{"id":78066,"date":"2025-12-22T16:38:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T16:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/78066\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T16:38:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T16:38:08","slug":"poughkeepsie-named-no-1-city-in-new-york-for-a-hallmark-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/78066\/","title":{"rendered":"Poughkeepsie named No. 1 city in New York for a Hallmark movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

POUGHKEEPSIE\u00a0\u2014 With historic streets dusted in snow, lively independent shops and riverfront scenery, the city of Poughkeepsie would make a great setting for a Hallmark movie.<\/p>\n

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At least, that\u2019s what one recent study<\/a> says.<\/p>\n

The Hudson Valley city was named the No. 1 city in New York for a Hallmark movie to take place and the third most likely city nationwide by The Action Network, a media company that focuses on data analysis and research. Researchers examined data from 3,000 towns across the U.S., weighing factors including population size, the number of small businesses and historic sites, and December snowfall amounts by state.<\/p>\n

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To ensure the communities were big enough to have a true Main Street but small enough to still feel neighborly, the study focused on cities with populations between 3,000 and 50,000 people. Cities without historic places were excluded.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t promise a big-city professional is about to return home for the holidays and fall in love at a Poughkeepsie winter festival\u00a0\u2014 but statistically speaking, Poughkeepsie gives them a remarkably good shot,\u201d Action Network Digital PR Specialist Kathy Morris said in an emailed statement.<\/p>\n

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With a state-level average snowfall of 18 inches in December, thousands of small businesses and 2.93 historic places per 1,000 residents \u2014 one of the highest in the country \u2014 Poughkeepsie ranked No. 1 in New York, followed by the city of Kingston. The\u00a0Hudson Valley had two other contenders in the top 10: Middletown,\u00a0ranked fifth and Newburgh, ranked eighth. Other local honorable mentions include\u00a0Saratoga Springs, ranked sixth and Hudson, ranked 10th.<\/p>\n

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At the national level,\u00a0Poughkeepsie took third place, following Puyallup, Wash., and\u00a0Farmington, Mich.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHallmark movies tend to revolve around places that feel lively but familiar\u00a0\u2014 towns with history, walkable streets and just enough winter atmosphere to make everything feel a little more magical,\u201d Morris said. \u201cPoughkeepsie checks all of those boxes. Between its historic density, active small-business scene and consistent December snowfall, it has the kind of built-in setting where a holiday story naturally makes sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Morris hasn\u2019t visited Poughkeepsie herself, she said it is definitely on her list.<\/p>\n

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Scenes from around Poughkeepsie.<\/p>\n

TW Farlow\/Getty Images; Kelly Marsh\/For the Times Union; Maxwell Alexander\/Eastdale Village; Lana Bellamy\/Times Union<\/p>\n

Poughkeepsie resident Zyon Baggett said that from the outside looking in, he can see why Poughkeepsie made the list.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe definitely have the nice scenery,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I were to travel to Poughkeepsie and I just spent a day here, I would definitely feel that Hallmark kind of vibe. \u2026 It does feel like home. There are some rough areas of the town, but it does feel welcoming.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Baggett, whose favorite holiday movie is \u201cElf,\u201d said his favorite holiday tradition growing up was driving around the neighborhood with his family to see Christmas lights.<\/p>\n

Over the years, several Hallmark movies have been filmed in the Hudson Valley. The 2022 film \u201cA Holiday Spectacular\u201d was filmed in Hyde Park, Newburgh and included shots from Everyready Diner. \u201cOne December Night,\u201d released in 2019,\u00a0was filmed in Orange County and several local businesses were featured in a tree-lighting scene. While set in Vermont,\u00a0 the 2018 film\u00a0\u201cLast Vermont Christmas\u201d includes scenes from East Market Street in Rhinebeck. \u201cChristmas Camp,\u201d released in 2019, was filmed\u00a0in Kingston and Rhinebeck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"POUGHKEEPSIE\u00a0\u2014 With historic streets dusted in snow, lively independent shops and riverfront scenery, the city of Poughkeepsie would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78067,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[17,35845,38895,611,844,158,9,11,10],"class_list":{"0":"post-78066","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-culture","9":"tag-dutchco","10":"tag-hvculture","11":"tag-hvexp","12":"tag-latestnews","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-new-york-headlines","16":"tag-new-york-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}