Who Is It Named After? The Rip Van Winkle Bridge Awakes

HUDSON VALLEY, NY — Everyone knows the Washington Irving tale of an idle man who drinks a stranger's liquor and sleeps straight through the entire American Revolution, but how did a Hudson Valley Bridge come to bear this fictional and not exactly admirable fictional character's name?

A quick rereading of the short story first published in 1819 reveals some nuances those of us more familiar with the Bugs Bunny treatment of allegory than the story we read in school might have missed. Not the least of which, is the fact that our drowsy hero almost certainly lived in the Village of Catskill and what is now the city of Hudson — the two municipalities the modern span with his name now connects.

After waking, Winkle grows to suspect that the mysterious bearded Dutch men who he drank with before his 20-year-long slumber were in fact the ghosts of the crew of the "Halve Maen." The ship was captained by Henry Hudson, the Englishman the river below the Rip Van Winkle Bridge was named after.

Although Washington Irving famously settled in the Hudson Valley, he wrote the tale of Rip Van Winkle while living in England. After publication, Irving admitted that he had never been to the Catskills, according to the book "The Original Knickerbocker: The Life of Washington Irving" by Andrew Burstein.