Galloway Gallery: Exhibit 13

This is 501-505 Union Street, the former "Apartments of Distinction," on the southeast corner of Union and Fifth streets. There was a fire in this building early in the present decade, and consequently the building was emptied of tenants. Soon after, it was purchased by Eric Galloway.

Galloway did some initial work at the building--stabilizing it after the fire damage and clearing the areas around it. There was talk at the time that he planned to turn the building into large and luxurious condominiums worthy of the building's former sobriquet, "Apartments of Distinction," but that plan--if indeed it was his plan--has not been pursued.

A few years after buying the building, Galloway sold it to the woman who owned the house kitty-corner across from it on the northwest corner of Union and Fifth. According to reliable sources, Galloway held the mortgage on the building, the new owner defaulted, Galloway foreclosed, and he now owns the building again--making this the third multiple-dwelling building in Hudson that he owns and is keeping vacant. This building--unlike the other two: 202-204 Warren Street and 354-356 Union Street--is probably not habitable because of the damage from the fire.

Exhibit 13 concludes the "Galloway Gallery" series. For those readers who have not been following the series from its beginning in April, an explanation of the rationale for the series is in order.

Back in March, a plan by Galloway's not-for-profit Lantern Organization to construct a building that would provide "permanent supportive housing" for the mentally disabled, the homeless, and those with substance abuse problems--on the southwest corner of Warren and Fifth streets, in the middle of Hudson's still developing commercial district--became public knowledge. On April 12, Jessica Katz, Executive Director for the Lantern Organization, made a presentation to the Common Council about the proposed project. A standing-room-only crowd turned out for that meeting, and Gossips reported on it. The overwhelming public sentiment expressed at the meeting was that the proposal was a remarkably inappropriate idea. In response to community opposition, the Lantern Organization, which was scheduled to take its proposal to the Planning Commission two days later, decided instead to withdraw the plan and to regroup and rethink its proposal.

No new plan has yet been proposed, and there's no word when one might appear, but the incident inspired Gossips to want to explore the potential of one man with a lot of money at his disposal to influence and alter our little city of two square miles. In the series "Galloway Gallery," Gossips looked at the properties currently owned by Eric Galloway, his LLCs and NFP. Next week a new series begins: "The Touch of Galloway," in which we will look at buildings that Galloway has already built, altered, or restored in Hudson but no longer owns.