Unrelentingly Moving Forward

We don't like it, but it is happening nonetheless. Today, voters in the First, Second, and Third Wards received a post card notifying them that their polling place has changed. Formerly and for decades St. Mary's Academy, it is now 11 Warren Street, Suite 1, the new office of the Board of Elections.

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Ask the Superintendent: Episode 3

The third and final episode of "Ask the Superintendent" just dropped. The topic is "Technology." In this episode, Todd Hilgendorff, a.k.a. "Mr. H," is wearing a Bluehawk polo shirt and no bowtie. The video can be viewed here.

The Time Has Come . . . or Rather Returned

In July, Gossips reported on a plan to make the clock in the pediment of the historic Montgomery C. Smith School, originally known as Chancellor Livingston High School, tell the time again--something it has not done in decades.

It seems that, without any fanfare, the goal of making the clock work again was accomplished.

Tonight, while driving on Harry Howard Avenue, heading for Greenport, I glanced at the clock. The little hand was on VI; the big hand was on II. Then I looked at the clock in my car to see 6:10. I don't know how long it's been the case, but the clock is working again!

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Portraits at a Gathering

In the first week of August, Chronogram brought its pop-up photo studio to Waterfront Wednesdays. This week, the photos taken that day by David McIntyre were published. You can view them all here. 

Oakdale Update

It's been confirmed. There is a harmful algal bloom in Oakdale Lake, and the lake is closed for swimming and all water-contact recreation. People are also advised to keep dogs away from the water. 

The Superintendent Responds

Last month, Gossips shared the news that Todd Hilgendorff, the new Superintendent of Schools at the Hudson City School District, had launched an "Ask the Superintendent" program. Students, parents/guardians, staff members, and community members were invited to submit questions, and Hilgendorff would provide answers. Bad news for those who fear we may now be in a post-literate era, Hilgendorff has chosen to respond to the questions in videos, two of which have already been published.

The first, which deals with the issues of "Academics and Vision," can be viewed here.

The second episode, dealing with "Facilities Improvements," can be viewed here.

Eye on the Street

This sign, appended to the stop sign at Park Place, came to Gossips' attention recently. How long it's been there is not known, nor it is known how it came to be there. But it is a sentiment Gossips can endorse.

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Happening in the Vicinity of Mill Street

In the past few days, residents of Mill Street and the north end of Third Street received letters from the Columbia Land Conservancy (CLC) informing them that work was soon to begin on trails to connect Third Street with Mill Street and Charles Williams Park. The following is quoted from those letters:

In a few short weeks, CLC will be in your neighborhood, working with Tahawus Trails LP, a professional trail design and construction company, to create a new trail system in Hudson. These trails will connect North Third Street to Mill Street and beyond to the Empire State Trail.

Building this trail is the beginning of a three-phase project that also includes revitalizing Charles Williams Park and creating a trail connecting downtown Hudson to CLC's Greenport property and the thousands of acres nearby. 

One of the recipients of the letter shared it with her councilmember, Rich Volo, who, in addition to representing the Fourth Ward on the Common Council, chairs the Conservation Advisory Council. Volo contacted Patrick Knapp, Director of Public Lands at CLC, seeking to learn more about the location of the trail and about possible loss of trees. Volo shared the information provided by Knapp with Gossips.

The plan is for two trails from North Third Street to Mill Street: a direct one that involves stairs and a longer one that involves switchbacks. The paths of both trails are shown on this map: the direct route in purple; the switchback route in orange. 

  

Knapp indicated it was likely the only trees that might need to be removed are Norway Maple and Tree of Heaven, both of which are Tier 4 invasive species. He acknowledged this could change but offered the assurance, "CLC will aim to balance the site's recreational and ecological opportunities through this project."

In 2024, CLC acquired a large parcel of land in North Bay from the Hudson Industrial Development Agency, the area outlined in black on this map.

CLC plans to build trails on the land to connect Charles Williams Park with the Greenport Conservation Area and the network of trails that go all the way north to Harrier Hill. 

CLC has also taken over the renovation of Charles Williams Park, and, in December 2025, CLC was awarded $675,000 for that purpose in New York State's Regional Economic Development Council initiative.

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Chatham on the Missing Marble

The Register-Star about the stop-work order at 402-404 Warren Street: "Historic preservation violations stop Galvan hotel construction."

In it, Walter Chatham, who describes his role with the project as "advising architect," has this to say about the original marble that was removed from the building:

"[T]hat marble was removed because steel beams installed during a 20th-century renovation cracked it," Chatham said. Construction workers still have the original, removed marble and can incorporate it into another part of the hotel while covering the part of the building where the marble was supposed to be with a real marble veneer, Chatham said.

"We left the steel beams that were put in front of the brick, so we have to bring new marble forward in order to cover that steel," Chatham said.

"It is not like the cracked marble removed by construction workers was "carved by Michelangelo."

"It was three fairly crude pieces of marble over around the doorway and then a fourth up at the corner, and all of them had deteriorated over time. Acid rain is not kind to marble," Chatham added. "I think the best we can offer is a real marble colonnade that, I don't want to use the word imitates, but I guess that's the right word, imitates what we think was on the building originally."

