What's It to Be?

It's not obvious if work has begun inside the armory or not to create the spaces that are to be the senior center and the Hudson Area Library, but since mid-April, extensive work has been going on outside the building. What was previously the front lawn of the armory has been torn up, concrete walls have be added beside the steps to the front porch, and concrete walls and piers are being created around the perimeter.

A year ago, when the plans for the armory's transformation into the Galvan Communnity Center were presented to the Historic Preservation Commission, the focus was on the south side of the building, where the entrance to the library was to be, and the west side of the building, where a new "medical wing" was to be constructed. Somewhere along the line, without fanfare or public announcement, the medical wing was scrapped, and so was the plan for the library entrance on State Street.

It now seems that nothing that was granted a certificate of appropriateness by the HPC is actually being done. What does seem to be happening is that the "plaza," which was originally proposed for the State Street side of the building, is being created in some reconfigured form on the North Fifth Street side of the building. The library's website talks about "a large plaza, with a stone surface, shade trees, benches, chairs and tables, bluestone 'seating steps' and grass where people can sit and read." It also still describes this plaza as "facing our new entrance on State Street," which apparently isn't going to exist.

The armory is the centerpiece of a locally designated historic district, so the question asked in April and still unanswered is: Why haven't the plans for whatever is being constructed at the North Fifth Street entrance to the building been presented to the Historic Preservation Commission?
COPYRIGHT 2014 CAROLE OSTERINK