What Lies Beneath

There's a great revival going on in the part of the city known as Hudson's East End. A recent article about Hudson in Conde Nast Traveler, "Why Hudson, N.Y., Is Our Favorite Weekend Getaway," features three East End businesses: Bonfiglio & Bread, 748 Warren Street; The Crimson Sparrow, 746 Warren Street; and Flowerkraut, 722 Warren Street.

The revivial isn't only happening with businesses on Warren Street. Restoration and reclamation is also happening with residential properties along Eighth Street, the one-way street that runs for only a block from Columbia to Warren. On Friday, one of those projects came before the Historic Preservation Commission. The project involves the restoration of this house at 19 Eighth Street.

At some point along the way, since the house was built in the 1890s, the front porch was enclosed--a fate that befell many houses in Hudson. The current owners of the house are now planning to open the porch back up again, the way it was meant to be.

What's remarkable is that many of the elements of the original porch survive beneath the walls and siding that were added to enclose the porch, and, for whatever did not still survive, there are hints to what was. Happily, this is true for many Hudson houses: what was meant to be can still be found beneath what was added in past efforts to modernize and improve.

COPYRIGHT 2014 CAROLE OSTERINK