About 15,000 visitors stopped by the annual Fall Foliage festival in Port Jervis on Sept. 22, according to the city’s longtime tourism board chairwoman, Laura Meyer.
“It was the first day of fall, and the good weather really helped,” Meyer told The Epoch Times. “Everybody was happy—smiling faces everywhere—and having a good time.
“This is what this is all about—we want to make everybody happy.”
More than 200 vendors—the most the festival had ever hosted, Meyer said—lined the streets in the heart of the river city, selling food, drinks, crafts, home decor, and other kinds of merchandise, with bands banging out live music at several corners.
Some vendors traveled from Virginia and Connecticut, according to Meyer.
The annual festival is the longest-running and largest event for the small city by the western bank of the Delaware River at the intersection of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.
“This is probably the biggest Fall Foliage to date,” Port Jervis Mayor Dominic Cicalese told The Epoch Times. “Our town is growing each year, with a lot to come in the future.”
Sue Iovino and Peggy Costic, both Port Jervis natives, traveled from Delaware and New Jersey, respectively, for a high school reunion over the weekend and stopped by the festival with their old friend and Huguenot resident Candy Spangenberg.
The trio bought sausage and pepper sandwiches from Mount Carmel—their favorite local charity whose activities they had attended as children—and enjoyed them at a newly built downtown park.
“This is amazing. The downtown has really improved, and some of the stores seem to be very successful,” Costic told The Epoch Times. “Years ago, Front Street was not a fun place.”
Rachel Aschoff and her daughter Sarah, both from Matamoras, Pennsylvania, told The Epoch Times that Port Jervis has undergone a revival in the past five years, with fine restaurants and boutique shops taking over long-vacated buildings.
“As a kid, I used to feel unsafe in Port Jervis,” Sarah Aschoff told The Epoch Times. “Now, I dine here often, and when my cousins visit, we always come over and hang out here.”
Tammy Predmore, a lifetime resident of Port Jervis, told The Epoch Times that a tight-knit, caring community is behind the successful Fall Foliage and downtown revival.
“Everybody always tries to look out for other people in their community,” she said.
“It has been a full-time job for the past several months to put up the festival, and now I get to start thinking about the next Fall Foliage,” Meyer said.
Over the past decade, through her and other board members’ efforts to attract tourists, the city’s tourist event roster has grown from just Fall Foliage to more than half a dozen, according to Meyer.
The next major event by the tourism board is Christkindlmarkt on Dec. 1.
