An Idea Whose Time Has Finally Come

Tonight, at meeting of the Arts, Entertainment & Tourism Committee of the Common Council, committee chair David Marston proposed pursuing National Register listing for the Hudson City Cemetery--the original part of the cemetery. After some discussion, during which Council president Don Moore wondered if the initiative needed to come from the Historic Preservation Commission, and Supervisor Ellen Thurston (Third Ward) suggested that a letter of support from the HPC would be appropriate, the committee voted unanimously to move forward with the application.

Thirty years ago, in 1983, the Hudson City Cemetery was determined, by the New York State Historic Preservation Office, to be eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places for its "noteworthy collection of funerary art," but the designation was never pursued. In recent years, William Krattinger, preservation specialist with the Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation, has expressed his opinion that the Hudson City Cemetery is "a virtual treasure trove for historians and enthusiasts of American funerary art, offering as it does a wealth of markers and crypts that illustrate various themes and styles within this genre."

Application for listing in the National Register of Historic Places is made to OPRHP, which makes the recommendation to the National Park Service.

For those readers who have never spent time in the Hudson City Cemetery, last May, Gossips published a photographic sampling of what can be found there.

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