Money for Sidewalks

A major topic of discussion at the Public Works Board meeting last night was the news that the City would not be pursuing the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) for $1 million to be used for repairing sidewalks. It seems that the New York State Office of Homes and Community Renewal (HCR), which awards the grants, had some questions about the application, and the City allowed the deadline for answering the questions to pass without responding.

When the resolution authorizing Mayor Kamal Johnson to submit the application came before the Common Council at a special meeting on August 11, the resolution failed to get the necessary support. The councilmembers who did not support it expressed concern that the grant was a matching grant, and the City did not have $1 million to use for the match. Those who had crafted the CDBG application--Justin Weaver, Ryan Loucks, and the grant consultants from Laberge--maintained that the $307,000 the City would be collecting annually in Sidewalk Improvement District fees could be used as the match. 

Although the resolution failed at the special meeting on August 11, eight days later, at the regular meeting of the Common Council, it passed with unanimous support, and the grant application was submitted.

At the Public Works Board meeting last night, Weaver, the former mayor's aide who was attending the meeting virtually, said it was "very disheartening that the grant opportunity has fallen by the wayside." Responding to an inquiry from Gossips, Tiffany Martin, aide to the current mayor, Joe Ferris, explained: "The Mayor felt it was prudent to pass on the opportunity while we assess priorities and get a better understanding of match requirements across all grants currently in play and the administration of those grants."

During the meeting it was revealed that the City paid Laberge $12,000 to prepare the grant application.

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A Post for Lincoln's Birthday

Today is the 217th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. On this day, Gossips recalls Lincoln's connections with our little city on the Hudson.

From February 11 to February 23. 1861, Lincoln made his inaugural journey by train from Springfield, Illinois, to Washington, D.C., stopping in eighty-three cities along the way. On his 52nd birthday, Lincoln was in Cincinnati. On February 19, Lincoln's train left Albany and made the journey, quoting Carl Sandburg, "Down the Hudson River, with greetings at Troy, Hudson, Peekskill. Then New York, the Front Door to America." 

In the spring of 1865, one week after his assassination, the train bearing Lincoln's corpse from Washington, D.C., back to Springfield also stopped in Hudson. The train arrived in Hudson at 9:45 p.m. Assistant Adjutant General Edward D. Townsend, commander of the funeral train, described what transpired in Hudson in his journal:

At Hudson . . . elaborate preparations had been made. Beneath an arch hung with black and white drapery and evergreen wreaths, was a tableau representing a coffin resting upon a dais; a female figure in white, mourning over the coffin; a soldier standing at one end and a sailor at the other. While a band of young women dressed in white sang a dirge, two others in black entered the funeral-car, placed a floral device on the President's coffin, then knelt for a moment in silence, and quietly withdrew. This whole scene was one of the most weird ever witnessed, its solemnity being intensified by the somber light of the torches at that dead hour of night.

In 2013, Jamison Teale read this account from Townsend's journal in James L. Swanson's book Bloody Crimes: The Funeral of Abraham Lincoln and the Chase for Jefferson Davis. Teale shared that discovery with Gossips, and two years later, on April 25, 2015, the sesquicentennial of the funeral train, what was described by Townsend in his journal was re-created on the lawn beside the Hudson train station. 

Photo: Robert Burns

An account of that event can be found here. Lance Wheeler's video of the event can be found here.

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Guess What

Many would say that Hudson has become has become unaffordable, but this article would argue differently: "10 Cities in New York Where You Can Actually Live on Nothing but Social Security."  The picture below shows the first city on the list. Guess which city is number 10.

News from the Planning Board

Given the marathon Planning Board meetings of the past, this is news. Last night, the Planning Board got through its six-item agenda in just ninety minutes. But speed alone is not a good measure of a Planning Board's efficacy. 

