As in past years, a distinguished panel of anonymous local gallerists and artists has chosen the winners in the annual Winter Walk Window Decorating Contest. This year, instead of assigning a clever designation to each winner, the judges have grouped the winners into three categories: Gold, Silver, and Bronze.
GOLD GROUP
Farm Shoppe Hudson NY, 554 Warren Street
Neven & Neven Moderne, 618 Warren Street
Rebus, 337 Warren Street
Alfredo Paredes Studio, 519 Warren Street
SILVER GROUP
Les Indiennes, 444 Warren Street
Battle Brown, 528 Warren Street
Clove & Creek, 613 Warren Street
Hudsontricity, 428 Warren Street
.jpg)
Atelier Bianca, 741 Warren Street
BRONZE GROUP
Finch, 427 Warren Street
Jamestown Hudson, 548 Warren Street
The Social Type, 238 Warren Street
Taiga, 119 Warren Street
CoCollaborations, 438 Warren Street
CVS was robbed.
ReplyDeleteWait, CVS did something?
ReplyDeleteAnd the lump of coal award goes to the music community of Hudson and environs. The Winterpills played a glorious show tonight before a disappointingly small and listless crowd, who seemed to have no idea what they were witnessing.
ReplyDeleteI just want to thank The Foundry at Hudson for producing the best Winter Walk ever. I had a smile on my face from the moment I hit Warren Street, and as former retail hag, I am not a big Xmas fan. On top of that, I lost my mom around a month ago, so I was not feeling festive. But Winter Walk 2025 changed all that.
ReplyDeleteThe diversity of performers was exemplary and encapsulated everything great about Hudson. The main stage at 5th and Warren was really well-produced and the smaller performances scattered along Warren St were quirky, artistic and weird in the best possible ways. A+ rating from me for the mix of performers.
The mix of attendees was spectacular. Kids to elders, and long-time residents mixed seamlessly with new-comers and first-timers. I saw no one inebriated and people were polite and easy to talk to and meet. OutHudson's "Slay Rides" added to the diversity and was a great addition for our mobility impaired residents and guests allowing them to experience everything that the event had to offer.
With all of the other places in the news, the Hudson City Police Department and Columbia County Sheriff's presence was a comfort and in the best nature of community policing and public service. I even found the Sheriff's Mobile Command Center parked on Warren Street, to be just right. Protection without feeling adversarial in the least. Seeing the City of Hudson Fire Department equipment lighting the main stage pulled the whole cooperative and collaborative nature of the event together.
I know that The Foundry at Hudson had previously announced they are closing up after Winter Walk Hudson NY . I sincerely hope they reconsider and find a way to continue on without the Galvan Foundation's support. Being free of Galvan, might actually be a net-positive to The Foundry at Hudson.
While I am putting out compliments, I want to congratulate Sean Roland and the entire team at Pocketbook Hudson for the absolute stellar job they have done. As they continue peeling back the onion of what pocketbook will be, every step they've taken has been completely on-point. Having worked in bars, clubs and restaurants a huge portion of my adult life, there is not a single thing I can criticize (though I hope the lights in the bar area dim a bit, as it gets later). In addition to the restaurant and retail, I am so excited for Ether, the lower-level nightclub and auditory space. The opening party with Tedd Patterson was spectacular and in the spirit of classic NYC parties like Body and Soul. There has long been an unfilled need for a place for dancing in Hudson. Ether will fill that unmet outlet. So excited to see the public bathhouse which as far as I can tell, will be a game changer, not just locally, but in the entire country.
All in all, Winter Walk 2025 and Pocketbook Hudson Hotel and Baths are delivering the absolute best of Hudson. I commend everyone from every group who put in the effort to make these projects realities. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I’d like to thank Pocket factory as well.
ReplyDeleteFor disregarding the neigborhood they moved in to. For putting unapproved HVAC plans on the roof that have made the building almost as ugly as the new Galvan mess on north 7th st. It’s over the allowable decibel level in all the adjacent properties.
I’d like to thank the pocket book factory for being completely out of touch with the residents on all four sides of their complex. Thank you for putting your entrance on a tight one way street where children play. Thank you for not putting parking in for your customers, thank you for making it harder for the families to who have worked so hard to live here. Thank you for leaving your lights on 24hrs a day for two years so the quality of life goes down for your neigbors. Thank you for breaking code by working after 7pm and on Sundays for two years.
Thank you for taking a pilot program that hurts our tax paying residents.
The day pocket book went online, three single family houses on Washington went on the market. That is an huge issue.
Every house on north 6th st and prospect st has black out shades on all street facing windows.
The factory was aready a beautiful building, they did a decent job rehabbing it.
The only good thing that has come from these freeloaders is their club got shut down at midnight by HPD last week.
It’s almost like none of these people were hear ten years ago and have zero institutional knowledge.
Just a reminder to everyone. Environmentally we are in a severe drought, water tables in the hudson valley are historically low. The city of Hudson has a finite water source. Our waste water treatment plant is designed for our needs and we are all continuing to separate our storm and waste water to not overburden our system.
I’m displeased the city just let a bathhouse spa with a bathtub in every room suck up our water and not even pay taxes for it.
