Discontinuing a Street

Sometime this afternoon, a notice appeared on the City of Hudson website that the City was planning to "discontinue the use of approximately ninety (90) feet of the northern end of Montgomery Street in the City of Hudson." "Northern end" is a tad puzzling, since Montgomery Street, such as it is, runs east to west. Nevertheless, the stretch of Montgomery Street in question is shown on this aerial image.

The Council Common will decide about discontinuing the street at its regular monthly meeting on Tuesday, April 20. The notice goes on: "If the Common Council discontinues the street it is the intention of the City to sell the discontinued street to the adjoining property owner at fair market value." That adjoining property owner is no doubt South Front Street Holding LLC, that is, Ben Fain et al, who own Kitty's, are soon to open a restaurant at that location, and are rebuilding the red barns to be shops and event space. The notice indicates: "The Common Council will hear verbal comments at the informal Council Meeting on April 12, 2021, and will accept written comments until April 16, 2021." Written comments should be addressed to Tracy Delaney, the city clerk: cityclerk@cityofhudson.org.

Once upon a time, or at least according to the 1873 Beers Atlas map of Hudson, Montgomery Street ran parallel to Cross Street and Allen Street all the way from South Third Street to South Front Street. 

Today, Montgomery Street runs for less than a block west from Third Street before coming to a dead end; then it runs along the back of The Wick Hotel before tapering off into a trail. 

Since Hudson Development Corporation (HDC) went to some pains to acquire a parcel of land from CSX to give the Kaz site access to South Front Street, I was curious to know where this bit of Montgomery Street is in relation to the land acquired from CSX. The answer is: the CSX parcel now owned by HDC is on south side of the CSX crew shack; the ninety-foot stretch of Montgomery Street is on the north side of the crew shack. The map below shows the parcel now owned by HDC.

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