Main Street News

New York–New Jersey Trail Conference Spider Hill House On the Trail Exhibit Darlington Schoolhouse Campus Interpretation
Apr 24 2018 - 10:29pm

For a nearly 100 year old organization devoted to hiking and enabling public access to outdoor experiences, Main Street is working on two parallel initiatives.

At Bear Mountain State Park we are developing the second phase of Trails for People, a unique play-based exploration of trail design features that we completed in 2016. The components of Trails for People, all exterior, function equally well as play experiences for non-hikers and as tools for training novice NY-NJTC trail maintainers, or stewards. Now we are repurposing a historic Civilian Conservation Corps-era comfort station on the site to house exhibits on the vibrant and evolving experience of hiking the Appalachian Trail, a journey through space and time: history and geography.

Nearby, at the Trail Conference’s headquarters campus – a restored 19th Century schoolhouse set on the banks of a revitalized stream and wetlands – we are creating self-guiding site interpretation that highlights sustainability and ecological features such as carefully preserved freshwater turtle nesting habitat, while exploring philosophical interrelationships between historic preservation and environmental stewardship.