When the old Liberty Street School in Nyack, right across from the longtime location of The Journal News on Hudson Avenue, was torn down about three decades ago, I started my collection of bricks made from Hudson River clay in the heyday of the Haverstraw brick industry. I’ve added to the collection periodically since then, with a brick from the old Rockland County Jail and from other old brick structures around the county. I’ve ended up with about a dozen bricks showing the names of about four dozen brick yards that operated there from 1810 to 1942.

Haverstraw became the brickmaking center of the world, with millions of brick transported down the river to New York City, where they fueled the rise of apartment buildings throughout the city.

This Sunday, the Haverstraw Brick Museum celebrates that past glory and the Quadricentennial of the Hudson with the opening of “Moving Bricks on the Hudson,” from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. with a program at 2 p.m.

It’s a chance to learn about the relationship between the industry and the river, with barges and sloops serving as a highway to get Haverstraw’s product to market. Of course, it’s also a change to view the museum’s brickmaking tools, regional brick collection and even a diorama that shows how the industry operated and another that shows how part of the village was swallowed by the river in the great landslide of Jan. 8, 1906, when 19 people died in an avalanche of buildings, earth and clay.

Brick collectors can also look forward to the following weekend, when, on Sept. 26, the museum sponsors an International Brick Swap at Bowline Point Park on the Hudson from 7:30 a.m. to noon.

For information, call the museum, at 12 Main Street, Haverstraw, at 845-947-3505.