New York State Route 32
New York State Route 32 is a north–south state highway that extends for through the Hudson Valley and Capital District regions of the U.S. state of New York. It is a two-lane surface road for nearly its entire length, with few divided sections. From Harriman to Albany, it is closely parallel to Interstate 87 and U.S. Route 9W, overlapping with the latter in several places.
NY 32 begins at NY 17 on the outskirts of the New York metropolitan area in Woodbury just outside Harriman, and ends at NY 196 east of Hudson Falls just south of the Adirondacks. In between, the road passes through the cities of Newburgh, Kingston, Albany, Cohoes, and Glens Falls. Outside of the cities, it offers views of the Hudson Highlands, Shawangunk Ridge, Catskill Mountains, and, during an overlap with US 4 north of Albany, the Hudson River.
The roads now making up the highway were originally part of several privately maintained turnpikes, which fostered settlements along the corridor. Once part of the former NY 58, it has been NY 32 since 1930. Only one of three letter-suffixed spur routes remains.
Route description
Maintenance of NY 32 is split between the New York State Department of Transportation and the highway departments of several different jurisdictions. Within the cities of Newburgh and Watervliet, the route is entirely city-maintained. In four other cities—Albany, Cohoes, Glens Falls, and Kingston—NY 32 is mostly locally maintained. The piece of the route in the city of Mechanicville, meanwhile, is city-maintained north of Frances Street, a local street four blocks south of NY 67. One last locally maintained section exists in the Albany suburb of Bethlehem, where the route is county-maintained between Feura Bush Road and the Delmar Bypass. This section is co-signed as County Route 52, which continues northwest of NY 32 to a junction with NY 140 near Slingerlands.Harriman to Newburgh
NY 32 begins where NY 17 leaves the Quickway overpass west of the New York State Thruway toll barrier, just north of the Harriman village line in Woodbury. To the east is Woodbury Common Premium Outlets, across from Central Valley Elementary School of the Monroe–Woodbury Central School District. Beyond the mall, site of many major traffic jams, NY 32 descends into downtown Central Valley. north is another of the Town of Woodbury's hamlets, Highland Mills. Beyond the Rushmore Memorial Library at the north end of the hamlet the road bends slightly east upon reaching the southeastern foot of Orange County's highest peak, Schunemunk Mountain.Shortly after Highland Mills, the Port Jervis Line, operated by Metro-North Railroad, crosses over on a high trestle. After crossing over Woodbury Creek and under the Thruway, NY 32 runs along the eastern side of the narrow valley between Schunemunk and the Hudson Highlands. This section of highway runs through mostly wooded terrain as it leaves Woodbury for Cornwall.
Just north of Mountainville and the north end of Schunemunk, the road crosses Moodna Creek downstream from the Woodbury Creek confluence. The intersection with Angola Road to the south was once the beginning of the former NY 307; it is now the west end of CR 107. Across the creek from CR 107 is Orrs Mills Road, another county road that leads to Storm King Art Center.
The road climbs gently out of the creek valley and enters development. At north of Angola Road, it crosses the New Windsor town line and reaches the complicated five-way intersection at the center of Vails Gate, intersecting NY 94 and the beginning of NY 300. The next include a middle turn lane as NY 32 becomes New Windsor's main commercial strip. This section ends at Temple Hill Avenue, with Snake Hill to the west. The road remains heavily commercial as it enters the city of Newburgh as the wide Lake Street.
At Broadway, Newburgh's main street, NY 32 turns east. The brief, unsigned concurrency ends where 17K terminates at US 9W, at the former Broadway School. NY 32, however, turns north again, beginning the first of several concurrencies with US 9W.
The two highways remain joined for the next as they pass the Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux-designed Downing Park and reach the city limit, where I-84 and NY 52 cross the highway heading towards the Newburgh–Beacon Bridge. Immediately beyond that junction, NY 32 separates from US 9W and heads northwest.
Newburgh to New Paltz
Newburgh has a commercial strip north of the city, featuring the Mid-Valley Mall and another large shopping plaza built around a supermarket anchor. This development ends after when 32 passes the Town of Newburgh's Cronomer Hill Park on the south, near a short drive to the summit observation tower. more brings NY 32 to the center of the hamlet of Cronomer Valley and an unusual junction with NY 300. At what seems to be a conventional four-way intersection regulated by a traffic light, both highways turn, and it is necessary to turn to the northeast to stay on NY 32 headed north. Traffic that goes straight at this intersection flows onto NY 300.From this intersection, NY 32 passes Chadwick Lake, the town's reservoir, and continues straight north through much less-developed, mostly wooded countryside for to the Ulster County line, almost the point at which the woods diminish. Barely into Plattekill, the highway crosses the Thruway again. It curves northwards shortly thereafter, retaining a slightly westward trend through mostly open fields near the Shawangunk Ridge. At from the Thruway, NY 32 intersects US 44 and NY 55 in the center of another Town of Plattekill hamlet, Modena. A short distance beyond, the highway crosses into Gardiner, taking a wide bend around Locust Lawn, the Federal-style home of early 19th-century politician Josiah Hasbrouck.
North of Modena, the surrounding area becomes slightly more wooded near where NY 32 crosses into the Town of New Paltz. The highway curves before entering the village next to the campus of State University of New York at New Paltz. Two blocks north of campus, at New Paltz Middle School, it turns west at a traffic signal to join NY 299 as the village's Main Street.
