Then & Now: 213 Main Street

Old Beacon Postcards: Storefront of Madame Zingarra, the Palmist.

For fifty cents this gypsy would read your palm, tell your fortune, and allay your fears of the future. She called herself “Madame Zingarra, the Palmist” and she read lifelines in Beacon, off and on, for over 30 years. The real-photo postcard of her storefront at 193 Main (courtesy of BHS member Dave Turner) was taken about 1910, the year she rented office space in Fishkill Landing. [Note: the numbers on Main Street changed after 1932; today this building is #213 Restaurant. A few years earlier Madame Zingarra had roamed the country coast to coast with her gypsy caravan, telling fortunes and bedazzling clients with her psychic powers. In 1900, a Texas newspaper wrote this about her:

”Madame Zingarra, the celebrated palmist and lifereader, advises you upon marriage, divorce, family matters and disagreements. She can see at a glance what you want and how to attain it—her rare spiritual and physical gifts have made her the greatest living exponent of her weird and mysterious profession.”

BJ's Restaurant (today) at 213 Main, Postcard View of 193 Main Street, Fishkill Landing, c. 1910 [Note: all Main Street addresses changed in 1932 ... so 193 Main then became 213 Main.], earlier advertisement for the Gypsy, Madame Zingarra, also, advertisement from a Cold Spring newspaper from 1910, announcing Zingarra’s new address (193 Main) and rates. Zingarra came to Beacon usually for the spring and summer fortune-telling trade, setting up shop in various Main Street storefronts—right up to the year 1941. After that, her fate remains a mystery.