A Little History of a Building Lost

Last Saturday, Gossips published a post about the threat to the authentic character of Partition Street and the alleys from the desire to convert existing accessory buildings into studio/office space or living space: "Musing on the Alleys of Hudson." In that post, I used this photograph of a building that once stood on Partition Street, just west of West Court Street. I didn't acknowledge the source then, because I had been asked not to. 

Seeing the picture on Gossips last week prompted David Kermani to give me permission not only to reveal that the picture had been taken from his and John Ashbery's backyard, in the early to mid-1980s (Kermani and Ashbery came to Hudson in 1978), but also to share this story about the house and its unfortunate demise.

John and I thought we had assured the survival of that house, which we loved. It was part of the parcel fronting on Union owned and lived in by a Mr. Fingar and his wife. I got to know Mr. Fingar slightly because some mornings we’d meet on Partition Street on our way to or from Ritter’s on South Third Street to get our New York Times. We developed a casual acquaintance and would chat about neighborhood issues, etc. We watched that house, which Mr. Fingar never did anything to except to make sure that the water was kept out, and after a few years we made a verbal deal that when he was ready to sell the entire property or subdivide it so we could purchase the Nantucket house, he’d let us know so we could take it over and restore it. Things went along for many months (I think maybe even a few years) with no change or word from him; we assumed he was pleased that we were intending to preserve the house he’d kept standing for so many years. Early one morning I was in our kitchen and heard an enormous racket outside in the alley. I ran to the dining room windows and saw that a bulldozer or backhoe had begun demolishing the front wall of the house. I wasn’t yet dressed, so couldn’t run outside, and by the time I could it was so far gone there was no point in trying to stop it. I don’t think I ever saw Mr. Fingar again, so maybe he had already sold the property and the new owner demolished it.

The Nantucket house stood behind 353 Union Street. The new owner, if there was one at the time the house was demolished, would have been the owner prior to the property's current owners. It is not recalled, not by Gossips at least, exactly when the house was demolished, but tax records indicate that in 2002, when the parcel on which the Nantucket house stood was sold to its current owners, it was described as "Res vac land." 
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