Stewart's Corner
At the last Planning Board meeting, Betsy Gramkow, who chairs the Planning Board, noted that, months after the building was completed, none of the trees or other landscaping that was part of Stewart's approved site plan had yet been planted.
When Gossips made that same observation in May ("The Lone Hosta"), a commenter defended Stewart's by saying they were waiting for the City to fix the intersection before proceeding with their plans for sidewalk and the landscaping. This made me curious to know the status of the intersection improvements. I made some inquiries, which yielded some information, but I still don't know anything about the design for the intersection or the status of its implementation. Apparently, the project has been taken on by the Common Council, a legislative body, and Peter Bujanow, Commissioner of Public Works, has been deputized to manage it. So far, the public has not seen any plans for the redesigned intersection nor, to Gossips knowledge, has any input been sought from the people who use the intersection--either on foot or in a vehicle.
Back in March 2019, Matthew Frederick, on his blog Hudson Urbanism, proposed an intersection redesign that involved a landscaped traffic island and thoughtfully positioned pedestrian crosswalks, with appropriate signals and signage.
It seems we won't know until the work on the intersection is complete if any of Frederick's ideas for the intersection are being implemented.
I also learned that new sidewalk and landscaping aren't the only things missing from the approved Stewart's site plan. According to Gossips' source, a top course of blacktop still needs to be installed at the site.
Yesterday, work began at the Stewart's site. I missed getting a picture in the morning when the equipment was there and work was underway, but this was the scene in the late afternoon.
It appears that the sidewalk along the curve from Fairview Avenue into Green Street has been removed, presumably in preparation for installing new sidewalk, but there has been no information about the City's plans for improvements to the intersection or when we may expect them to be executed.
COPYRIGHT 2020 CAROLE OSTERINK
When the history of the City of Hudson in the first half of the Twenty-first Century is written, I'm pretty sure it will read like this:: Tiny city of 6,000 was overwhelmed with issues and problems and nothing got fixed or accomplished. In 2022, Common Council members abandoned their posts and no one was willing to replace them. Residents gave up on expecting effective government, with many fleeing to greener pastures. In 2030, to prevent imminent bankruptcy, City Hall enacts a toll fee for all trucks traveling through the city on its truck route. Hudson, thanks to the internet, becomes known as the City of Diesel Fumes and Noise, and in 2040 the Hudson Development Corporation, run by a wealthy donor and developer named Eric Galloway, adopts a giant truck as its logo, removing all references to its former logo, a goofy-looking long-extinct whale. Shirts, caps, a board game, bumper stickers, flags, face masks and refrigerator magnets depicting the truck logo and sold from a vending machine to the public in front of the sparsely populated City Hall become a big revenue stream for the beleaguered city and is its only means of repairing roads and infrastructure compromised by the constant flow of the largest trucks found on the planet. Tourists stopped visiting the once-quaint town on the banks of the Hudson river after the federal EPA, in 2047, deemed the air in and around Hudson to be unfit for human lungs, primarily because of diesel exhaust. By 2050, a company called Stewart's operates 5 convenience stores in downtown Hudson and is the city's largest employer. They are planning on constructing a sixth store next year, this one located on Warren Street, which would require knocking down 4 historic houses, making for a total of 20 houses the company has destroyed (or "repurposed" as the company likes to say). Mr. Galloway, of the HDC, recently gave this project his approval and, like the others, it is sure to be approved by someone at the very quiet City Hall.
ReplyDeleteB HUSTON
BINGO
DeleteThe god forsaken city that could ...
Praying that the hosta survived...
ReplyDeleteI drove past there this morning. Unless they meticulously transplanted it somewhere, the lone hosta is no more.
DeleteNobody wants to do 'it's hosta la vista, baby?'
DeleteFine.
Pottersville.... it's a wonderful life.
ReplyDeleteI see no comment in the May post alleging that Stewart's was "waiting for the City to fix the intersection before proceeding."
ReplyDeleteDue to my disdain for the word on the street, in May I took the initiative of asking Chuck Marshall what was going on?
Exasperated, he said "if people only knew how many times we asked to work ..."
That's all I know and that's all I wrote about in May. The rest is mere invention which people can go see for themselves.