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.

Travel Advisory

The Hudson Police Department just made this announcement on their Facebook page. Harry Howard Avenue is closed between Paddock Place and Washington Street because a large crack has formed in the pavement in the area of Underhill Pond.

A Timely Analogy from Hudson Common Sense

After their victory over Peru on Saturday, the Hudson High School basketball team is headed to the Class A state semifinals. Their next game is on Thursday in Binghamton against Tappan Zee. 

Hudson's ascent to the Final Four has inspired the editors at Hudson Common Sense to compose an op/ed piece comparing varsity sports at Hudson High School with the government structure in the City of Hudson: "Hoop Dreams & Charter Schemes: What Hudson Government Can Learn from the Bluehawks Basketball Team." It is recommended reading.

One More Meeting

There is a meeting that was omitted from the weekly list published last night: the Columbia County Board of Supervisors Public Works Committee meeting, which takes place on Wednesday, March 18, at 5:00 p.m., at 401 State Street. At this meeting, the updated load rating report, prepared by the engineering firm Ryan Biggs Clark Davis, with various cost estimates for temporarily repairing the Stuyvesant Falls Bridge so that it can re-open, will be presented.

Representatives of Historic Stuyvesant will be at the meeting. In advance of the meeting, they are encouraging people to send emails to the members of the Public Works Committee, urging them to repair and reopen the bridge. Information for doing that can be found here. (Interestingly, there are no Hudson supervisors on this committee.)

Historic Stuyvesant is advocating for the County to commit to a long-term bridge rehabilitation project. To learn about the preservation efforts, click here.

Meetings and Events in the Week Ahead

With Pi Day and the Ides of March behind us, and St. Patrick's Day ahead, here's what is happening this week.

• On Monday, March 16, the Common Council holds its informal meeting at 6:00 p.m. The agenda for the meeting includes a funding proposal and a resolution in support of the proposal for a Columbia County Recreation Center, an initiative of Chief Mishanda Franklin and Sheriff Jackie Salvatore. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Microsoft Teams. Click here for the link to join the meeting remotely.   
• On Tuesday, March 17, the Conservation Advisory Council meets at 6:00 p.m. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Microsoft Teams. Click here for the link to join the meeting remotely. 
• On Wednesday, March 18, the Hudson Housing Authority Board of Commissioners meets at 6:00 p.m. It is expected there will a report to the board from executive director Jeffrey Dodson and John Madeo of Mountco on what transpired at last week's Planning Board Meeting. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place person in the Community Room at Bliss Towers and on Zoom. Click here for the link to join the meeting remotely.

• Also on Wednesday, March 18, the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) meets at 6:oo p.m. No agenda for the meeting is yet available. The meeting takes place in person only at City Hall.

Update: No agenda for the ZBA meeting is available, because there is currently no business before the board. Hence, this month's meeting has been canceled.

• On Thursday, March 19, Mayor Joe Ferris holds Meet the Mayor open office hours at City Hall from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m.

Update: Meet the Mayor open office hours have been rescheduled for Thursday, May 26, so the mayor can go to Binghamton to attend the Class A semifinals and cheer on the Hudson High School basketball team.  

• Also on Thursday, March 19, Hudson Community Development and Planning Agency (HCDPA) Finance Committee meets at 5:30 p.m. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Microsoft Teams. Click here for the link to join the meeting remotely.

Update: The HCDPA Finance Committee meeting scheduled for today has been canceled.

• On Saturday, March 21, Camphill Players & Friends present a brand-new collaborative production called Behind the Scenes. The performance takes place at 7:00 p.m. at Hudson Hall. Click here for more information and to reserve your free tickets. 

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HHA and the Planning Board

The Hudson Housing Authority is pursuing an ambitious redevelopment. What's being proposed will take up an entire city block, and when completed, there will be twice as many units, managed by HHA, as there are now. HHA wants the Planning Board to complete its review and grant site plan approval by May 2026, so they can meet their deadlines for funding from New York State, yet they seem to be stonewalling the Planning Board when it comes to presenting anything that gives a clear idea of what this massive development is going to look like.

At the February meeting of the Planning Board, HHA presented elevations of the proposed buildings--drawings that show the facades of the buildings in two dimensions.

Ron Bogle, who chairs the Planning Board, put off any discussion of the design of the buildings because the elevations did not provide enough information, and he requested renderings to show what the buildings would actually look like. 

On Tuesday, March 10, just hours before their meeting started, the Planning Board received a set of "presentation visuals." The visuals, which can be viewed here, were made up of a Google Earth image of the current site, a site plan we've seen several times before, two renderings also seen before, and two 3D renderings. Bogle again postponed discussion of the design because the materials had not been submitted in a timely fashion. (The deadline for submitting things to the Planning Board is two weeks before the next scheduled meeting.) He could have postponed discussion because the renderings do not provide enough information about what the buildings will actually look like.

