Monday, July 17, 2017

Hudson's Face to the River

Last Tuesday, thanks to Richard Wallace, Gossips reported on a project, which had just begun the day before, to clear the entire escarpment below Promenade Hill of all vegetation, soil, and loose rocks.  
Photo: Richard Wallace
According to information received, once the rock face has been completely cleared, it will be covered with shotcrete, a kind of mortar that is applied with pressure hoses to stabilize slopes. The picture below is an industry photo showing shotcrete being applied to a rock face somewhere in the world.
Alarmed by the prospect, after publishing the post, I contacted the mayor, the Conservation Advisory Council, and the chair of the Waterfront Advisory Committee, wanting to know what, if anything, the City could do to prevent this escarpment--the face of Hudson to the river--from being disfigured in this way. To her credit, the mayor immediately passed my concerns along to the city attorney and the code enforcement officer. On Friday, I learned the outcome from the code enforcement officer. 

 The railroad right of way extends all the way up to the edge of the cliff--a situation that has probably existed since 1851, when the railroad blasted away the base of the escarpment to make way for the railroad tracks. That being the case, the City of Hudson has no jurisdiction. If, in the zoning that is part of the 2011 Local Waterfront Revitalization Program, this area had been made part of the Core Riverfront District, the Planning Board would presumably have had to approve any work proposed, but, alas, the escarpment is not part of the Core Riverfront District. Below Promenade Hill and Hudson Terrace on either side, from Ferry Street to Dock Street, everything west of the railroad tracks is in the Core Riverfront District, and everything east of the railroad tracks is in the Riverfront Gateway District--ironic name since it is our riverfront gateway that is now being defaced. No one anticipated this.     

The project is expected to take six weeks. They started at the south end and are working their way north. This is what the escarpment looked like this morning, one week after the work began.
COPYRIGHT 2017 CAROLE OSTERINK
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13 comments:

  1. VincentJuly 17, 2017 at 3:35 PM

    Personally I prefer the raw rock to the vegetation.

    ReplyDelete
  2. VincentJuly 17, 2017 at 3:38 PM

    Not so familiar with shotcrete but if it keeps the vegetation from returning it's not a bad thing. From the river Hudson has no presence. Spying a huge rock with a promenade topping it sounds perfect.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Carole OsterinkJuly 17, 2017 at 4:02 PM

      Something treated with shotcrete looks like it's been coated with cement.

      Delete
    2. unheimlichJuly 17, 2017 at 7:57 PM

      Shotcrete always looks like a generic cartoon of rocks. It's right out of Bugs Bunny.

      The Promenade dates to the Ordovician period, and it looks it. That was roughly 435 to 500 million years ago. Unimaginably old!

      Delete
  3. Peter MeyerJuly 17, 2017 at 3:47 PM

    So, it's a federal issue. Write our congress folks. And hopefully, someone in one of our city agencies (including our Town Council) will do something to assert some local provenance over this issue. --p

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  4. Peter MeyerJuly 17, 2017 at 4:06 PM

    Vince, I think the assumption is that the mortar mix they're spraying on the hillside might not look like "raw rock." --p

    ReplyDelete
  5. peterJuly 17, 2017 at 4:44 PM

    I hate grey concrete. Maybe we can have it painted green. Or install solar panels up there...

    ReplyDelete
  6. VincentJuly 17, 2017 at 5:31 PM

    St. Lawrence shogcrete. Holcin shotcrete . Calarusso shotcrete.

    ReplyDelete
  7. signifierJuly 17, 2017 at 6:39 PM

    I hear the manager at the Amtrak office is approachable. Since Hudson is on Amtrak's most profitable line, he may be willing to explore shotcrete options. Some application techniques really are ugly. Others are sensitive to the surroundings.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Carole OsterinkJuly 17, 2017 at 8:04 PM

      Can you cite any examples shotcrete applications that are "sensitive to the surroundings"?

      Delete
  8. Five and DiamondJuly 18, 2017 at 8:09 AM

    No big whoop. Let's go back to complaining about the bag dispenser.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Ellen ThurstonJuly 18, 2017 at 10:13 AM

    Whose head should we chisel out of that rock? It is begging for improvement. Or should we just leave the bare rock up to the graffiti artists.

    ReplyDelete

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