On the North Side of Warren Street

In the past, Gossips has published pictures of the buildings that stood along the west side of South Front Street before they were all demolished in the 1970s to make way for Hudson Terrace. Except for the original Our Lady of Mount Carmel chapel, which stood at Market Place, just north of Warren Street, no photographs have surfaced of the buildings on North Front Street until yesterday, when Gossips found this photograph in the Times Union for January 31, 1964.

The photograph accompanied the report of a fire that involved three buildings on North Front Street between Columbia and Chapel streets: 25, 27, and 29. (Chapel Street, which was totally obliterated during Urban Renewal, ran parallel to and between Columbia and State streets.) The Times Union reports: "Authorities said the fire started in the top floor apartment occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Woods and their six children at 29 North Front Street. One of the children turned in the alarm at 8:05 a.m."

No one was injured in the fire, but fifty people were made homeless and given emergency shelter in the General Worth Hotel. The article reports who those people were and identifies the buildings' owners and tells the nonresidential uses of the structures.

COPYRIGHT 2016 CAROLE OSTERINK