When Masha Turchinsky took up the role of director and CEO of the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers in 2017, she inherited plans for an extension to be added to the west side of the building. But to her mind, there was one significant problem: It offered no view of the Hudson River, on whose bank the museum sits.
“I grew up overlooking the Hudson River,” she said. “It’s one of my favorite views in the world. I was part of this project of bringing a new wing to the museum and one thing we as a team knew was very important is that these views are precious.” The plans were sensitively altered to include the vista. “So, rather than bring in a wing that would go up high, our museum cantilevers out and down, not blocking neighbors’ views. The connection to the river is profound for all of us.”
And the views from the new West Wing, opened in 2023, with its floor-to-ceiling glazed overlook, are indeed spectacular, offering wonderful light and a wide sweep of waterway and Palisades.
Turchinsky herself, a native of Northwest Yonkers, is imbued both with the river, and museums. “I was born and raised overlooking the Hudson River. And the HRM, the Metropolitan Museum and the Natural History Museum were all on my family’s regular rotation.” After college and some time abroad, she started work at the Met, going on to spend two decades there, in various roles. “It was an education like no other,” she comments.
Now she runs a landmark museum committed to art, science and history, focused on programs for all ages, with outreach to multiple communities – locally, in the River Towns, Westchester, New York City, and school districts throughout the county. “At the same time, last year alone, we had visitation from 43 states and 1,003 zip codes,” she said.
The museum owns and displays a fine collection of Hudson River School paintings. “We are very proud of the fact that we do have a significant and ever-growing collection of Hudson River School as well as Hudson River-inspired artwork,” Turchinsky said. “But we also juxtapose contemporary artists with historic artists, and we find that that has been game-changing in making people care about work that was made over a hundred years ago. Our collection is 19th century to present-day American art. And it’s a very intentional and elastic definition of American art.”
That expansiveness is reflected in two upcoming programs, starting with Alvin C. Hollingsworth: And All That Jazz, running from Dec. 13 to April 27. Hollingsworth, Harlem-born but later a Hastings-on-Hudson resident, had a long and influential career starting in illustration before moving on to paintings that celebrated Black women and were permeated by his fascination with jazz.
Then in February 2025, there’s Smoke in Our Hair: Native Memory and Unsettled Time, a show which explores nuanced layers of the past, present and future within contemporary art by Native American, Alaska Native, and First Nations artists.
Meanwhile, for the holiday season, there will be tours of Glenview, the Gilded Age 1877 home that is part of the museum, decorated in historically-appropriate Victorian style, including antique ornaments and toys.
With its planetarium, family art workshops, and free First Friday evening events, the museum offers a broad, interdisciplinary, interactive menu to its diverse attendees. Plans to open a 100-seat auditorium for presentations and productions, and a refurbished terrace overlooking the river, will only enhance its appeal.
The Hudson River Museum may be local, but it has large hopes, to redefine and raise the bar for what a cultural institution can be. The auguries are promising.