Early on in the meeting, Planning Board chair Ron Bogle reported on this effort to establish collaboration between the Planning Board and the Conservation Advisory Council and the Planning Board and the Historic Preservation Commission. At the CAC meeting last week, it was suggested that Nathan Woodhull, who was recently appointed to the Planning Board and up until that time served on the CAC, might serve as the liaison between those two groups. Last night, Bogle reported that Woodhull that agreed to do that. He also asked for a volunteer from the Planning Board to serve as liaison to the HPC. Peter Spear volunteered to do that. Bogle explained, "The role of the liaison is informal. It's not a new layer of bureaucracy. It's just to keep the dialog open between these three groups, so that, when projects may overlap or somehow relate to more than one of us, we can share contact and collaborate together."

Ron Bogle at last night's Planning Board meeting

Bogle also made a statement about the Hudson Housing Authority project, the elevation drawings for which Gossips shared on Monday. Bogle prefaced his statement by assuring Jeffrey Dodson, HHA executive director, that he agreed the project was essential and the Planning Board would expedite the review process. What Bogle said merits being quoted extensively here:

The history of affordable housing in our country is not always a great story. Our first efforts in the mid-century were to create monstrous, institutional structures that were not welcoming and friendly to the folks that lived there. And they were not good for the cities they were in, because they created restricted areas of living for people living on low wages or in poverty. The DNA that were in those early designs still gets carried forward, and we need to be thinking of places of dignity, places of pride, places of belonging. 

People who live on low wages and affordability may not be able to take as many vacations as some of us, may not be able to see the beauty of the country around them. They only have their own town, and we believe that they deserve to have beauty just as much as any of the rest of us, and that's a guiding philosophy that I hope to carry through this project, but the problem is that DNA gets carried forward. 

If you look at Bliss Towers you can see that it carries the DNA of the early '60s affordable housing movement, and we've now learned, having lived with it for over 50 years, that there are so many things about that design that really diminish the quality of life of the residents and frankly doesn't really belong in the community. It feels like something that got parachuted in--the architecture, the design, the scale, the appearance. 

I think we need to be sure that we do not carry forward the DNA, or at least minimize it as much as we can, of those early 1960s projects. The folks that built Bliss Towers I'm sure were dedicated civic leaders who thought they were doing the very best for their community, but the fact that it's been there for fifty years. . . . I think probably it started out not being that well constructed in the beginning, but it lasted fifty years, so that should give us pause that we are making a decision as we deal with this process to build housing that will probably be with us beyond 2075, 2080, 2090. We are building a site that will serve multiple next generations of Hudson residents, families, children grow up, their children may grow in this facility. So it needs to be expedited, but it also needs to be done with thoughtful consideration about what this new piece of Hudson looks like and how it's going to define so many lives in our city. So we need to do better than to just follow past models. 

The current best thinking for affordable housing emphasizes the human scale, integration into existing neighborhoods, dignity of design, durability of materials, sense of home rather than a sense of an institution, and we also need to overlay green design as we move through the next fifty, sixty, seventy years. We need to be thinking about sustainability. We ought to look at US Green Building Council guidelines and other national guidelines that might help inform our thinking. Taking time to get this right is our most important job at the Planning Board. . . . 

I would conclude by saying we're not going to talk about the design tonight, because we don't have a lot of information yet. We've seen your elevations. But I will tell you we have work to do, because there's an awful lot of the mid-1960s DNA still existing. We need to look at it, we need to study it, and we need to understand what does it feel like to be a human being and a family living in that space. How do we make it the best possible experience for them? We cannot simply do what we've done in the past. but look at the paths forward in terms of how we think about investing our time, money, in these people's lives and in our community.

Bogle's entire statement can be heard here, beginning at about 24:20.

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More About Botstein and Epstein

Times Union investigative reporter Sarah Trafton has another story about Leon Botstein and Jeffrey Epstein in today's paper: "Epstein told assistant to ensure woman has 'appropriately dressed' for Botstein."

News from City Hall

Our new mayor has a number of vacant positions to fill--commissioners, as well as code enforcement officer. Today it was announced that he has named a new Commissioner of Youth. The official announcement from City Hall follows.