Removed marble pillar and lintel--Photo: Matt McGhee

The issue of the hotel and its violations is expected to be taken up by the Historic Preservation Commission at its next meeting, on September 11. Regarding that meeting, Chatham is further quoted in the article as saying:

"We hope to present an acceptable program that will allow (the commission) to remove the stop-work order even as we negotiate with them and finalize details," Chatham said. "They (the contractors) were right in the middle of installing an elevator, so we were hoping to get the stop-work order removed fairly quickly."

According to Chatham, "Galvan hopes to open the hotel by the holiday season and get permission from the commission to work on the hotel's interior by its next meeting."

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Charter Revision Elsewhere

Some folks critical of the manner in which Council President Margaret Morris is approaching the task of assembling a charter revision commission have pointed to the City of Kingston as a model for how charter revision should be approached. For those curious to know how Kingston is doing it, the following is quoted from the City of Kingston website.  

Local Law 6 of 2025 established the Kingston Charter Review Commission and a timeline for its work. The Commission will be composed of 18 members. Of these, 3 will be appointed by the mayor, 3 will be appointed by the common council, and 12 will be drawn from the public at random. The task of the Commission is to review the city's charter and propose changes to it. Any changes to the charter would be submitted to Kingston voters during the general election in November 2027.

The city of Kingston has partnered with the National Civic League to facilitate the work of the Charter Review Commission, including the selection of its 12 public members and 2 alternate members, who will meet monthly over the next year to discuss possible changes. The National Civic League will use a specialized civic lottery to select these members. This process will ensure that Kingston's population is well reflected in the Commission.

The following information is provided about applying for the commission:

Residents of all backgrounds and perspectives are encouraged to apply, including youth over the age of 18. No prior experience or specialized knowledge is required.

The deadline for submitting an application to be on the commission was August 17. There is no indication of how long the "specialized civic lottery" process of selecting the "public members" will take.

The charter review process in Kingston also includes a survey and a public forum, which is to take place this fall. There is no indication if the monthly meetings of the commission will be open to the public.

Meetings and Events in the Week Ahead

As summer winds down and September begins, there is not much happening on the meeting front.

• On Monday, August 31, the Hawthorne Valley Farmscape Ecology Program presents an illustrated talk by Joan Maloof, professor emeritus at Salisbury College and former executive director of the Old Growth Forest Network, titled "What Makes Old-Growth Forests Special, and How to Save Them." The event takes place at the Hawthorne Valley Farm Learning Center, 327 County Route 21C in Ghent. For more information, click here.

• On Tuesday, September 1, the Conservation Advisory Council meets at 6:00 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 Thursday, September 3, the Common Council Services Committee (Youth Department and Senior Center) meets at 5:30 p.m. The meeting may include a first report from Brittany Gillis, the recently appointed Commissioner of Senior Services. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Teams. Click here to join the meeting remotely.
• On Saturday, September 5, the third Hudson Family Reunion takes place from 1:00 to 9:00 p.m. at Henry Hudson Riverfront Park. The mass gathering permit for this year's event describes its purpose in this way: "To bring family and community together of all ages, open to all, vendors, entertainment, yard games."

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11 Warren Street Update

It's been almost three months since Ray Jurkowski, Commissioner of Public Works for Columbia County, and the team from LaBella Associates presented these three options for exterior improvements to 11 Warren Street.

The plan, as explained by Jurkowski at the time, was to cobble together the input from the workshop and from a survey to create one final design, which would be presented in a second "public charette workshop." That was on June 9. Now, on the penultimate day of August, there is no information about when that workshop might take place.

In the meantime, at its July 10 meeting, the Historic Preservation Commission weighed in, suggesting the best thing that could be done would be to use landscaping to screen the building and make it as unnoticeable as possible. 

The building, a failed strip mall from the 1970s, is located on a premier block in a National Register and locally designated historic district. People must pass it to get from the city's central commercial district to Promenade Hill and the waterfront. It is, obviously, a noncontributing structure, but noncontributing structures are subject to review by the Historic Preservation Commission. Jurkowski has maintained that the county is exempt from Hudson's preservation ordinance. Gossips has never accepted that, and now, it seems, the City is not accepting it either.

At Friday's meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission, Phil Forman, who chairs the commission, reported that he had written to the county suggesting that plans for exterior alterations to 11 Warren Street come before the HPC. He described his communication as "polite and whiny." He said that Nick Fox, our code enforcement officer, had also contacted the county requesting that the project come before the HPC. Forman described Fox's communication as "less polite and not whiny." Presumably both communications were sent to Jurkowski. 

There has been no response to either of the requests--Forman's or Fox's. Forman indicated that the next step is for the city attorney to contact the county attorney. It wasn't clear if by "city attorney" Forman meant Victoria Polidoro, who is legal counsel to the HPC, or Andy Howard, who is corporation counsel. Summing up the situation, Forman said, "We shouldn't be in the position of begging. They are in violation."

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