WASSAIC — The Lantern Inn is a bit of an anomaly in the surrounding area, a quiet dive bar not on many people’s radar. In the Harlem Valley, the majority of establishments serving drinks are restaurants or veterans organizations like the American Legion or the VFW.The Lantern Inn is a bit of a forgotten business, tucked away in the sleepy hamlet of Wassaic. But in the past few years, there’s been some outside buzz building from The Wassaic Project, an arts initiative that includes festivals and artist residences centered around the Maxon Mills grain building and the old Luther Auction Barn.The Wassaic project, entering into its fourth year, has evolved from a once-a-year arts festival to what the organizers hope will become a year-round venture that could bring positive attention to the hamlet.“We think this town is very unique and special,” explained Jeff Barnett-Winsby, one of the codirectors of The Wassaic Project. “The more time you spend here, the more it feels like home.” If the arts festival is the organizers’ start of a new beginning for Wassaic, The Lantern Inn is the next step. Tony Zunino and Richard Berry, owners of several buildings in downtown Wassaic, including the Maxon Mills and Luther Auction Barn, purchased The Lantern Inn building nearly six months ago. Soon after they purchased The Lantern Inn business, Barnett-Winsby was made manager.Zunino and Barnett-Winsby appeared at a recent Amenia Planning Board meeting with proposed renovations to the exterior of the building, including fixing the siding, installing new windows that fit more into the original architecture of the building and building a front porch that, according to old photographs, ran along the front of the building and stuck out right to the edge of the sidewalk. Barnett-Winsby, 31, originally hails from Kansas. He is connected to The Wassaic Project originally through his girlfriend, Bowie Zunino, another co-director and Tony Zunino’s daughter. While he said that The Lantern Inn was not officially connected to The Wassaic Project, he was quick to point out that being a part of both entities, as well as operating in such close proximity, “the line is definitely blurry.” “The Lantern Inn is in service to hopefully help the town grow,” he explained. “That’s what the goal is here, and that’s also what The Wassaic Project is about.”What Barnett-Winsby stressed is that the intention is not to reinvent The Lantern Inn.“The goal is to save the building,” he said, “and bring it back to its original look, as much as we can. I think we can get pretty close.”The Lantern Inn, at least in recent memory, is probably most well known for its pool league. Cars fill the downtown streets of Wassaic every Wednesday, when pool players crowd around The Lantern Inn’s four tables. Pool trophies are abundant throughout the bar.But most nights are quiet, and Barnett-Winsby said the bar’s odd hours were often frustrating.“We all thought it was this great place,” he said, “but most nights it was closed by 7 p.m. Anytime we’d want to head over there, it wouldn’t be open.”The bar now has “guaranteed” hours of 3 to 10 p.m., Wednesday through Saturday, but Barnett-Winsby said the business’ resident bartender (and only employee) is known to stay late if there are patrons, especially on Wednesdays.“Gary has been a godsend,” he said. “He really made this transition possible.”Down the road, the goal is also to renovate the second and third floors of the building, which could become apartments.Zunino produced historic photographs at the Amenia Planning Board meeting on Feb. 24 to show the inspiriation for the renovations. The board is expected to approve the siding and window changes, while the porch could require an area variance as well as approval from Dutchess County Planning and Development, because the change is less than 500 feet from a county road, according to Attorney to the Town Michael Hayes.“There’s really no place to stop in the hamlet right now,” Zunino said, adding that the ideas was to eventually start serving food, not as a full-blown restaurant but a place for coffee and sandwiches.“Simple but delicious,” Barnett-Winsby elaborated, saying that once the exterior repairs were completed, work would probably begin on the kitchen area.“You know, I’ve heard all sorts of rumors about what we have planned for The Lantern Inn. I heard that it was going to become a martini bar,” he said, shaking his head.What is really planned, he explained, is to make The Lantern Inn into a community hub, a place where people can go for coffee in the morning, a quick bite to eat at lunch and a drink to wind down in the evening, all at prices that won’t break the bank. A beer won’t run you more than $3 at the bar, even less if you show up for the “2 for 1 Happy Hour” from 4 to 7 p.m. on Fridays.“It’s the type of place where people can go and chat,” he said. “Hopefully The Lantern Inn will be a place that the community feels they have some ownership of.”Still, there’s a long way to go before The Lantern Inn can be called a successful business. Barnett-Winsby said there are many $100 nights, and probably that will continue at least until the weather warms up and The Wassaic Project starts bringing outsiders down into the hamlet once again.“It’s just a matter of letting people know we’re out there,” Barnett-Winsby said. The big pool room is ideal for bands, he said, which could be one of the bigger changes, but the new manager of The Lantern Inn is confident that the business is a hidden gem.“The way we view it, everybody’s welcome here,” he added. “We’re not trying to alienate either new or old, and I think the combination of different people will give the inn a unique feel.“I think the revitalization of an area comes from people getting excited about projects. That kind of community growth comes from a central location,” Barnett-Winsby said. “We like The Lantern Inn the way it already is.”
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Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.
“I was a library kid. I walked to the library after school,” she said.
For Sher, the library is as much about the people as it about the books.
“Part of the job I love so much is that running the library is such a community,” she said.
She treasures the relationships she has built, whether recommending books, celebrating accomplishments or helping patrons through difficult times.
“I am thankful that our community is so supportive of the library, unlike what is happening in some other places where librarians are villainized,” Sher said.
Sher takes pride in the Hunt Library’s reputation for being “open and welcoming to everyone. People come in and see things and get pulled into things they weren’t expecting. Our library is seen as a positive force.”
Sher came to Falls Village after being awarded a fellowship at Adamah Farm, then a program of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center. She worked at pickling, in the greenhouse and later in the development office. She also worked as a nanny.
