Church or Club?

Gossips continues to be curious about the church hidden beneath the windowless walls at 255 Columbia Street. As reported on Friday, the Hudson directories indicate that St. John's Methodist Episcopal Church was located at 255 Columbia (formerly Diamond Street then Fulton Street) through 1939, and in 1944 the Colored Citizens Club appears for the first time at this address. That report also revealed the curious fact that the Sanborn Insurance Map for 1923 identified the building on this lot not as a church but as a club. 

And then there is this interesting little tidbit from the Kingston Daily Freeman for September 14, 1932. Under the headline "Three More Fall Victims of Prohibition Law," the Freeman reports: 

On a visit to Hudson the agents paid a call at 255 Columbia street, where they allege they found home brew beer and whiskey. They arrested John Joseph Witko alias Joseph Strow.

How unrestrained was our little town in the 1930s?