Where's the Spinach?

The infrastructure for Eger Brothers farm stand just outside of town has been in place for a couple of days now, but as of yesterday, there is no produce yet on offer. No spinach notwithstanding, spring and its culinary bounty is just around the corner.

Today is the last day of the Indoor (partially Outdoor) Market in the Parish Hall at Christ Church. Next Saturday, May 4, is the opening day of the Hudson Farmers' Market. The market, which happens every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., continues through the spring, summer, and fall, until November 23. It's truly the place to see and be seen on a Saturday morning in Hudson--and to stock up on fresh and wholesome local food for the week.

Also happening next Saturday is Ramp Fest 2013 at Basilica Hudson. From noon until 4 p.m., seventeen remarkable chefs from sixteen outstanding restaurants in the Hudson Valley and New York City will be serving up culinary creations that revolve around the ramp, the early spring vegetable--wild cousin of the leek--known for its pungent garlicky fragrance, its strong oniony taste, and its legendary medicinal power to ward off winter ailments.

More good food news!--and another way to ward off winter ailments. As a little prelude to spring, LICK will be open TODAY and tomorrow from 1 to 5 p.m. Regular hours begin next Saturday, May 4, which means the ice cream shop will be open and serving up sweet indulgences every day until Columbus Day Weekend in October.   

And So It Begins . . .

Election Day is a little more than six months away, and the local election season has just gotten started. The Hudson City Democratic Committee has begun interviewing candidates for the various positions, with the goal of fielding a full slate. The first hat to be tossed in the ring--besides that of the mayor--belongs to Victor Mendolia, former chair of the HCDC, who on Friday declared publicly that he will seek the position of Common Council president, the seat currently held by Don Moore. 

In a press release, Mendolia expressed his intention to seek the Democratic, Working Families, and Green party lines and outlined his agenda, which he said he believed "a broad coalition of Hudsonians can get behind and can garner wide support on the Common Council." 

As part of that agenda, Mendolia defined this list of issues:

Open Government  As required by open meetings laws, all proposed resolutions and local laws, including supporting documentation, will be posted online in advance of meetings and prior to any votes being taken. Unless these is a real emergency, Common Council members will always have the time required by the Charter to consider resolutions put before them. Accurate minutes of all actions taken at Common Council and committee meetings will be posted online on a timely basis.

Holcim Land Deal  The Holcim land deal as it stands now should be abandoned. If the plan does go forward, no land conveyance should take place until a Phase 2 environmental study is done and under no circumstances should any limit on eminent domain takings be a part of any deal.

Ownership of the Port  The city must be the steward of its own waterfront. The LWRP calls for the city to eventually own the dock. Instead of focusing on land which Holcim doesn't want and the city will not be able to develop, we should be focusing on owning the port and dock. It is the only way to be certain that what goes on on the dock is in the city's interest. Owning the port would hasten the cleanup of the derelict buildings and structures at the waterfront and would encourage development. Development at the waterfront would be a huge economic engine not only for the city, but for the entire county as well. So the city should not have to go it alone. I would immediately look to partner with Columbia County and/or non-profit entities to begin exploring ways to purchase the Holcim dock or take it by eminent domain.

Columbia Street Redevelopment   Warren Street is booming. What we need is more commercial space to add to the great success we already have going. I would champion new zoning to help restore Columbia Street as the secondary commercial strip it once was. The new zoning would require all new development at corners to include commercial space on the ground floor and allow for one extra story of residential. Small mom and pop storefront businesses should also be allowed as of right in the mid block. The area around Helsinki, Etsy, and the county building might also be considered to be developed more densely, preferably with underground or rooftop parking.

Truck Route--Short Term  We should immediately begin hyper-enforcement of existing traffic rules regarding speed and jake braking on the truck route and place electronic signs at the entrances of the city warning truckers of increased enforcement. I would support decreasing the speed limit on the route, especially near schools and daycare facilities. If possible, weight limits on thru trucks should be imposed and enforced. The city should consistently make it as unwelcoming for truck traffic as state law allows, to encourage trucks to take other routes.

Truck Route--Long Term  There must be a better long range solution to the truck route which is strangling the city, Fairview Avenue in Greenport, and to a lesser extent the hamlet of Claverack. I would work with our state legislators to fund studies leading to by-pass connections for Rt. 66 and 9H that could allow trucks to avoid not only the city but the Fairview corridor and Claverack's hamlet as well.

Housing  We must better protect tenant's rights to live in safe and properly maintained buildings. I will advocate for strict enforcement of our building codes. Any new rental housing at the waterfront will set aside 20% of its units for low and moderate income renters. In the case of co-op or condominium development, there will also be a similar set aside for affordable home ownership. As Bliss Tower continues to move toward the end of its useful life, there must be a renewed effort to either replace the building or do a major upgrade to rehabilitate it. That decision must involve the residents of the building and not be imposed upon them.

Technology  The city should immediately begin utilizing social media for communicating with residents to keep them informed. The City of Hudson website must be completely modernized. The website must contain clear and easy to find instructions for parking, snow emergencies, meetings, and accessing city services. In addition, it should promote the city as a tourism destination and easily link people to information about Hudson they are seeking. Smartphone apps should be integrated and promoted citywide and in city produced or sponsored media of all types. Unreliable and slow broadband service is holding back our economic development. The city must negotiate a better franchise agreement with the current provider or seek another cable provider to service the city's needs. A studio facility for the production of public access television, which was required under the previous agreement but never provided, must be a part of any deal.

