mount Holyoke, lasted until 1899. During the summers from the 1870's to 1907, the facility was a prestigious and elegant summer resort, the Tappan Zee Inn. From 1899 until 1907, the Wilson Military Academy( a prep school for male youths, later called the Hudson River Military Academy) occupied the building. The Nyack Club, later named the River Club, used the building until 1929. Vacant for three years, building was destroyed by fire in 1932 and subsequently demolished.  

Rockland Female Institute (postcard, 1890); courtesy Bill Diebold Collection, Rockland Library.

jump back to map

---

LS: Liberty Street School
​- DePew Avenue & Liberty Street

After attending Miss Dickey’s School for girls and young boys located a block from home, the Hopper siblings moved to the Nyack public schools for elementary through twelfth grade. In 1887, the principal John Demarest directed his professionally trained teachers to demonstrate “a love for the work, a power to interest.’’ In 1891, drawing was taught to every class in the school. Newspapers reported, “Miss Minnie Alburtus, one of the most competent and finished artists in the place, has been engaged to look after this department, and she spends two days each week in the school.”

In 1890, a large class is arrayed in front of the school on Liberty Street, Nyack. Second row, third from the left, is Edward Hopper, and rear center is principal John Demarest. Courtesy Nyack Library.

Likewise, Edward was diligent, engaged, and studious. His artistic talent was noticed in grade school and his notebooks, filled with detailed illustrations and impeccable penmanship, further attest to his skill. In 1899 he earned honors for drawing and plane geometry in his New York State Regents exams. For his high school Class of 1899, he was the artist of its graduation newspaper and on a committee appointed to select pins, colors and a motto for the ceremony.

Edward Hopper's high school graduation photo: 1899

Edward Hopper attended elementary through high school in this building, which was located on Depew Avenue at Liberty Street. The public school building was closed in 1968 and torn down in 1977 in an urban renewal project. Courtesy Nyack Library.

The west side of Liberty Street School, in 1900. The hills of Westchester County can be seen across the Hudson River. Courtesy Nyack Library

jump back to map

---

SHU: Nyack's Shoe Factories (R.E. King)

The 1890 map of Nyack shows numerous manufacturers of shoes. In this picture of R. E. King's shoe factory, children are photographed alongside coworking adults. At the turn of the century, not every child was obliged to attend school. Some were still employed by factories. 

A dimly lit factory interior at R. E. King Shoe Factory in Nyack in 1900, with a workbench on the left and shelves of boots on the right. In the center are the workers: twelve men, and boys. Courtesy Nyack Library.

"Shoe Manufacturers on Washington Street." The building was at the corner of Washington and Jackson Avenues. Courtesy collection of Dorothy Boreman, Nyack Library.

jump back to map

 

LEISURE ACTIVITIES

Hopper’s generation of middle-class youth was among the first to embrace a phase of life called ‘adolescence’ as twelve- to fifteen-year-old children (except from lower-class families) were beginning to move away from being part of the labor force. By 1900, states varied considerably in whether they had child labor standards and in their content and degree of enforcement (The University of Iowa Labor Center).* The public high school, now with athletics, music, and other extracurriculars, made Hopper’s peer group socially visible as a specific ‘generation’ in the community. During adolescence, Hopper was drawn to the leisure and social world of summertime.

“Child Labor in U.S. History.” The University of Iowa Labor Center, 27 December 2022, https://laborcenter.uiowa.edu/special-projects/child-labor-public-education-project/about-child-labor/child-labor-us-history.

---

CYCLING

In addition to long walks, Edward was an enthusiast of cycling - an activity in which females could now also fully engage. With artist materials in hand, Edward took regular treks along rural roads and trails that ringed Nyack and led to Hook Mountain, the rocky promontory that looks over the lower Hudson’s Tappan Zee. 

Nyack still boasts a thriving cycling culture, as 9W remains a picturesque route through the lower Hudson Valley. 

RB: Rockland Bicycle Works was in a one-story building at 137 Main Street (where M&T Bank is now located).

(1902?) Rockland Bicycle Works: Arthur Blauvelt, the owner, later had an Oldsmobile dealership and automobile supply station in the same place. Courtesy J. T. Gilchrest, Nyack Library.