Presenting the visuals at the Planning Board meeting on Tuesday, Quncie Williams, the architect at Alexander Gorlin Architects who is working on this project, explained that the intention was to articulate the facades of the buildings so that they "read as townhouses" and "align harmoniously into the community." Williams said the architectural vision had three major aspects:

• Buildings that create the narrative of Hudson by lining the streets
• Buildings that are scaled to be harmonious with the town houses of Hudson
• Creating a pedestrianizing atmosphere 

Williams also said they wanted to bring the language of Hudson architecture to this village--meaning the HHA development, which he also referred to as a "microcosm" of Hudson. According to Williams, the materials to be used--brick, siding, and a "sprinkle of bay windows"--are emblematic of Hudson and its historic architecture. Williams' entire presentation can be heard here, starting at 53:12. 

The renderings presented are confusing, because it's not clear exactly what is being depicted. In talking about the rendering below, Williams spoke of the "pedestrianization" of State Street.  

If you look at this 3D rendering of the site as it is proposed (below), there is no point at which there are buildings on both sides of the "pedestrianized" State Street, except possibly right at the corner of Second and State, where the end of the proposed third building (part of Phase 2) would be on the left and Building B1 would be on the right. The rendering above might also show the end of Building A1 across from Building B1, but the image would have to be flopped.

Similarly, it's impossible to know the vantage point for this rendering. It seems to show an L-shaped building, but the only L-shaped building in the plan that seems to match this rendering is the one proposed for Phase 2 of the project.

Toward the end of the meeting (1:21:27), Planning Board member Peter Spear asked if they could have renderings that were closer to reality. Following up on Spear's question, Bogle asked of the renderings, "Are they conceptual illustrations, or do they really reflect what is currently planned to be built?" Williams responded to Bogle's question by saying the renderings showed "the intent of what we expect to be built here." Spear pointed out, "Those are two different things, though. Intention and expectation are very different degrees of certainty." To which Williams responded, "Architects deal with intent. . . . My intent is to have this built as it's shown."

These renderings have been around for a long time. Gossips published the first one for the first time in October 2024. The second one (and perhaps also the first) was part of presentation made by Alex Gorlin at the "greenspace workshop" held at Bliss Towers in September 2024. (The playground area which was the focus of the rendering then has been cropped off.) Since then, there's been a lot of value engineering to bring down the cost of the project. It's hard to imagine that effort had no impact on the facade design. In his presentation, Williams talked about "siding." Siding could be anything, but it usually means wood or some imitation wood shingles. The renderings show nothing of the kind.

It is not unreasonable for the public to want to know what this new development will look like. In his comments to the Planning Board on Tuesday, Jeffrey Dodson, HHA executive director, recalled his first walk down Warren Street, thinking this was a beautiful, historic place, "Only to take a right on Second Street and go, 'My god, what is that?'" He was reacting to Bliss Towers, which he described as "hideous." Given that, it seems reasonable for people in Hudson to want to know what in future they will see when making that same turn off Warren Street, but none of the renderings provide any idea. The one 3D rendering that shows the project with any architectural detail shows it from the west, a vantage point from which it will only be seen by residents parking their cars and folks who live in Schuyler Court.

Renderings are typically a bit deceptive. They show things idealized. Not long ago, a reader told me about a site called AntiRender. There can you upload a rendering and download the reality--how it will look when the leaves are off the trees and there is no idealized landscaping or idealized people. I tried it out with the two HHA renderings, and here are the results.

The discussion of the project at the Planning Board meeting on Tuesday brought up a couple of things that are a bit worrisome. As we all know, Bliss Towers and Columbia Apartments cannot be demolished until the new buildings have been completed and the current residents of Bliss Towers and Columbia Apartments have been relocated. What was revealed on Tuesday is that there is no money for the demolition in Phase 1, and therefore the demolition will have to wait until funding is secured for Phase 2. 

The "pedestrianization" of State Street is also not part of Phase 1. Instead it is part of Phase 2. Given that the parking plan submitted to the Planning Board in October 2025 includes parallel parking on both sides of State Street in order to meet the parking requirements for all the tenants of the project, it's hard to imagine how closing the street is going to happen. 

There's another unanswered question that did not come up at the Planning Board meeting: Are the townhouses proposed for the lot at the end of Warren Street part of Phase 1 or Phase 2? If they are part of Phase 1, their design will have to go before the Historic Preservation Commission because the proposed location is in a locally designated historic district. That hasn't happened yet.  

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