Of Interest

A post by "Dizzy Rascal" on the Hudson Area Community Board Facebook page tipped me off to this. According to Zillow, the building at 7-9 South Seventh Street is now for sale.

This building was purchased by The Spark of Hudson in 2022 from the legendary slum lord Phil Gellert. It was one of six buildings purchased from Gellert by The Spark of Hudson, and one of twelve buildings that were part of the HudsonDots program. Why that plan for the building was abandoned and the building is now for sale is not known.

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Money for Events in Hudson

This year, as in years past, the City has allocated $30,000 to support  "events, event series, or other tourism-related initiatives." To be eligible, events must be ADA compliant.

Hudson Jazz Festival 2025, Sounds Around Town--Photo: David McIntyre

The deadline for submitting applications is 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 16. At 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 16, the Common Council Finance Committee will review the applications. To submit an application, click here. 

To see what events were funded last year, click here.

A Reminder

This month's Mayor's Open Office Hours are tomorrow from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. All are welcome to visit City Hall to meet with the mayor and discuss all things Hudson.

The State of Things Financial

Last year around this time, Mayoral Kamal Johnson suggested that Councilmember Rich Volo should resign for raising the specter of the City's imminent insolvency.

As it turns out, although the term bankruptcy may have been a bit extreme, Volo was not wrong in warning about the City's increasingly precarious financial situation. 

At last night's Finance Committee meeting, Heather Campbell, city treasurer, reported that the unrestricted funds in the City's fund balance now total $2.27 million. The shortfall between anticipated revenue and actual revenue in 2025 is expected to reduce that amount to $1.88 million. It is recommended that a municipality's unrestricted fund balance be equal to two months (or 16.7 percent) of expenditures. For Hudson, two months' expenditures amount to $2.66 million.

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News of Higher Education

At a ceremony that took place earlier today, Havidán Rodriquez, president of the University at Albany, and Victoria Walsh, president of Columbia-Greene Community College, signed a dual admission agreement allowing Columbia-Greene students to continue their education at UAlbany.

Under the agreement, students can apply for dual admission to both colleges when they enroll at Columbia-Greene or during their first semester. After completing their studies at Columbia-Greene, students can transfer into a related bachelor's degree program at UAlbany, entering with junior-year standing. In the near future, the two institutions plan to formalize a transfer matriculation agreement for students pursuing a nursing degree.

A Bit of Good News

For anyone who has resented having to pay for a full hour of parking on Warren Street when your reason for being there takes just five minutes, here is some good news from City Hall.

The Mayor's Office and HPD are pleased to announce that on-street parking can now be paid in 30-minute increments rather than the previously programmed 60-minute increments. Feel free to reach out to either department with any questions.

In Memoriam: Dan Udell

The news was shared on Facebook that Dan Udell died earlier this month in a memory care facility in Orlando, Florida. He was 91.

Dan and his wife Mary, who passed away in 2024, lived in Taghkanic but were familiar faces in Hudson. The Udells generously devoted their energy and talent to the community of Hudson. Dan taught videography to students at Hudson High School. Dan and Mary published an annual catalog of summer events and activities called Hudson Is a Summer Festival. For more than a decade, whenever something of interest and significance happened in Hudson, Dan, usually accompanied by Mary, was there to videotape it. His documentation of Hudson in the first two decades of the 21st century survives at udellcommunityaction. In 2017, the Udells were the recipients of the Ellen Award for exceptional public service.

Dan and Mary Udell, with Ellen Thurston, for whom the award was named

Hudson's legislative body, the Common Council was the subject of many of Dan's videos. Before the pandemic and the introduction of hybrid meetings, Dan videotaped every Common Council meeting and posted them on YouTube. He stopped doing this briefly in 2014, in protest over a decision made by the Council. Dan and Mary were great dog lovers, and when, in March 2014, the Council voted to continue the ban on dogs in Henry Hudson Riverfront Park, Mary declared the decision "insane" and left the room. Dan said he was disgusted by the majority opinion of the Council and would no longer volunteer his time to document their proceedings. (Gossips' account of that meeting can be found here.) In time, however, Dan's sense of civic duty overcame his personal outrage, and he returned to documenting Council meetings, which he continued until the pandemic brought a halt to public meetings.

Dan Udell's obituary can be found here. Amusingly, it refers to Columbia County as "Hudson County" and calls the City of Hudson "Hudson Town."