Members of an 1898 bicycle club rest on the side of a dirt road, possibly on the hill between Upper Nyack and Rockland Lake. Courtesy Nyack Library.

jump back to map

---

BoyHOOD BOATS

Hopper was fascinated by the maritime world and enjoyed watching local yachts get fitted for the season on shore just below his house. Together with his friends Harry MacArthur and Louis Blauvelt, they made up a “secret association” (1896-1898) called the “Three Commodores” which revolved around sailing and other boat related activities complete with official insignia flags, meetings, minutes and club rules. 

Edward Hopper as a child seated in a rowboat, New York (c. 1890-93), silver gelatin print. The Sanborn Hopper Archive at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Frances Mulhall Achilles Library, Gift of The Arthayer R. Sanborn Hopper Collection Trust

While a teen, he kept a rowing machine and tethered punching bag along with an easel in the attic. In this loft, Hopper attempted to build a full-sized cat boat, which, once on the water, displayed leaks.

Edward Hopper, detail Attic in Nyack (Hopper House), 1899, Charcoal on cream wove paper, Art Institute of Chicago, IL

jump back to map

---

Y: Y.M.C.A.
​- Main Street

Hopper had access to the Y.M.C.A. as his father was a board director. Local activist, artist and writer Bill Batson notes in Nyack News and Views that "a boys’ division and a Women’s Auxiliary were formed in 1890." In 1890, the Y.M.C.A. was located on Main Street near Broadway; the current Y.M.C.A. building at 35 South Broadway was built in 1927. 

A membership card, certifying Mr. F. Blauvelt's associate membership in 1877-1878. Courtesy Nyack Library

Y.M.C.A., on Main Street, 1890. Courtesy Nyack Library

Main Street 1911, looking towards the Hudson River. A sign for Horton's Ice Cream is set on the sidewalk near Harrison and Dalley's Department Store (burned 1915, and replaced by W. Woolworth Co.). Across the street is the YMCA (its original location; the original building is no longer extant) and Hill & Hubbell Paints at 93 Main Street. Courtesy Nyack Library

jump back to map

---

StayING Cool

ICE: While electrical poles may have distributed current to the neighborhoods, people still had "ice boxes" in the late 1800's and the Nyack Ice Company wagon delivered. The business headquarters were in the Commercial Building - the same building where Garret Hopper had his dry goods store. The ice pond was located at the top of the hill (which no doubt helped the ice wagons to distribute the ice to homes on their way down the hill). 

Nyack Ice Company around the turn of century. Courtesy Winston C. Perry Jr. Collection, Nyack Library.

The ice on the Nyack Pond is ready to cut and more than a dozen workmen are wielding long tools, a step in the ice cutting process. Many of the men are wearing long boots; they must have anticipated the risks of the job. The second man from the left has only one leg. Ice cutting provided a winter job for many laborers. Photo made from a John Scott slide, courtesy Nyack Library.

jump back to map

---

Summer Destination

PH: Prospect House Hotel, Nyack, NY

For two decades in the late 1800s, Nyack was a well-known summer resort, and the Prospect House (also known as the Palmer Hotel) was the most glamorous of the many boarding houses and hotels. Grover Cleveland stayed there twice in 1889, between his two terms as US President. This renowned hotel was high above the village, on site of north campus of Nyack College. (It burned down on June 1, 1898.) 

Nyack News and Views has a nice article, written by friend of Edward Hopper House and Board Member Mike Hays, about a couple erstwhile resort hotels in Nyack. ​

The front entrance of the four-story Prospect House (prior to 1898) with center tower and covered porch shines in the morning sunlight. Courtesy Dorothy Hand Crawford Collection; Zabriskie Collection, Nyack LIbrrary.

A view of the hotel with a lawn in the foreground. A man sits on grass in the lower right. Prospect House was on South Boulevard at the corner of South Highland Avenue. Courtesy Nyack Library.

jump back to map

HOPPER NEAR & FAR

In addition to living in Nyack and New York City, Hopper traveled to Cape Cod and Gloucester in Massachusetts, South Royalton in Vermont, Ogunquit, Rockland, and Portland in Maine - even Wyoming and Mexico. He painted scenes documentary, and imaginary, everywhere he went. 