Mayor Ferris is pleased to announce the appointment of Daren Collins, Sr., to serve as the City of Hudson's Commissioner of Youth. A lifelong resident of Hudson with two children who attend Hudson Junior High School, Daren has dedicated his life to serving our community. He currently works as an Attendance Officer/Community Relations Specialist for the Hudson City School District and a Youth Mentor with the Mental Health Association. His passion for youth, sports, and cooking drives his work as an assistant coach for the Hudson Varsity Football team, head coach of Southern Columbia Hudson Pop Warner, and a coach for Got Game Sports. He also proudly serves on the Columbia County Youth Bureau board, the Southern Columbia Hudson Pop Warner board, and supports local catering initiatives with What's Really Good. His philosophy is simple: unity is power, positivity is light, and love is the answer.

Exhibition for the Semiquincentennial

The 250th anniversary of the founding of our country isn't getting as much attention as the 200th anniversary did. Maybe that's because Semiquincentennial is harder to remember and pronounce than Bicentennial, or maybe it's because the great experiment that is American democracy is so threatened in this anniversary year. Nevertheless, the History Room at the Hudson Area Library will be observing this significant anniversary--a quarter millennium--with a special Hudsoncentric exhibit: Patriots of Hudson in the Revolutionary War. Joining the History Room in observing the Semiquincentennial are the Jacob Leisler Institute and the DAR.

The opening reception for the Hudson Area Library’s History Room exhibit, Patriots of Hudson in the Revolutionary War, will be Thursday, March 5, at 6 p.m. in the library’s Community Room. The exhibit celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of the United States and features stories of local residents who supported the fight for American independence. 

Registration is required for the opening; email brenda.shufelt@hudsonarealibrary.org.

This event is the launch of a three-site exhibition developed collaboratively by the Hudson Area Library, the Jacob Leisler Institute for the Study of Early New York History, and the Hendrick Hudson Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

In addition to the three exhibits, each institution will have related programming throughout the year. The Hudson Area Library will offer a three-credit Continuing Teacher and Leader Education (CTLE) class on the exhibit for local teachers. The library will also have a follow-up exhibit on the effect of the war on the neighboring indigenous tribes, including an examination of the history of the Esopus Tribe. It will be researched and curated by Justin Wexler of Wild Hudson Valley who studies local Eastern Algonquian languages, history, and folklore.

Each institution’s exhibit focuses on a different aspect in local history of the fight for independence:

The Hudson Area Library exhibit, Patriots of Hudson in the Revolutionary War, profiles local residents who fought in the Revolutionary War or who contributed to the fight for independence. Several went on to help found the City of Hudson. The exhibit will be on view from March 5 through June 30, 2026. The library’s exhibit was made possible by the Rheinstrom Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

The Jacob Leisler Institute for the Study of Early New York History exhibit is titled From Glorious Revolution Toward Independence: America's Forgotten First Revolution. The exhibit will be on display at 46 Green Street Studios in Hudson in July 2026. This exhibit focuses on how the peoples of the former Dutch colony of New Netherland--New York, New Jersey, and the three lower Pennsylvania counties (Delaware)--created, during the Glorious Revolution of 1689-1691, a unique American identity that influenced the movement for independence from Great Britain eighty-five years later.

The Hendrick Hudson Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution exhibit is called Who Were Our Patriots? and will be at the Hendrick Hudson Chapter NSDAR Historic Robert Jenkins house at 113 Warren Street in Hudson in the Spring/Summer of 2026. This exhibit will flesh out the lives of selected Revolutionary War patriots. Included will be those to whom several of the chapter's members proved their lineal descent and thus qualified for membership in the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution. Also included will be "forgotten patriots"--Native American and African American patriots and at least one woman. Local ties, if any, will be emphasized, and, when possible, relevant social issues will be explored. The focus is on remembering heroines and heroes from 250 years ago.

Botstein Responds

Today, in Rural Intelligence, Jamie Larson reports about Leon Botstein and the accounts of his connection with Jeffrey Epstein: "Bard President Botstein Responds to Epstein Ties in Campus Email, But Big Questions Remain." 

