What's Happening with the Shrimp Box?

These two buildings, often referrred to collectively as the "Shrimp Box" because decades ago a restaurant by that name was located in one of the storefronts, are on the southeast corner of Warren and Second streets. In the early 1990s, both buildings were acquired by the Hudson Community Development and Planning Agency (HCDPA), and a scandalously large sum of money was spent on renovating them for low-income apartments. The garages on the ground floor along the Second Street side were converted into commercial space, but from the beginning, one of them has been rented out as an apartment. At the time of the renovation, it was rumored that the construction work was costing far more than it should and that the woman who headed up HCDPA at the time was channeling all the work to her boyfriend. Nevertheless, the project was completed, and people and businesses moved in. 

For several years after the renovation, the building continued to be owned and managed by HCDPA. It contributed greatly to that stretch of Second Street getting a reputation for being the filthiest block in Hudson--with discarded bottles, food wrapping, food scraps, and cigarette butts littering the sidewalk, street, and gutter. Often it was possible to witness packets of drugs being tossed from upstairs windows on Second Street to customers waiting on the sidewalk below.  

Around 2006, the building was purchased by Housing Resources of  Columbia County, which has proved to be a not very meticulous steward of the building. There's lots of peeling paint on the Warren Street storefronts, and the building's dumpster on Cherry Alley is notarious for being perpetually filled to overflowing and allegedly attracting rats.

At the beginning, the commercial spaces were occupied by a convenience store in the corner storefront, Tomm Eaton Real Estate in the other storefront facing Warren Street, and Taconic Driving School in one of the units facing Second Street. Tomm Eaton Real Estate moved out in 2008. For a while, at the beginning of 2010, Danny Taylor had his hair salon in that space, and in 2011, it was briefly the location of the Hip Hop Chop Shop, but for the past few months, that storefront has been empty again. 

The ground floor apartment on Second Street appears to be vacant and has been that way for a few months. But what's most shocking is that, in the past week or so, the Taconic Driving School, which has been there since the building opened, has decamped to a location in Greenport. Now the convenience store is the only commercial tenant in the building and the only ground floor tenant.