Can Rhinebeck Be Rhinebeck Again?

How weird to see Rhineback go national. Or international. Or whatever the hell happened over the last month or so, culminating last Saturday evening in what looked like a lovely wedding for Chelsea Clinton.
My partner and I stumbled on Rhinebeck a few years back, an unexpected treat that has become something of an addiction. We talk a lot about Oblong Books there. And the fantastic Rhinebeck Department Store, where the selection is smallish but smart. And the movie theater. And the restaurants, including the French one that looks too expensive but that absolutely figured in some of the Clinton-wedding stories of recent weeks. Having one of the world's great culinary institutes nearby does not hurt.
My own passion for the area stretches back decades, back to when my dad took me to Hyde Park to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Museum, the first of its kind. As a kid, I remember the cold day in Hyde Park that marked the 100th anniversary of Roosevelt's birth. The Roosevelt family home is there on the same site in Hyde Park, and in recent year the home of Eleanor Roosevelt, Val-Kill, has become an even more charming stopping point. There’s so much history in Hyde Park, but the modern-day town and its offerings have also grown on me over the years. The farmer's market in Hyde Park on Saturday mornings is worth catching. Eventually, over time, one drives around to neighboring towns and to communities beyond that...which is what we did. That's how we stumbled on Rhinebeck, which has an even more walkable downtown.
It’s fair to ask: will all the hoopla mean anything in the long term to Rhinebeck? At first I thought not, that there was only short-term attention and then Americans would go back to paying attention to other weddings and other towns. But now that I think of it, there really could be some long-term benefit to Rhinebeck.
Why? Because I know that after seeing it just once, being there a few afternoon hours, I pretty much fell for the place. I think that could happen to others, including the hundreds who went to last weekend’s wedding and the thousands of media folks who watched and chatted about the proceedings. If only a small percentage of all these people come back and spend some dollars and lavish some love on Rhinebeck, there may be an upside to the traffic of the past few weeks.
Rhinebeck richly deserves that kind of upside. It’s a lovely place, worthy of attention whether one is attending a wedding or not. How weird to see one of our secret places become anything but.