I think calling the Pocketbook Factory “freeloaders” is more than a little extreme, considering they’re poised to bring thousands of dollars in room-occupancy taxes and local sales taxes into the city. Their guests alone will likely inject hundreds of thousands of dollars into Hudson’s economy. So celebrating a business being shut down by police? That’s not civic pride—it’s hostility. And let’s not forget: that business employs local residents who likely lost wages thanks to the early closure.
DeleteHudson needs to collaborate with its hospitality industry, not treat it like an inconvenience. Being grateful that affluent visitors want to spend their money here would be a good place to start. Because—let’s be honest—most of Hudson’s restaurants and hotels are charging Manhattan prices while offering service and food that rarely hit that standard. Imagine Hudson without tourism for 90 days. How many businesses would still be standing? We’re already watching spots close on Warren Street, and several others are barely keeping the lights on.
Hudson should be doing everything possible to welcome more hotels and visitors—intelligently, of course—including allowing Galvan to expand Hudson Public. Fourteen additional rooms mean more tax revenue and hundreds of thousands more flowing into the local economy.
And frankly? I’d take the new Galvan apartment building and the Pocket Factory’s HVAC systems over Bliss Towers and the tangle of aging DirecTV dishes any day. Hudson’s water system isn’t exactly a bragging right either; it’s some of the worst-tasting water I’ve ever encountered. We use a filter, and even then my spouse and our dogs prefer bottled water.
Our experience here has been… eye-opening. Hudson has felt hostile, unprofessional, corrupt, and blighted, and moving here may very well be the biggest mistake of our lives. The silver lining? Listing our home and preparing to leave is shaping up to be the best decision we’ve made. I’ll probably shed tears of joy at the closing table. A realtor once told us Hudson was full of “broken people,” but nothing could have prepared us for the level of hostility and misery we’ve encountered.
No it isn’t. If you take advantage of your neighbors, aren’t honest with them, mislead a civic process, and take advantage of a pilot program then this might not be the city to do business in.
DeleteIf a business comes here to make a profile that’s great. If they come here to make a profit while crying poverty and needing a pilot program to make the “vision” real, then that is not a business enterprise that should be here. A multimillion dollar enterprise should have the guts to stand on their own merit, hard work due diligence as it is the basis of entrepreneurship. Not help and crush our tax base.
You are for advocating for Galvan to demo two more livable houses so he can expand his new hotel? That is so completely out of touch with the fact that those two houses are designated historic in the city. They can’t legally be demolished.
The hotel was poorly planned out from the start and now that he can’t make helsinki work and it’s going to be gifted to bard, he needs an annex for the hotel.
It’s not the public’s fault Galvan didn’t plan well and we should not be living with his mistakes over and over again.
Lodging tax revenue?! Come on, if the current administration cared at all they would actually be enforcing the lodging tax laws, regulating the illegal air bnbs in hudson and combat the manufactured housing crisis that Galvan has been front and center on creating.
Please come to council meetings next year voice your concerns.
I understand people are upset about development in Hudson, but tax incentives exist for a reason. If a business qualifies for them, it makes sense to use what’s legally available. Ideally, that frees up funds for higher wages or better benefits, which helps local workers.
DeleteThe Pocketbook Factory looks like a major investment, and yes—there will be growing pains. That happens with any substantial project in a town this size. What matters is that the project and the surrounding neighbors figure out how to coexist rather than trying to block something that could benefit the local economy.
As for the two houses being considered for demolition—they’re nice properties, but protecting them shouldn’t outweigh significant financial benefits to the city. Here are the rough numbers:
14 hotel rooms
assume only 8 occupants per night
8 occupants × 365 nights = 2,920 guest stays per year
if each guest spends even $75 per day in Hudson (which is conservative), that equals:
2,920 × $75 = $219,000 per year spent directly in local businesses.
By comparison, the city currently collects roughly $24,000 in property and school taxes from those homes. There is a major difference. Financially, the hotel would provide far more value to Hudson than keeping the houses standing.
Regarding the so-called “housing crisis,” I’m not seeing it. There are plenty of homes for sale—including mine—and they’re moving slowly. I’ve also seen a large number of rental listings, easily 75 to 100 apartments. In addition, it’s my understanding that Hudson already has one of the highest percentages of low-income housing in New York State. If anything, the problem seems to be affordability, not availability—which is a different issue.
And I appreciate the invitation to the council meeting, but that’s not something I plan to sit through. My priority right now is getting my house sold and putting this Hudson chapter behind me as soon as possible.
I genuinely wish Hudson and its residents the best moving forward, although I do think there may be a challenging road ahead.
Enjoy your day.
“Growing pains” is a funny way to phrase the displacement of working class families that have lived in hudson for generations.
DeleteLucky dog your math is correct but your premise flawed. It’s as though you are looking through the filter of an equine posterior.
How could you ever defend a bad player in hudson? Galvan owns over 40 vacant multi unit properties with back taxes and non delivered vacancy fines. They owe today; over $100,000 in back taxes. The properties will all be bards soon, holding the short end of the stick until they are unloaded in the next five years (so bard says)
Since you are so out of touch with the city and it’s residents I wish you the best of luck with your sale.
If you don’t live, work, worship, or pay taxes in hudson then your opinion will always come second to those that do.
If you can’t state your name and stand up for what you say then you can’t match my mettle.
Feel so sorry for that neighborhood!
ReplyDelete