Upon seeing the largest mountain (1,340 feet above sea level) on the later to be named Henry Hudson River, Hudson called it “Klinkesberg” due to its wrinkled-looking cliffs. Later, Dutch colonists referred to it as “Boterberg” because they thought it looked like a lump of butter. But it was writer Nathaniel Park Willis who proposed the name that finally stuck – Storm King – “as he seems the monarch, and this seems his stately ordering of a change in the weather.”
Artist William Lamson is ordering a change in weather at The Storm King Art Center (an outdoor sculpture museum) where he has installed a thin strip of reflective film foil beneath the surface of a pond in order to extend rays of sunlight and preserve the light of early summer. Fellow artist Spencer Finch is recreating moonlight using solar technology with his buckyball sculpture on the premises. It generates energy from the sun during the day in order to create an image of a full summer moon at night, every night. There’s much more, too, along with a permanent collection of stately giants scattered about. It’s a royal experience. www.stormking.org