Gossips did not attend the roundtable with Bard representatives at Park Theater last night. Although I had secured myself a place in the room, I gave up that space when HBCi clarified that the roundtable was intended only for business owners and asked people were not business owners to forfeit their seats. It seems I may have been the only person to respond to Billy Blowers' appeal. From people who did attend, I was able to glean the following information.
There is still no published list of the properties involved in the gift made to Bard College by the Galvan Foundation, but it seems the total number of properties being donated to Bard is about eighty, a number that includes all the properties in the area of the city that Galvan has dubbed the "Depot District": Hudson Depot Lofts; the former train station that now houses Upper Depot Brewing Company; the remnant of the Gifford-Wood Foundry building, part of which now houses Return Brewing and the other part which is being renovated as a theater and eating and drinking establishment; the former Community Theatre building, which previously was reported not to be one of the properties being given to Bard.
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| 3D rendering of the Depot District as envisioned by Galvan in February 2022 |
Although Gossips wasn't present at the roundtable, two of the editors of Hudson Common Sense were and share their impressions of the event in a special report on The Shallot, HCS's satirical arm: "Adults from The City of Bard visit students from Hudson College."
The following is quoted from that report:
This week’s Hudson Business Coalition roundtable, billed as a business focused meeting so popular that confirmed guests were asked to give up seats for actual business owners, quickly revealed itself as something else. It became a collision between Hudson’s lingering Galvan trauma and Bard’s good intentions delivered with the finesse of a bright but impatient physics professor who skipped sensitivity training.
The report is entertaining and recommended reading.
COPYRIGHT 2025 CAROLE OSTERINK
Thank you for the coveted and rare _Recommend Reading_ stamp of approval, Gossips
ReplyDeleteOne correction, we actually had 2 of our founding editors in the room last night and one well placed correspondent.
And do note that this piece is part of our Shallot Series (based on The Onion or Babylon Bee parody outlets).
Though in Hudson... what is the difference between satire and reality?
Is it theatre, or is it Hudson? All of 12534 is a stage...
In this piece we also ask uncommon questions... like, should the City of Hudson use its large almost million dollar per year Youth Center budget to simply buy the "Hudson Armory" library cum community center building?
If the Armory building, weighed down from a value perspective by the long-term lease as the Bard CFO explained, is worth $3 to $5m (experts please chime in with a more accurate number?) then the City could own it outright in just a few years.
Dollar for dollar, would that not serve more Youth given CoArc activity in the library basement, and general community events in the popular library?
Consider that Greenport residents (and Stockport?) are part of the Hudson Area Library so that solves the non-resident problem...
Libraries also happen to have books and quiet spaces to read. Hudson has many basketball courts.
After all, libraries (like police and public works) are considered a “public service” because they aim at open, low-friction access to information for the whole community, while youth centers (just like a public golf course, supervised drug-consumption sites, or municipal bike-share programs) are considered a “club good” because access is selectively granted, capacity is limited, and benefits are targeted to a specific group rather than the public at large.
Let me say at the outset that I do not live in Hudson, and do not claim deep familiarity with the many public policy issues that are discussed in Gossips. And make no mistake; I am very much persuaded that the outgoing city government left a great deal to be desired and failed the residents of Hudson in many ways. With that said, I read the satirical take on the Board meeting, and it left a slightly unpleasant taste in my mouth. The transfer of dozens of significant properties from a highly controversial steward to an entity like Bard College is a multifaceted event, and no one set of stakeholders is more entitled to weigh in than another. In these pages there seems to be a presumption that anyone who dares to imagine that this is anything but a endowment -building opportunity for Bard is naive in the ways of the world and should just leave it to the professionals. I personally do not think it would be out of the realm of possibility that an ambitious institution like Bard might be willing to partner with ordinary city residents on a civic project or two. From whom much is given, much is expected. I like the idea of Hudson redirecting funds to buy the library, but I like the idea of Bard regifting the library to Hudson even more. Sure, this is dreaming big. But characterizing it as people seeking "free stuff" sounds uncomfortably like the kind of punching down we see from the White House and some alt-right publications.
ReplyDeleteWe agree with your first point, and said so in the piece:
Delete"A confident Hudson would already be drafting partnership proposals, not harangues. It could be working with Bard to raise capital for a satellite campus on the Hudson prison grounds (one example), paired with serious affordable housing and a Bronson House to Olana park that links the Valley’s world-famous historic architecture and landscapes. Bard and Hudson’s artistic community could be sketching and animating new performance spaces, expanding and coordinating annual festivals, and using Bard’s calendar to bring visitors to Hudson in the quiet winter months instead of watching the town’s social energy evaporate after December and businesses struggle to get to summer. The season’s crescendo ends naturally after Winter Walk, which Galvan will no longer sponsor. The cold December air carries a simple conclusion."
While you might not live in Hudson, you have one part of the town culture nailed down; anything you don't like, or the application of the law, is called "right wing" or Trumpian.
All jokes aside... you might be missing some context, Hudson more than other similarly sized cities and towns have/had a Planning Board that demands freebies that is way out of scope. The NGO to resident ratio also makes no sense.
And in the end, this all harms those who are being "helped".
That said, why don't you buy a house in Hudson. Then you can pay 3x the property taxes of the surrounding area and be asked for donations to fund NGOs that do what the government is already taxing you to do.
I think it should be remembered that Galvan is the one who decided not to give the Armory to the library/city, or any other property. They are the “bad guy.” It was an obvious “F-U” to the citizens of Hudson for standing up to their bullying, and scrutinizing their pilots. And with the Luxury Depot Lofts not renting out fast, and of course, the voters not reelecting the candidates they had in their pocket—most notably their most famous tenant, Kamal Johnson, they decided to pack it up and extract the resources from a new city, Savannah, GA. Much like the aliens in Independence Day. HPC should keep this in the back of their minds when Galvan asks to tear down those two houses for their lame hotel, a business they have no experience in.
ReplyDeleteI would hope Bard, out of some good will maybe give Hudson a sweet deal for some of these key properties that have little use to them commercially, like the library. And maybe they can use the performance spaces and program them. But the rest they should and will sell. They have a fiduciary responsibility to their institution, and are grown ups. They won’t suffer fools and small town “nonprofit” grifters doing their usual shakedowns.
Why do you feel the hotel is “lame”? The quality of any hospitality project really comes down to who they hire. With the right team in place, even a first-time operator can create something impressive.
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