The Rhinecliff Hotel

The Rhinecliff Hotel overlooks the Hudson River alongside the railroad tracks. For many years it was the scene of lively Irish music sessions. 

You'd pay your five bucks, walk past the pinball machines and the pool table, and find a folding chair near the back of the room, where a single light bulb illuminated the scene.

In the shadows it was rotting a bit, but no one minded, as long as your chair didn't fall through the soft floor at the edges. 

There was a hole in the tin ceiling where the resident squirrel (or was it a rat?) stuck his head through when the music really got going. Sometimes a train would thunder by right in the middle of a melancholy slow air. 

Other times the "phantom pay phone" would ring. There had once been a payphone, but someone removed the phone, leaving the ringer intact behind the wall. When it would go off, you'd just have to wait for it to quit ringing, because no one could answer it.

Someone bought the hotel and rebuilt it at great expense, but the business fell through, and it sits vacant now.