The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation will restrict public access to Kaaterskill Falls, the most famous waterfall in the Catskills, on Monday, July 6, and will keep it restricted throughout the summer of 2015, according to a press release issued on Wednesday, July 1.

The trail to the base of the waterfall from Route 23A will remain open, but the public will no longer be able to climb, wade in or access the falls itself. 

Access to the falls, which is located in the Greene County hamlet of Haines Falls, will be restricted while the DEC makes $450,000 of "upgrades" in an effort to prevent what has become a regular summer occurrence: people falling to their deaths.

The 23Arts Initiative, a Greene County arts organization that launched last year, is bringing rockstar chamber music to Tannersville in a series of free summer concerts in the imposing and intimate All Souls Church. 

The series, which features artists from London and Denmark, begins this weekend on Sunday, July 5 with a performance of Franz Schubert’s “Trout Quintet” led by the Initiative’s summer artist-in-residence, pianist Tanya Gabrielian. Gabrielian’s piano will be joined by the violin, viola, cello and double bass played by Areta Zhulla, Mark Holloway, Paul Wiancko and Tony Flynt.

All Souls Church, perched at the intersection of County Roads 25 and 23C in Tannersville, is an excellent setting for chamber music. A miniature Gothic cathedral incongruously located at a quiet crossroads outside of the village, its vaulted wooden gives performers perfect acoustics and audience members close-up views of the musicians. 

Above: The Roxbury Motel, one of Delaware County's largest hotels, will be affected by the proposed new two percent bed tax. Photo via the Roxbury. 

A bill that will establish a two percent occupancy tax on room and hotel rentals in Delaware County finally passed both houses of New York's state legislature on Wednesday, June 24, in the last days of a legislative session that just never seems to end.

The bed tax bill "passed the assembly yesterday," said Jeff Bishop, a spokesman for Senator James Seward, who sponsored the legislation in the New York State Senate. "We were supposed to be done last week, but [the legislative session] is still going."

The bed tax bill was approved by the Senate last week, on Wednesday, June 17, and got the thumbs up from the New York State Assembly yesterday, Wednesday, June 24. State Assemblyman Clifford Crouch sponsored the bill in the assembly.

Above: Catskills v. Hamptons T-shirts on The Graham & Co.'s Instagram page in 2013. 

The "Year of the Catskills" continues: On Tuesday, June 23, the New York Post's Page Six gossip column quotes an "NYC nightlife guru" as saying that, yes, the Catskills are the new Hamptons: