Friday, August 31, 2012

Hudson in 1905: Part 5

The following is an excerpt from the booklet Illustrated Hudson, N.Y., published in 1905.

NEW CURTISS HOUSE--Rates $2.00 per day. Frank T. Langlois, proprietor. This is one of the popular price hotels of the city, and one that is enjoying a fine patronage. The house has been established here for many years, but its present proprietor has had it for only the past three years, yet no better demonstration of his progressive ideas could be required other than the fact that he has built the reputation of the house to a point of excellence both in service and modern improvements. The house has accommodation for a large number of guests, and in connection a fine bar is operated, whereat the best of the land can be obtained in the way of fine beverages. In the rear of the hotel is conducted a summer garden and here it is always cool and enjoyable.

Gossips Note: Illustrated Hudson, N.Y. doesn't give an address for New Curtiss House, so I headed over to the History Room at the Hudson Area Library to check the 1905 city directory. There I discovered this address for Curtiss House: "S Front cor Allen." The problem is that the same address--"S Front cor Allen"--was given for another hotel: City Hotel. Which hotel was on which corner?

North corner--48 South Front Street




South corner--52 South Front Street




To answer this, I sought the help of city historian Pat Fenoff, who told me that 52 South Front Street--the south corner--had been City Hotel, but Curtiss House had not been located on the opposite corner. From 1877 to 1883, the address for Curtiss House is listed as 42 South Front Street. Fenoff told me too that the 1871 map of Hudson shows the north corner of South Front and Allen streets as a vacant lot.

42 South Front Street
There's a problem, though, with accepting 42 South Front Street as the location of New Curtiss House. In 1905, according to the Hudson directory, 42 South Front Street was the address of the Franklin Square Hotel. So the question remains: Where was New Curtiss House?

4 comments:

  1. The 1910 census shows Frank T. Langlois family at 48 South Front Street.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Chad! That's evidence enough for me to conclude that Curtiss House was on the north corner of South Front and Allen. Also, if it was called New Curtiss House, there had to be something new about it, and a new location since 1883 would explain that.

      Now to solve the mystery of the building not appearing on the map. Was something built after 1871 and then destroyed before the Half Moon building was constructed there--probably sometime in the early 1950s?

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  2. Dear Gossips,
    on pg 162 Of Byrne Fone's book,
    Historic Hudson
    An Architectural Portrait
    is a photo of Martin's Bar and Grill
    It's caption is
    "An early Federal house on corner of
    South Front and Hudson."
    Was 52 South Front St.,as we see it now,buried under the Martin's additions?

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