The issue is of interest to us in Hudson not only because Bard College is a few miles down the road but also because the institution is soon to own about eighty properties in the City of Hudson.

Update: If you are curious to know exactly what Botstein said in that email, it can be found here, in The Daily Catch.

Time and Again

Back in 2009, a resolution of the Hudson City School District Board of Education created the Task Force on Student Academic Performance to study the district and make recommendations for improving academic performance. The report summarizing the conclusions of the task force was submitted in February 2010. The report was used by HCSD Superintendent Maria Suttmeier to guide changes she made during her tenure (2012-2022) to improve reading scores and graduation rates. 

Peter Meyer, who chaired the Task Force, provided the link to the report in his comments on a couple of recent Gossips posts. You can access the report by clicking here. Given HCSD's abysmal performance on assessment tests and the conversation around the current search for a new superintendent, the report still has relevance and is recommended reading.

Hudson in a Super Bowl Ad

Spenser Walsh reports in today's Register-Star that the Super Bowl ad for Redfin|Rocket Mortgage includes brief glimpses of scenes in Hudson: "Hudson featured in Super Bowl ad." The two scenes of Hudson show the park at the courthouse, with West Court Street in the background, and a location in Mt. Ray Estates. 

Strangely, the image of courthouse square is flipped, so that Partition Street appears at the left and Allen Street at the right.

To watch the entire ad, click here. The two images of Hudson appear toward the end.

Of Interest

It was a bit of serendipity that, on the same day the link to the Superintendent Search Survey was published on Gossips, this opinion piece appeared in the New York Times: "These Three Red States Are the Best Hope in Schooling." 

Photo: Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

The three states in question are Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. These states have achieved significant gains in public education by insisting "on metrics, accountability and mastery of reading by the end of third grade." They also recognize the importance of getting kids to attend school regularly.

The following is quoted from the piece:

For many years, skeptics have offered dispiriting arguments about the prospects for educational gains: The way to improve literacy is to fix the family, fix addiction, fix the parents, for as long as the child's environment is broken, there's not much else that can be done.

The gains in these states suggest that that critique is wrong. Mississippi and Alabama haven't fixed child poverty, trauma and deeply troubled communities--they have figured out how to get kids to read by the end of third grade.

Here's another quote that will resonate with taxpayers in the Hudson City School District:

What's particularly impressive is that the Southern surge states lifted student achievement with only modest budgets. Spending per pupil in Alabama and Mississippi was below $12,000 in 2024, while in New York it was almost $30,000.

In Hudson, the budget for 2025-2026 works out to almost $40,000 per student.

A Preview of What Is to Come

The Planning Board meets tomorrow night at 6:00 p.m. On the agenda for the meeting is the Hudson Housing Authority's redevelopment plan. In advance of that meeting, materials to be presented at the meeting have been posted in the Planning Board Portal. Among those materials are elevation drawings--not renderings that show the buildings in the context of the surrounding neighborhood but two dimensional elevation drawings--of the buildings proposed for the Bliss Towers site and for the lot at corner of Second and Columbia streets, now a community garden.

This is the elevation drawing for the west facade of Building A1, which will be situated on the Bliss Towers site, behind the current building. (When the new buildings have been constructed and the current tenants relocated, the tower will be demolished.)

Additional elevation drawings for this building, as well as floor plans, can be found here.

This is the elevation drawing for the street-facing facade of Building B, which will be located on State Street where the park and gazebo currently are. 

Additional elevation drawings for this building, as well as floor plans, can be found here.

In July, this drawing of the design being considered for the townhouses was shared.

The design seems to have evolved since then. This is the elevation drawing for the street-facing facade of the townhouses.

Additional elevation drawings and floor plans for the townhouses can be found here.

When this project got started almost three years ago, Alexander Gorlin Architects was announced as the architectural firm that would be designing the buildings. Gorlin and his associates appeared at several meetings over the years. Curiously though, the plans and drawings submitted to the Planning Board today are not from Alexander Gorlin Architects but from a firm called Aufgang Architects, located in Suffern. One wonders exactly when and why Gorlin was replaced by Aufgang as the architects for the project. 