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More of the Semiquincentennial Exhibition

Patriots of Hudson in the Revolutionary War, the exhibition commemorating the 250th anniversary of the founding of our country, continues at the Hudson Area Library. To pique your interest and persuade you to visit the library to view the entire exhibit, Gossips shares two panels that tell of Alexander Coffin, one of the founders of Hudson, who was born in Nantucket in 1740. (Click on the images to enlarge. The main text of each panel is transcribed below the image.)

Alexander Coffin

"Hot as a Pepperpot," Captain, Privateer,

Hudson Proprietor and Mayor

Prior to the war, Captain Coffin sailed from Nantucket to London in 1774, met Benjamin Franklin, and was "early initiated in the views, feelings and anticipations of those true friends of American Colonies, he at once came out a firm supporter of the American cause, an unwavering patriot." --The Rural Repository, January 19, 1839

The Continental Congress authorized private ships to seize British vessels. During the Revolutionary War, Coffin was commissioned by the Continental Army to command the privateer ship Hero. Coffin was twice captured by the British during the war.

He also carried dispatches from Franklin to the newly formed American government regarding French support for the War of Independence. These dispatches have a special importance because France's early support of the American cause was crucial.

After the war, Coffin was a Hudson Proprietor, early mayor, postmaster for over two decades and president of the Columbia Turnpike Corporation.

In 1838, at the age of 98, he chaired a meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society at the Baptist Church in Hudson. In the years leading up to the Civil War, abolitionist meetings were held in Hudson. . . .

"Coffin was one of nature's noblemen, frank, generous, warm-hearted and brave as Caesar . . . hot as a pepperpot, fierce as a northeaster . . . but neither rude, aggressive or implacable. He was the noblest Roman of them all." --Random Recollections of Albany: 1800 to 1808, Gorham A. Worth

 

Couriers for the Revolution

In October 1775, Seth Jenkins, Alexander Coffin, and fellow Nantuckers arrived in London and purchased the brig Richmond to return home. Some unnamed "friends of America" gave them letters to Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, and others explaining British designs against the colonies. The Richmond also had £20,000 on board and was under false registry as sailing to the West Indies and then bound for Halifax, when it was in fact bound for Nantucket.

The brig was captured by an American privateer, John Craig, sent to Philadelphia, and her owners were sent to the Bahamas. When Jenkins, Coffin and the others eventually found their way home, they sued for the brig's return in the Philadelphia admiralty court and also appealed to Congress for redress. They won their case but failed to recover their property.

In a letter quoted in Alexander Starbuck's History of Nantucket: County Island and Town including Genealogies of the First Settlers, Coffin writes about a harrowing return from London. Coffin recollects:

". . . the letters we were Chargd with to members of the Hon Congress & were of such importance & Nature as Required us to act with the Utmost Care & Caution, had they been discovered we Hazarded our necks & the necks of the best and sincerest of Friends of America."

Panels from the exhibition previously published on Gossips can be found here and here. 

Meetings and Events in the Week Ahead

It's not April yet, but we seem to be getting the proverbial April showers as March is preparing to make its exit like a lamb. Meanwhile, in the first full week of spring, here is what's happening.

• On Monday, March 23, 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 to join the meeting remotely. 
• On Tuesday, March 24, the Common Council Finance Committee meets at 5:15 p.m. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Teams. Click here to join the meeting remotely.
• Also on Tuesday, March 24, the Common Council holds its regular monthly meeting at 6:00 p.m. The controversial proposal to amend the short-term rental law to extend the number of days a homeowner can let their residence as a short-term rental from 60 days to 120 days has been abandoned. There is, however, an amendment to the short-term rental law on the agenda, one that would require a local contact be designated for any property offered as short-term rental and the information be provided to the Hudson Police Department and the Code Enforcement Office. 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, March 26, Hudson Development and Planning Agency (HCDPA) meets at 6:00 p.m. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Teams. The meeting may yield some information about the sale of property owned by HCDPA to the Hudson Housing Authority for its redevelopment plan. 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 Friday, March 27, the Historic Preservation Commission meets at 10:00 a.m. The agenda for the meeting is not yet available, but it is likely to include the continuation of the review of the new construction proposed for 309-311 Union Street. 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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Remembrance of What Didn't Happen

Hudson's largest DRI (Downtown Revitalization Initiative) project, first called "Hudson Connects" and later known as "Hudson Streetscapes," included a lot of features that never happened, because the money allocated for the project ($4 million) was insufficient to pay for what had been proposed. All the things that were eliminated are documented in this Gossips post, published last June: "Hudson Connects--The Vision and the Reality." 

