Digital Tour of Poughkepsie/ Mount Carmel

The Italian Center is a late 19th century residence. On Mill Street, houses located here on the upper ridge were large mansions for bankers and lawyers. The Italian Center is of the same architecture and style, and the interior is beautiful as well, with a lot of mahogany and stained glass. The Italian Center is now a clubhouse for the local Italian community. Further west towards the Hudson River down Mill Street, there are similar urban Victorian houses. Across from the Italian Center on the southside of Mill Street is the location of Matthew Vassar's former city home. Next to it is an 1830 Baptist church. It is the best example of Greek Revival architecture in the Hudson Valley. Mill Street continues west down to the river to Mount Carmel Square, which is at the heart of the Italian-American community. The small park or square at the entrance to the Mount Carmel neighborhood is named after the first governor of New York Colony during the Dutch and English period. Mount Carmel Square is primarily an Italian-American commercial area. One of the businesses is Café Aurora, a well-known pastry shop in the Mid-Hudson Valley. Across the square from the café is Dalio's, an import specialties shop with products like Italian cheese and salamis. Many shop windows and signs symbolically use the colors white, green, and red as references to the Italian flag. The area keeps up a generalized ethnic history of the Italian community, although the area has gone through a number of ...