At the same time, “I was in the library all the time,” she recalled. “I’m a voracious reader. The library is where I met a lot of my first friends in Falls Village.”
She became assistant librarian at Hunt and worked in that position for almost a decade before becoming the executive director four years ago.
Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.L. Tomaino
Sher met her husband, Adam, while working at Adamah. They had their wedding there in 2012. He now emcees many events which she co-organizes with the Falls Village Recreation Commission.
Sher and her family live near the library.
“It’s an easy commute,” she said with a smile. “My kids run back and forth. I can go home to walk the dog if I need to.”
“My kids have grown up here.” Her oldest son, Eli, “loves volunteering. He helps with Augustfest and often helps set up chairs for ArtWall gatherings.” Her younger son, Noah, is often at events and was eager to taste cookies at last year’s holiday cookie swap.
When she is not at the library, Sher likes to hike with her family. Bella, their Portuguese water dog, often accompanies them.
Sher enjoys seeking out people to offer events at the library.
“I do a lot of different community programming. It is one of my favorite parts of the job.”
Augustfest, featuring food, music and an auction, is the library’s biggest fundraiser.
“This summer we had a record 152 attendees, which was pretty incredible.”
Yonah Sadeh, a filmmaker from Falls Village, inaugurated the VideoWall this year, Sher explained.
“I’ve known Yonah since he was two. It’s wonderful to work with him as an adult.”
The VideoWall complements the library’s ArtWall, which showcases a new artist each month. Sher praised the ArtWall committee for its work and highlighted December’s popular “12x12 Show,” featuring works by local artists, each measuring 12 by 12 inches and priced at $150.
Sher added that some of the artists who exhibit at the ArtWall offer workshops to students at Kellogg School, next door to the library. In September, artist Danielle Mailer worked with the children. Vincent Inconiglios taught a class last November.
Being next to the school, said Sher, is a great advantage.
“Kids are coming after school, to see friends, work on projects, find a great book. Kids that love the library end up using the library as grownups.”
This past year, in partnership with Adamah, the library and school created a garden, with excess produce made available at The Center on Main.
This year is Sher’s second year participating in the Troutbeck Symposium in Amenia with James King, director of the library at Salisbury School. The Troutbeck Symposium is “a gathering of a year of student historical inquiry across the region” in which students “uncover stories that have been overlooked, forgotten, or never recorded.”
Last year, Sher and King began a project with a group of students researching Irish immigrants in Falls Village, exploring ancestry and creating small magazines about their findings.
They continued this year, visiting St. Patrick’s Catholic Cemetery on Dublin Road, cleaning seven gravestones and even righting one with the help of stonemason and gravestone restoration expert Karl Munson. Paul Kozeazny, a representative of the Catholic archdiocese, helped secure access to the site.
A film documenting their activities will be shown at the symposium in spring 2027.
A full schedule of programs and events, ranging from tech help to ceramic mug-making, can be found on the library’s website.
Despite spending her days surrounded by books, and a busy schedule of programming, Sher still loves to settle in with a book at home.
For more information on library programs and events, visit huntlibrary.org
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Touré was born in northern Mali in 1981. His father, the renowned guitarist Ali Farka Touré, came from a family of soldiers and wanted his son to join the army. The younger Touré studied drums and the calabash and practiced guitar in secret. He earned his father’s blessing to pursue music shortly before Ali died in 2006, and they played two tracks together on Vieux’s debut album.
Touré is known for his deft, polyrhythmic playing, and his songs grow out of riffs that repeat and layer to hypnotic effect. He draws on rock, blues, Latin music and various African traditions. This distinctive blend builds on his father’s work adapting the sonic traditions of Mali’s arid north to the guitar.
Vieux’s album “Mon Pays” (“My Country,” 2013) honored Mali’s culture after Tuareg separatists and extremist groups seized the north in 2012. “Samba” (2017) was recorded before about 50 listeners in Woodstock, New York. In 2022 came “Les Racines” (“The Roots”), a return to his father’s desert blues, and “Ali,” on which he and the trio Khruangbin reworked eight of the elder Touré’s songs.
Touré leads the Ali Farka Touré Foundation, which focuses on cultural and educational work in Mali. Around the anniversary of Ali’s death, it holds a festival in Bamako, Mali’s capital. Bamako has been under blockade for much of the past year, besieged by JNIM, an al-Qaeda affiliate. Against this backdrop, Touré continues to carry the music of Mali to audiences abroad.
At the Nov. 5 concert, Touré’s desert blues will share the bill with Gnawa, the music LanGus plays, which developed in Morocco among West Africans who were brought north across the desert as enslaved people. Gnawa is religious music traditionally performed at all-night healing ceremonies called lila, intended to carry participants into trance.
Samir LanGusProvided
LanGus was born and raised outside Agadir, Morocco, and began learning Gnawa from its masters at age 8. He plays the sintir, a three-stringed bass lute made of wood and camel skin. The player strikes a low string with the thumb to create a deep, resonant pulse. Iron castanets clatter over the sintir’s bass line, and vocalists trade call-and-response refrains.
LanGus infuses the tradition with jazz and improvisation. In New York, he founded the ensemble Innov Gnawa. His first solo album, “Gnawa Love,” came out in February.
Touré and LanGus’s Nov. 5 concert is one of the last public events at Race Brook Lodge, which is for sale and ended full-service operations at the end of 2025. The lodge’s final scheduled event, on Nov. 6, is an evening of Rumi’s poetry with translator and vocalist Haleh Liza Gafori, cellist Isabel Castellvi and ceremonial bard James Bird.
For tickets, visit rblodge.com.
James FitzGerald is a student at Yale Law School, where he focuses on ecological restoration and international environmental cooperation. He splits his time between Lakeville and New Haven.
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