Pros and cons of living in Cold Spring, from somebody born there

(I admit some of this is copied and pasted from when a user wanted advice regarding moving to Cold Spring) This is going to be very, very long. But I have a lot to say about this.

I think people should read this before recommending Cold Spring as a place to move. As a town with a population of less than 2,000, I don’t think the people advising this are actually from the town.

Just so you know, there is very little in walking distance in town in Cold Spring, there are so many shops on Main Street but very few are for necessities. Foodtown and Drug World are very overpriced plus certain other things you need will always require a 15+ minute drive to Fishkill or further.

After the legal fiasco a few years back regarding the construction of Dunkin’ Donuts, there was local legislation put in place to ban the construction of any chain stores, so don’t expect much new to come to Cold Spring unless it’s a small business or new restaurant. It is expensive to live there in general in comparison to other nearby towns except Garrison.

If you do move here, you NEED a car. If you don’t drive you are screwed. The train nearby is great… but sometimes you need to go places other than north up to Beacon or Poughkeepsie or to the city and if you didn’t have a car it would suck.

Weekdays are usually not bad getting around town but I despised living there on weekends. City people flood the town on Saturdays and Sundays, it is a HUGE difference compared to weekdays. Driving down main street on weekends is nerve wracking as many people will walk out into the road blindly, from between the parked cars sometimes too, I nearly hit a few people who did this. Since Cold Spring is much smaller than Beacon, I see this as a bigger issue here than there even though I know city tourists like Beacon too.

Another downside - Cold Spring is beyond dead at night. Need food? You’re out of luck, Foodtown is closed at 9, Drug World closes at SEVEN. Even Dunkin’ closes at 9 but the gas station portion stays open at least. So literally the only place you can buy anything from after 9pm are gas stations! I think some of the restaurants may be open later but if you’re like me you may not be in the mood for something like this that late. I really hate this about town.

For my favorite things in town, for some positives, Homestyle Desserts (technically in Nelsonville but close enough) is excellent, and while it is on the outskirts of town on rt 9 Round Up Texas BBQ I think is the best restaurant in town with no other coming remotely close, it’s amazing. Also it is very safe. Not to mention it is beautiful down by the river and the West Point Foundry Preserve park is also absolutely stunning.

If you have kids, my experience with the Haldane school district was very negative. In regards to academics I think it ranks decently, but the school district is riddled with nepotism, or at least that was my experience when I went there. Kids’ parents worked at the school as teachers or on the school board and gave unfair favoritism towards their own children and friends of them, such as providing required books for free for the children they liked but making the others pay for them, or providing awards and such to certain students constantly and holding others to impossibly high standards since they weren’t as well liked and never praising and constantly criticizing them.

I could go on much longer about this, and it MAY have changed since I left the school long ago, but being one of the “disliked” students there by faculty who made me feel like I could never do anything right really messed me up, probably somewhat still to this day. Also they only cared about bullying when it came to certain students and not others, they did not give a flying fuck about me when I reported it and even my parents contacted the school since it got so bad (physical and verbal) and they did absolutely nothing.

If I had kids in Cold Spring, I would probably try to figure out if I could get them in a private school.

If you have an issue with political corruption, while things seem fine right now with everyone currently in charge, it has absolutely been a serious issue for such a small town. Our former mayor (Democrat) got the town sued for $2.5 million for allegedly purposely bankrupting somebody trying to build something he personally disagreed with, and one of the most recent Republican candidates got arrested by the FBI in a child sex case, he was a former Town Board member AND Haldane teacher and the involved was a minor student.

Personally I feel that Cold Spring is a bit boring to live in overall. There is good scenery and good food for sure, the train is a huge benefit, but I feel the negatives outweigh the positives. I hope this gave you some perspective.