Edward Hopper, Jo in Wyoming, 1946, Watercolor on paper, 13 15/16 x 19 15/16 inches (35.4 × 50.6 cm), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Josephine N. Hopper Bequest

Edward Hopper, Saltillo Mansion, 1943, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

---

Apartment & Studio ​- 3 Washington Square N, New YorK, New York

Hopper lived and worked here from 1913 until his death. Jo moved in after their marriage in 1924. At the time Jo was established as an artist in New York and she helped launch his career; she was also the sole model for many of his paintings. (See caricatures Edward drew of their relationship at Edward Hopper House; Edward and Josephine are also buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Nyack.) NYU Silver School of Social Work now owns the studio; it is open by appointment. 

---

House by the Railroad
​- 357 Conger Avenue, Haverstraw, New York

Edward Hopper, House By The Railroad (detail), 1925, oil on canvas, Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art © 2022 Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper, Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, NY

Shadowed by the highest peak in the Hudson Palisades (High Tor State Park) and standing watch over the once bustling brickmaking hub of Haverstraw, this house inspired Hopper’s 1930 painting. Alfred Hitchcock once stated that the house which appeared in his 1960 film “Psycho” was based on the one in Hopper’s painting. The imposing structure’s legacy also influenced British artist Cornelia Parker’s roof-top sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Transitional Object (PsychoBarn) in 2016.

Vertical Divider

WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART
​- 99 Gansevoort Street, New York, NY

Edward Hopper, New York Interior, c. 1921, Oil on canvas, Overall: 24 5/16 × 29 3/8in. (61.8 × 74.6 cm) Frame: 27 1/2 × 32 1/8 × 2in. (69.9 × 81.6 × 5.1 cm), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Josephine N. Hopper Bequest © Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper/Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Just months before her death, Josephine Nivison  bequeathed the Hopper’s artistic estate to the Whitney. This painting, New York Interior, painted in 1921, may be seen at the Whitney. The fireplace depicted IN the painting can be seen at Edward Hopper House.

---

Edward Hopper, The Mansard Roof, 1923. Watercolor over graphite on paper, 13 7/8 x 20 in. (35.2 x 50.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Museum Collection Fund, 23.100. © artist or artist's estate

GLOUCESTER ​- Massachusetts

The many watercolors Hopper painted while in Gloucester (summers 1923 - 1926) were the source of his first critical and commercial success. Distilling the sunlight as it danced across this coastal town’s Victorian houses, Hopper, in 1923, at the age of forty, sold his first work in ten years for $100 to the Brooklyn Museum. The Mansard Roof, 1923, had been included in an exhibition that Hopper entered with the help of fiancée and fellow artist Josephine Nivison. 

---

STUDIO & HOUSE ​- (Cape Cod) South Truro, Massachusetts

Purchased with an inheritance from Jo’s uncle, Hoppers made a small cottage designed by Edward their second home, spending summers on the rolling hills and windswept moors of the Outer Cape for over 30 years since 1934. Find out more at the Truro Historical Society.

Edward Hopper, Highland Light, 1930, Harvard Art Museums collections online

Edward Hopper, Cape Cod Evening, 1939, oil on canvas, Overall: 76.2 x 101.6 cm (30 x 40 in.), framed: 106.7 x 132.1 cm (42 x 52 in.), John Hay Whitney Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Edward Hopper, Corn Hill, c. 1930, Watercolor over graphite on watercolor paper, Sheet: 13 5/16 x 20 inches (35.4 x 50.8 cm), Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA

Josephine Nivison Hopper, Corn Hill, 1930, Watercolor on paper, 22 7/8 x 28 1/4 inches (57.9 x 56.5 cm), The Arthayer R. Sanborn Hopper Collection Trust

---

Check out other Hopper sites in Maine from our friends at Bowdoin College Museum of Art.

---

See our exhibition: A Photographic Journey through Hopper's World by Charles Sternaimolo