A Discovery About Hudson Architecture

The 100 block of Warren Street is usually considered the best preserved and most architecturally significant block in Hudson. Back in the days of urban renewal, when most of Hudson, outside of the boulevards and the 1950s tracts along Harry Howard Avenue, was considered expendable, the 100 block of Warren Street was designated for a federally funded facade easement program, which at the time was a pretty pioneering historic preservation effort. 

Studying the buildings in the 100 block, it's easy to imagine the buildings from the later 19th century were constructed between buildings that date from the very earliest part of that century. What's harder to imagine is that the Queen Anne houses found on the block replaced earlier houses, but it seems in some cases that's exactly what happened.

Today, Jeff Bailey shared this photograph with Gossips, which he had gotten from photographer Michael Fredericks. It is one of the images from a box of glass plate negatives Frederick owns. At the far right in the photograph is 132 Warren Street, pretty much as we know it today. The other houses in the picture, however, no longer exist.

This is what this stretch of Warren Street looks like today.

The simple three-bay Federal house at the center of the historic picture has been replaced by a turreted and gabled Queen Anne house. The house that now stands at 130 Warren Street was originally the residence of William H. Hearn, designed by Hudson architect Henry S. Moul and built around 1892.
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