God Is in the Details

At the last meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission, on June 25, the new owner of 508 Warren Street appeared seeking a certificate of appropriateness to replace the windows on the second and third floors of the building and to reconstruct the stoop at the entrance to the upper floors. 

What wasn't included in the certificate of appropriateness application was replacing the colored glass panes surrounding the display windows with clear glass--something that had already been done without a certificate of appropriateness. 

Also done without a certificate of appropriateness was the removal of the signs, believed to be stained glass, that read "Supplies" and "Artist."

At the meeting, which was Hudson's first city meeting to take place in person after the pandemic, audience member Chris Jones reported the absence of the stained glass. She told the commission that this was the store where Frederic Church purchased his art supplies and Olana had receipts from the store in its archive. 

Back in 2012, Gossips recounted the story that the panes of colored glass were used to judge the purity of paint colors. Since the colors in the stained glass remained constant, a level of consistency in the colors of hand-mixed and hand-prepared oils could be achieved by comparing them with the colors of the stained glass. Although the likelihood of this being true was questioned in a comment by Sam Pratt, this bit of Hudson lore seems to have persisted.

The new owner of the building claimed some of the stained glass was "broken and crooked" and "hadn't been installed correctly." He said some of it wasn't actually stained glass at all but rather vinyl. He argued, "It is prohibitive for us to do business with a kaleidoscope of color coming in." (The building is to be the new location of the clothing store Loup, now located at 426 Warren Street.) Reacting to the statement, HPC member John Schobel said, "That's not the way that this works."

The applicant argued that the clear glass had been "created and poured in the same way as the original glass was." HPC architect member Chip Bohl asserted, "The history of the storefront needs to be known and evaluated." 

It was decided that work could proceed on the stoop, but the HPC would have to have "another conversation" about the windows--those in the storefront and on the upper floors. The HPC is seeking historic photographs of the building to establish the history of the storefront and the configuration of the upper windows. So far, Gossips has been able to find only this one, taken in 1917, when the ground floor of the building was occupied by Miller Brothers Barber Shop.

  

Sadly, the photo is of little help in confirming the history of the stained glass panes and of no help in understanding the appropriate configuration of the windows on the upper floors.

COPYRIGHT 2021 CAROLE OSTERINK