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HCSD Superintendent Search Update

The Hudson City School District website now has a page devoted to the Superintendent Search.

There you will find the proposed timeline for hiring a new superintendent. It involves four phases, the first of which, to take place in the month of February, is Community Input. A part of the Community Input phase is the Superintendent Search Survey. Input is being sought from all stakeholders in the district, which are defined as:

• Parents and guardians
• Students
• Teachers and staff
• Community members
• Local partners and organizations

The survey can be found here. Readers who live in the Hudson City School District, especially those who are property owners and taxpayers, are encouraged to complete it.

Meetings and Events in the Week Ahead

The best thing that's going to happen this week is that on Wednesday the high temperature is predicted to be a balmy 36 degrees. In addition to that eagerly anticipated event, there are some meetings of interest.

• On Monday, February 9, the Hudson Industrial Development Agency (IDA) meets at 1:00 p.m.--a different day and a different time for this group, not mention all the new faces: Mayor Joe Ferris, Planning Board chair Ron Bogle, Common Council minority leader Mohammed Rony, and community member Jonathan Spampinato. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at 1 City Centre, Suite 301, and on Zoom. Click here to join the meeting remotely.
• At 5:30 p.m. on Monday, February 9. the Common Council Code and Infrastructure Committee holds its initial meeting. At this meeting, Rob Perry, superintendent of Public Works, is expected to make his usual monthly report. Since this past Friday was Craig Haigh's last day working as code enforcement officer for the City of Hudson, and, to Gossips' knowledge, a new code enforcement officer has not yet been hired, it is unclear if the Code Enforcement Office will be represented at this meeting. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Teams. Click here to join the meeting remotely.
• At 6:30 p.m. on Monday, February 9, Mayor Joe Ferris holds his first town hall meeting in the Second Ward. The meeting takes place in the Community Room of Bliss Towers, 41 North Second Street.

• On Tuesday, February 10, the Planning Board meets at 6:00 p.m. The agenda for the meeting, which can be found here, contains several things of interest, among them Hudson Housing Authority's redevelopment plans (it is hoped the presentation to the Planning Board will finally include renderings to show what the proposed buildings will actually look like) and a proposal to locate a business called GiGi's Wine Bar in one of the commercial spaces at 76 North Seventh Street, a.k.a. Depot Lofts. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Teams. Click here for the link to join the meeting remotely.  

• On Thursday, February 12, the Public Works Board meets at 5:30 p.m. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Teams. Click here for the link to join the meeting remotely. 
• Also on Thursday, February 12, the Common Council Legal Committee meets at 6:30 p.m. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Teams. Click here to join the meeting remotely.
• On Friday, February 13, the Historic Preservation Commission meets at 10:00 a.m. No agenda for the meeting is as yet available, but it is likely the meeting will include the continuation of the proposal to demolish the existing garage behind 30 Union Street and replace with a new structure. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Teams. Click here for the link to join the meeting remotely.

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Food News

Eater NY reports today a change soon to happen in the restaurant at Rivertown Lodge: "The Hudson Valley's Buzziest Chef Is Opening a New Spot." What's coming is a "new Mexican restaurant, Pez, with a focus on seafood, on track to open in early May."

The Torch Is Lighted

In 1980, the Olympic torch passed through Hudson on its way to Lake Placid for the Winter Olympics. That event was recorded by Lance Wheeler in a video that can be viewed here.

To memorialize that event, the Hudson Kiwanis Club created a commemorative Olympic torch, which currently resides in the little traffic island that is Rogers Park.

Today, to mark the opening of the Winter Olympics in Milan, officials from the City of Hudson and Columbia County, along with representatives of the revived Kiwanis Club, gathered to light Hudson's commemorative torch, which will burn throughout the duration of the XXV Winter Games.

Photo: Lance Wheeler

Lance Wheeler's video of the torch-lighting ceremony this year in Hudson can be viewed here. 

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