The "Hudson Connects" plan focused on the part of the city below Second Street, and the centerpiece of the plan was a raised "pedestrian plaza" at the western end of Warren Street, leading into the lavishly redesigned entrance to Promenade Hill.

That grand design never happened. Yet, bizarrely, there is signage warning drivers approaching from the south and the north that there is a "raised intersection" ahead, although in fact there is no such thing. These pictures of the signs were taken today.

Yet another example of the quirkiness of Hudson.

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Word on the Bridge

The Register-Star today reports on the outcome of Wedenesday's Board of Supervisors Public Works Committee meeting: "Columbia County committee OKs $320K proposal to fix Stuyvesant Falls Bridge." The proposal will go before the full Board at its meeting on Wednesday, April 8. 

Photo: Trixie's List

Ray Jurkowski, Commissioner of Public Works for Columbia County, is quoted in the article as saying, "I am recommending that … we do those improvements because that gives us the probability of keeping the bridge open without further closure until we can get the long-term project approved." What the long-term project will be has not been determined.

The New Amid the Old

At its meeting on February 27, the Historic Preservation Commission agreed, regarding the proposal to demolish the house and outbuildings at 309-311 Union Street, that "contingent on the approval of the proposed design, the Commission will not oppose demolition." At its meeting last Friday, the HPC began its review of the house and carriage house proposed for the lot.

This is the rendering of the house presented on February 27.

When the design was presented on March 13, some changes had been made. The entrance doors had been moved to the center of the building, the porch railings had been removed, and brackets (or corbels) had been added to the cornice along the roof.

The HPC had a couple of concerns about the house as proposed. First was the placement of the house on the lot. The concern was that the house was too close to the street. The proposal is to have the house align with the other houses on the street and the porch will extend right up to the edge of the sidewalk. 

The suggestion from the HPC was that the house be located farther back on the lot so that the front of the porch aligns with the houses on either side. As HPC member Hugh Biber, who lives on the block, explained, what is typical of the block is sidewalk, planting bed, porch, and then house.

The HPC was also concerned about side walls which have no windows.

The design for the carriage house has also evolved since its initial presentation. This is the rendering presented on February 27.

Below are the drawings and a rendering of the building in context which were presented on March 13. The siding on the first floor is now proposed to be vertical board and batten with horizontal siding above; the roof now features a shed dormer on either side; there are more windows on the Partition Street side of the building; and garage doors are more "historic" looking.  

Despite the efforts to make the new buildings fit into their historic context, HPC member John Schobel observed, "The back of the house doesn't look at all historic."

The review of this project is expected to continue at the next meeting of the HPC, which is scheduled to take place on Friday, March 27.

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Defacing the Dunn

At the end of last year, two proposals to purchase and redevelop the Dunn warehouse, one of the few remaining historic buildings on Hudson's waterfront, were presented to the Common Council. It was expected that the Council would take up the issue in the new year and decide which proposal would be accepted, but so far that hasn't happened.

Meanwhile, in recent months, the historic building, which was designated a local landmark in November 2025, has become a magnet for graffiti. These pictures were taken this afternoon.

It is not known exactly when this graffiti first appeared on the building, but most of it wasn't there in October when Matt McGhee took these pictures which were part of the application for landmark designation.

It is unfortunate that this historic building cannot be better protected--from the destruction of neglect and time and from our local graffiti artists.

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Update on Underhill

City Hall just released the following statement regarding the closure of Harry Howard Avenue between Paddock Place and Washington Street.

Due to the large crack on Harry Howard Avenue as it crosses Underhill, the current road closure from Paddock Place to Washington Street remains in effect until further notice. At this time, work is being done to determine the cause and identify the fixes required to repair the road. The City will be pumping water from Underhill to help reduce forces against the roadway. We appreciate your patience and ask that everyone heed the barriers and fine alternate routes.

Of Interest

The Times Union reports today on area buildings and sites being considered for historic designation: "9 sites in the Capital Region, Mid-Hudson considered for national and state historic registries."

Photo: Tristan Geary for the Times Union

Among the nine sites are Basilica Hudson, constructed in 1905 as the Railway Steel Spring Company Foundry and Sand House, and the Stuyvesant Landing Historic District.

The press release from the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation announcing the nominations can be found here.