Only four pastors have stood in the pulpit of Pilgrim Baptist Church since the congregation found a safe harbor at the corner of High Avenue and North Franklin in 1961. On Sunday, October 3, 2021, Reverend Carl L. Washington III was installed as the newest shepherd of this storied flock.

An eighth generation preacher with a newly minted degree from the Yale School of Divinity, Rev. Washington is an ideal fit for a church family that once included Rockland County’s first African American elected official Hezekiah Easter and hosts the communities annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. multifaith service.

Daniel Goswick, Sr., Ex-Chief of the Piermont Fire Department is on a mission to properly commemorate a 19th-century firefighter named Thomas Pomplin. “Pomp,” as he was called by friends and family, died in August 1854, a few days after collapsing at the site of a fire in Nyack. Goswick believes this death should have been recorded as the first in-service loss of life in Rockland County. But Pomplin, who was Black, was denied the distinction

Days after the August 14 earthquake devastated their island homeland, I sat with Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Joseph and two of her sons, Pastor Amos Joseph and Dordy in the sanctuary of the Church of God on Burd St. in Nyack.

The Josephs and their countrymen have drawn for a bottomless well of resilience to recover from the coups, earthquakes and hurricanes that have too frequently troubled the waters of their island nation.

Here’s how you can help provide some relief the those impacted by recent hardships.

When it comes to attracting artists to take up residence, the region has assembled a pantheon of American cultural deities worthy of Mount Olympus. Figures like actor Helen Hayes, composer Aaron Copland, painter Edward Hopper and writer Ben Hecht, to name a handful have called Rockland home. Fortunately for us mortals, a few of these important creative artists combined their efforts to leave us a living institutional legacy: Rockland Center for the Arts.

When Chef Michelle Timothee first arrived in Nyack in 1998, she was reminded of the hilly landscape of Petion-Ville, Haiti, where she opened her first restaurant. Entranced by the landscape and the warm embrace of a significant Haitian population that began arriving in Nyack in the 1960s, Chef Timothee is now expanding her culinary enterprise.

Come by this Thursday, from 8a – 2p, and wish Nyack Farmer’s Market’s culinary artist-in-residence a Happy Birthday.

llustrious permanent residents Include:Helen Hayes, General Daniel Ullman, credited with creating the first black union regiments regiment during the civil war, acclaimed painter Edward Hopper and author of the Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers, who is said to get the most visitors.

Here is a virtual tour of the recent history of Oak Hill Cemetery including their work to support sister cemetery in West Nyack, Mount Moor.

Emily Dickinson, American artist Joseph Cornell’s enduring muse, wrote that “nature is a haunted house, but art is a house that tries to be haunted.” As the current occupant of Cornell’s South Nyack birthplace, Sylvia Roth describes the creative output of subsequent generations of her family, and others who have lived here, one begins to suspect that this is a house haunted by art.

I got to visit Cornell’s birthplace for the first time this week, delivering my illustration that accompanied this column. It will now hang on the walls of this home that has provided inspiration for so many.

Here’s my 2014 interview with Roth and also my discovery of another connection between Cornell and the Nyacks.