Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Promises, Promises

On May 3, 2012, Galvan Partners applied for a certificate of appropriateness from the Historic Preservation Commission to move the two-hundred-year-old house at 900 Columbia Street to 215 Union Street. The application was quite specific that the intention was to move the house. It even named the contractor that would perform the feat: Wolfe House Movers.
This is a house being moved. The picture above shows a house being moved in Butler, Pennsylvania, and is from the Wolfe House Movers website.
This is a house being demolished. The picture above shows the house at 900 Columbia Street being "disassembled" by Mountainview Masonry and Landscape Supply and was taken on September 2.
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11 comments:

  1. Marty DavidsonSeptember 3, 2013 at 2:59 PM

    Well looking at the 2 photos I'd say the only difference is there are more people watching what's happening in the top photo. Otherwise it looks like both houses are being moved. Top house being moved to a new location and bottom house being moved to the Hudson dump. Just like Humpty Dumpty! All the Kings horses and all the Kings men couldn't put 900 Columbia Street back together again.

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  2. GoodTroubleSeptember 3, 2013 at 4:30 PM

    Curious. Gossips has been on this for days and days. Has anyone from the city or Galvin responded?

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  3. Steve WalshSeptember 3, 2013 at 5:05 PM

    Yeh I saw the dump trucks moving the brick and debris "uncovered" in dump trucks out Rt 66 going towards Chatham.....never followed them to find the ultimate destination.

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  4. Carole OsterinkSeptember 3, 2013 at 5:12 PM

    Windle submitted this comment:

    Do you or does one need a permit to demolish? I know the house is being reassembled in a new location (???) but first it is obviously being demolished. What about the 200 year old frame in the dumpster, is it also being reassembled? I go and watch the process from time to time during the day and when I am told the bricks are being carefully numbered I say bullshit. Just tell us the truth. This house is being torn down and another house will be built on Union Street someday using some of the bricks (maybe)

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  5. michael lesawyerSeptember 3, 2013 at 5:33 PM

    ...at this point i have to be suspicious of anything that galvan/lantern/eric galloway/foundation or employees write, say, or think for any and all properties in the city of Hudson...if Rick Scalera buys a pack of gum, is it for chewing or to fix a hole in the building code...

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  6. UnknownSeptember 3, 2013 at 11:34 PM

    This incident has allowed precedent to be set, which means that Galvan and his other entities will be allowed to rearrange Hudson as he sees fit. Thanks for nothing to the powers that be.

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  7. Byrne Fone September 4, 2013 at 4:04 AM

    Galvan-- use his name, Eric Galloway -has already rearranged Hudson as he sees fit, inventing styles that never were and an architectural history that never happened. He has made his own version of Hudson, a disneyesque federalonial style that I have called gallowgian. His latest outrage is, as everyone says, demolition. That house is gone. But that is a dramatic example of what he has done to his many other properties. They stand, but they are not real. He has already, by his alterations, demolished much of the real architectural history--and so the history-- of Hudson.
    Shame on those who aided him-- both old boy politicos and some newer players who claim to have Hudson at heart.

    Byrne Fone

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  8. windleSeptember 4, 2013 at 7:24 AM

    I'm sorry that in my fury I actually forgot they did get permission to demolish this 200 year old house.
    It's just so unbelievable ! I'm going to have to find a new route around this outrage

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    Replies
    1. Carole OsterinkSeptember 4, 2013 at 7:56 AM

      Windle--I actually don't know if they got a demolition permit or not. As the project was presented to the Historic Preservation Commission, it wouldn't have required a demolition permit because they weren't going to demolish the house. But whether or not they applied for and received a demolition permit from Peter Wurster, I don't know. Because the house is not in a historic district, they wouldn't have needed a certificate of appropriateness from the HPC, and one hopes they wouldn't have gotten one if they had.

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  9. UnknownSeptember 10, 2013 at 8:46 AM

    I am in awe of the notion that this house will be put back together piece by piece as it had been and be authentic. I have been watching it being taken down and wonder how in the heck they will know which brick goes where? and reassemble it like a giant jigsaw puzzle..I guess time will tell...Massive undertaking, that's for sure.

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  10. UnknownSeptember 10, 2013 at 8:50 AM

    I guess my other thought is, that it was going to demo'd either way...

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