Firefighters Convene in Hudson This Week

This year the annual meeting of the Hudson-Mohawk Volunteer Firefighters Association will take place here in Hudson, hosted by J. W. Hoysradt Hose & Chemical Co. It is happening concurrent with the Hudson Fire Department's annual Inspection Day, when the fire companies throw open the doors of the fire stations and invite elected officials and the public take a look at their meticulously maintained gear.

Courtesy Historic Hudson

Typically, Inspection Day is on Friday, but this year, because of the Hudson-Mohawk gathering, Inspection Day takes place tonight--Wednesday, July 9. It begins at 6 p.m. at Hoysradt Hose & Chemical Co., 515 Warren Street, and continues on to the Central Fire Station at 77 North Seventh Street.

On Thursday at 9 p.m., after a day of Hudson-Mohawk Association events, there will be a memorial service at the Central Fire Station for Hudson and Greenport firefighters who have died in the past year.

Friday night is the Mardi Gras Parade, which begins at 6 p.m. For this parade, the fire companies decorate their trucks, the theme for this year being "Christmas in July." The Mardi Gras Parade begins on Partition and East Court streets and heads to Warren Street by way of Union and South Fourth street and then goes up Warren to Seventh and across Seventh to the Central Firehouse.

On Saturday is the Dress Parade. Twenty-five units are expected to march in this year's parade, including fire companies in their best bib and tucker, drum lines, bagpipes, and firetrucks. The parade begins at 4 p.m., but here's the question: Will it march upstreet or downstreet?

At the Fire Committee meeting two weeks ago, Gossips heard Fire Commission Timothy Hutchings tell the aldermen that the parade would march upstreet. Fire Chief Craig Haigh confirmed this in an email. But on Monday at the informal Common Council meeting, the aldermen received a communication from J. Schermerhorn, first assistant fire chief, inviting them to line up at Green and State streets and lead the parade downstreet to the reviewing stand in front of City Hall. Immediately after the parade, the country band Thunder Ridge will be performing in riverfront park, so it seems the parade will be following the route that most parades do these days--downstreet from the Public Square to the river.
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