The first the other business owners on the 300 block knew about it was this morning when they came to open their shops and restaurants. Signs were posted on both sides of the street, from Fourth Street to City Hall Place, declaring that there would be no parking on Saturday from 2 to 11 p.m. American Glory was having its "First Annual 60s/70s Party" which included a classic car show.
American Glory's owner, Joe Fierro, had gotten a mass gathering permit from the City of Hudson, approved by the mayor, the chief of police, and the DPW superintendent, but he neglected to tell any of his fellow business owners on the block that, on a busy spring holiday weekend, their customers wouldn't be able to park in front of their shops and restaurants. He also neglected to tell the staff at the Hudson Opera House, where sixty people were expected for a wedding reception, that the number of parking spaces available to them would be greatly reduced.
As 2 o'clock approached, a handful of early birds were already parked on the north side of the street, parallel to the curb. It seemed briefly that Fierro might have abandoned his plan to park the cars diagonally on both sides of the street. But shortly after 2:30, the cars started reparking diagonally, reportedly tying up traffic as they did so. At one point, with most of the cars parked diagonally on the north side of the street and only one classic car parked parallel to the curb on the south side of the street, traffic on that section of Warren Street was reduced to one lane.
It will be interesting to see what happens if more cars show up. Will they be parked diagonally on the south side of the street? Will cars traveling on Warren Street be able to get through? Will police officers be there to direct traffic and mediate stand-offs?
Stay tuned. Gossips is about to head back out there to see what's happening.
A reader who owns a business in the 300 block of Warren Street submitted this comment:
ReplyDeleteYes, the diagonal parking took all of the upper half of the 300 block with some of the back ends of the cars parked well into the sidewalks with owners and friends on some of the remaining sidewalk with folding chairs and coolers. The entrance and presence of the Harley motorcycles was intentionally noisy and further discouraged any traffic that might consider coming into the block to visit other businesses. This is/was particularly hard on most of the other businesses because Saturday (and Saturday afternoons) is the busiest time of the week for all.
How did Fierro get such a permit from the mayor, chief of police, and DPW superintendent? This is such a bad idea for everyone else. Perhaps that is why no one was informed that this would take place. Spring and summer are the busiest time of year for merchants and the last thing most of the small shops need are more events like this closing down Warren Street. With the blocking of traffic at fourth, traffic was disrupted for the entire town.
Thanks, again, American Glory, for being a bad neighbor. Hopefully the mayor, chief of police and DPW superintendent will rethink this for next year and, at least, move it off Warren Street.