Rip Van Winkle Rip Van Winkle "Rip Van Winkle" is a short story by the American author Washington Irving first published in 1819. It follows a Dutch-American villager in colonial America named Rip Van Winkle who falls asleep in the Catskill Mountains and wakes up 20 years later, having missed the American Revolution. Irving wrote it while living in Birmingham, England, as part of the collection "The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent." The story is set in New York's Catskill Mountains, but Irving later admitted, "When I wrote the story, I had never been on the Catskills." "Rip Van Winkle" is set
Rip Van Winkle Bridge Rip Van Winkle Bridge The Rip Van Winkle Bridge is a cantilever bridge spanning the Hudson River between Hudson, New York and Catskill, New York. The structure carries NY 23 across the river, connecting on the west side, US 9W and NY 385 with NY 9G on the east side. The bridge is named after the 1819 short story of the same name by Washington Irving, which mentions the cities of Hudson and Catskill. The bridge includes a new pedestrian walkway which was completed in 2018 on the south side of the bridge which is open from dawn to dusk.