Take An App-Guided Historical Tour Of The Rivertowns

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Irvington Historical Society board member Sara Kelsey field-tests the app's knowledge of the village

April 26, 2021

By Barrett Seaman–

They say there will be an app for everything someday. Now residents of the rivertowns can add one more app that will tell them what of historic significance is right under their noses.

This particular app, produced by TravelStorysGPS, a company that develops GPS-located audio tours for destinations across the country, will be even better for the thousands of visitors expected to flock to the area, drawn by the new bridge and updated hiking and cycling routes built with state grants accompanying the bridge’s construction–all that and history.

By downloading the TravelStorys app on your smartphone, you can access six mobile audio tours of the region—on foot, on a bicycle or in a car—through the towns and villages on both sides of the Hudson. Your GPS will tell you not only where the nearest significant site is and how to get there but also what restaurants are nearby in case you get hungry.

Among the six is a driving tour of 15 towns on both shores of the Hudson River, a walking or biking guide across the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge’s shared-use path with its information kiosks at six rest stops, a walking or biking historic tour through Irvington, Tarrytown, Sleepy Hollow and Nyack, and a walking tour of historic Nyack as seen through the keen eye of renowned artist Edward Hopper.

The Irvington, Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow tour provides details on such landmarks as the Odell Tavern, the spot in Tarrytown’s Patriots Park where continental militiamen captured British spy Major John Andre, and the Old Dutch Church featured in Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Users can learn about the string of millionaires’ mansions built along the hilltops overlooking the river and the construction of the Old Croton Aqueduct in the 1840s.

Connie Kehoe, deputy mayor of Irvington and president of Revolutionary Westchester 250, a non-profit promoting education about the county’s role in the American Revolution, is an enthusiastic proponent of the audio tours. She recently beta-tested the app with Sara Kelsey a member of the board of the Irvington Historical Society. They learned that the app functions best if downloaded completely onto the user’s phone before setting out on the tour. Because not every eatery in the area had been identified when the app was under development, restaurant owners are encouraged to retrieve the form on the TravelStorys web site, fill it out and send it in so that new addresses or other information can be updated on the app.

To access the new tours online, go to https://www.hudsonriver.com/audio-tours. On mobile devices, download the TravelStorys app from the App Store or Google Play and search for Historic Hudson River Towns. For more information about the tours, go to: www.travelstorys.com.