Back in the Day

Gossips' curiosity about the Kiwanis Club in Hudson was piqued by talk of reviving the service organization in Hudson and is being satisfied by a scrapbook of Kiwanis memorabilia lent to Gossips by Joe Kenneally. In January, Gossips published a post about the Kiwanis Club's efforts to save a stone house that was one of cluster of houses that once stood along Power Avenue and was known as Simpsonville.

Evelyn & Robert Monthie Slide Collection, Columbia County Historical Society

Those of us who discovered Hudson only after the wholesale demolition and redevelopment that was Urban Renewal had taken place sometimes imagine that it was all done with the blessing and support of the citizens of Hudson. Two letters to the editor, preserved in the Kiwanis scrapbook, suggest that this was not entirely the case. The two Kiwanians who wrote these letters, prompted by the controversy about the stone house, were critical of the Hudson Development and Planning Agency (HCDPA) and especially of the agency's executive director during that era, Lynda Davidson. Both letters are reproduced below. Thirty years later, they make interesting reading.

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