New Paltz to Kingston
While NY 32 officially remains concurrent with NY 299 all the way to the traffic light at the northern terminus of NY 208, a sign at the Elting Memorial Library, just before the center of downtown, directs northbound traffic on the highway down North Front Street. This shortcut allows that traffic to skip an often busy intersection and head out of the village on North Chestnut Street. Once past the village, the Ulster Board of Cooperative Educational Services building comes up on the west and the town hall along the east. NY 32 then becomes mostly rural again.Over the next, the road trends easterly until NY 213 joins it from the east right before the bridge over the Wallkill. Now concurrent, 32 and 213 bend away from the Thruway and pass through the hamlet of Tillson and then descend to cross Rondout Creek at the former village of Rosendale. Just after the crossing, at the Stewart's, NY 213 leaves to the west along the creek, ending a concurrency.
From Rosendale, NY 32 climbs up out of the Rondout valley and veers east into the hamlet of Maple Hill, where it crosses over the Thruway once again. It resumes a northerly course through Bloomington, and several miles further on crosses the Kingston city line. This entire segment of NY 32 is also concurrent with New York State Bicycle Route 32.
Kingston and Saugerties
On its route through Kingston, NY 32 frequently changes streets and directions. It enters town as Boulevard and meanders to just past Washington Avenue, where it splits onto the more easterly Greenkill Avenue and Fair Street for several blocks. NY 213 returns, merging from the south as Wilbur Avenue. The joined routes then turn onto Clinton Avenue for two blocks, then east onto Henry Street for about to Broadway, where NY 32 turns north and NY 213 ends.Another brings Broadway to the wide junction where I-587 and NY 28 both terminate. NY 32 follows Albany Avenue northeast to Flatbush Avenue, where it turns to assume an eastward course. This finally bends slightly north to East Chester Street near the city limit, where US 9W again comes in to begin a brief wrong-way concurrency in which NY 32 north is US 9W south. It ends, unsigned, after with US 9W's turn onto Frank Koenig Boulevard.
Continuing as Flatbush Road into the Town of Ulster, NY 32 is for the first time along its route east of US 9W and closer to the river. It encounters NY 199 at an interchange immediately west of the Kingston–Rhinecliff Bridge. Soon after, it passes Kingston–Ulster Airport. It remains on a northerly heading until south of Saugerties, where it veers west and merges with US 9W again. The two routes cross Esopus Creek and enter the village, where Partition Street gives way to Main Street. At that T intersection, US 9W turns to continue north, while NY 32 picks up the new NY 212 and heads west out of town.
The Catskills to Albany
After one block of Main Street, NY 32 and NY 212 turn onto Market Street, then east onto Ulster Avenue after another block. As it crosses the railroad tracks and leaves the village, the road widens and becomes a commercial highway just before reaching a Thruway exit. This, the fourth time NY 32 has crossed the Thruway, is the first time it does so at an exit. Beyond the overpass, the concurrency ends when NY 32 turns and heads north once again. A tight nearby on-ramp provides access to the southbound Thruway. NY 32 does not enter the Catskills but provides access to them along this stretch.At this point, the distance between NY 32 and the Thruway begins to widen. At the junction with Malden Turnpike, NY 32 turns westward, toward the Catskill Escarpment, and starts climbing through some rock cuts. When Blue Mountain Road comes in from the south, NY 32 resumes heading north, parallel to the ridge. from that junction, its only suffixed route, NY 32A, splits off to the west to provide direct access via NY 23A and Kaaterskill Clove to Tannersville and Hunter.
After crossing into Greene County, the road intersects NY 23A at an undeveloped junction. NY 32 remains in its straight course through the lowlands below the escarpment, passing through mostly woodlands and the hamlet of Kiskatom, then winding around the north side of Cairo Roundtop before it joins with NY 23 at Cairo. After, NY 32 leaves the divided highway to once again strike north as a two-lane route. It trends west to its westernmost point until turning to the north-northeast just south of Freehold.
North of Freehold the road begins to climb. Views south to the Catskills appear as it nears the center of Greenville, where it crosses NY 81. further on, NY 32 enters Albany County via Westerlo near the Basic Creek Reservoir. The climbing stops another mile after the county line, where NY 32 reaches its highest elevation,, on the plateaus south of the Helderberg Escarpment. The road starts to curve back east as the surrounding landscape opens up, with larger fields surrounding it and a slow descent to the Hudson beginning.
After sharing of road with NY 143, crossing the northern end of Alcove Reservoir and descending the southern end of the Helderberg Escarpment, the road veers eastward toward Albany. To get there, it crosses into New Scotland just after the hamlet of Feura Bush and crosses a long bridge over the northern end of the busy rail yard northwest of Selkirk, where freight trains bound for New York City wait before crossing the Hudson at the Alfred H. Smith Memorial Bridge.
The landscape becomes more developed, though still rural, as the highway winds past a SABIC plant and other development accompanying the rail yard, entering the town of Bethlehem. At the southern corner of Delmar, NY 32 turns more to the east becomes a divided highway with grade intersections, the only non-concurrent segment of NY 32 to take this form. This segment continues, largely undeveloped, as it intersects NY 335 and crosses under the Thruway for the last time before reaching its final concurrency with US 9W. east of the Thruway, NY 32 again breaks from 9W and follows residential Corning Hill Road downhill to River Road, where it turns to the north again and crosses the Normans Kill into Albany, becoming South Pearl Street, and then paralleling I-787 for a short distance past the Port of Albany–Rensselaer before crossing underneath it.