Green Initiatives  Within the first year I would be committed to having at least one 50 kilowatt solar array on every suitable city owned building and facility. In addition, I would put forward new initiatives to require all new public buildings, sidewalks and streets to include permeable surfaces, rain gardens and other modern rainwater control systems. A major tree planting initiative, particularly on the North Side, would also be included.

For Don Moore's response to Mendolia's decision to challenge him as Common Council president, a position he had held since 2009, see the article in the Register-Star: "Mendolia to run for council president."

Commenting from Elsewhere

The often inscrutable workings of Blogger prevented Sam Pratt from making a comment on this blog, so he put his comment on his own blog: "Full circle."  

More Evidence of Standard Oil

The little news item published early this morning, from the Hudson Evening Register for November 14, 1888, which pinpointed where Standard Oil was located and when the facility was constructed, inspired another Gossips reader to apply her research skills to uncover another item from the Hudson Evening Register, which confirms the size of the buildings, identifies the architect, and reveals the nature of the activity that went on there. The following is from the Hudson Evening Register for October 6, 1913, and recalls events reported twenty-five years earlier, on October 6, 1888. (The second paragraph is the one of interest.)

Defining the Location of Standard Oil

At Wednesday's Common Council Legal Committee meeting, assistant city attorney Carl Whitbeck produced an 1888 atlas map which showed all the buildings in the First Ward and along the river but did not show anything labeled "Standard Oil." Indeed, it did not even include the area where Standard Oil is believed to have been. Still, the 1889 Sanborn map shows a cluster of structures on the river labeled "Standard Oil Co."

A Gossips reader provided the clue: a little news item from the  Hudson Evening Register for November 14, 1888, which defines the location of Standard Oil and provides the evidence that construction at the Standard Oil site did not begin until close to the end of 1888.

The Lincoln Funeral Train

On Presidents' Day, Gossips recounted the Presidents who had visited Hudson. The original list, which included Martin Van Buren, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, had to be amended a few times. Harry Truman had been left out, and Woodrow Wilson as well. Then it was discovered that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison had visited Hudson in 1791, before either became President. It was also brought to Gossips' attention, by Jamison Teale, that, just as the train carrying Lincoln to Washington for his first inauguration in 1861 stopped in Hudson, four years and two months later, Lincoln's funeral train stopped in Hudson on April 25, 1865.

A week after the assassination, on the morning of April 21, 1865, Lincoln's funeral train left Washington bound for Springfield, Illinois. Lincoln's coffin traveled in a special private railroad car that had been designed for his use in life. Although the car had been completed in February 1865, before his second inauguration, Lincoln never rode in it while he was alive. After his death, the car, named The United States, was refitted to serve as a funeral car. Two catafalques were built in the car to hold the coffins of Lincoln and his beloved son Willie, who had died of fever at the age of eleven in February 1862.

On the twelve-day journey from Washington to Springfield, the funeral train stopped in ten principal cities.

In each city, Lincoln's coffin was removed from the train and borne by a hearse provided by the city in a grand procession to a place where it would lie in state, to be viewed by throngs of mourners. In New York City, the viewing took place in the rotunda at City Hall. A contemporary chronicler described the scene: "The catafalque graced the principal entrance to the Governor's Room. Its form was square, but it was surmounted by a towering gothic arch, from which folds of crape, ornamented by festoons of silver lace and cords and tassels, fell artistically over the curtained pillars which gave form and beauty to the structure."

The train made brief stops at other cities along the way, and Hudson was one of those. After leaving New York City at 4:15 p.m. on April 25, the funeral train traveled north along the Hudson River. The tracks were lined with mourners all along the route, and when the train arrived in Hudson at 9:45 p.m., there were thousands of people gathered at the station to see it. Assistant Adjutant General Edward D. Townsend, commander of the funeral train, recorded what transpired:

At Hudson . . . elaborate preparations had been made. Beneath an arch hung with black and white drapery and evergreen wreaths, was a tableau representing a coffin resting upon a dais; a female figure in white, mourning over the coffin; a soldier standing at one end and a sailor at the other. While a band of young women dressed in white sang a dirge, two others in black entered the funeral-car, placed a floral device on the President's coffin, then knelt for a moment of silence, and quietly withdrew. This whole scene was one of the most weird ever witnessed, its solemnity being intensified by the somber light of the torches at that dead hour of night.

Legend has it that a ghost train retraces the route of the Lincoln funeral train. James Swanson, in the book Bloody Crimes, from which most of the information in this post is derived, quotes this from a newspaper clipping found in an old scrapbook:

A correspondent in the Albany (N.Y.) Evening Times related a conversation with a superstitious night watchman on the New York Central Railroad [who] . . . told of the phantom train that every year comes up the road with the body of Abraham Lincoln. Regularly in the month of April, about midnight, the air on the track becomes very keen and cutting. On either side it is warm and still. . . . Soon after the pilot engine, with long black streamers, and a band of black instruments, playing dirges, grinning skeletons sitting all about, will pass up noiselessly, and the very air grows black. If it is moonlight clouds always come over the moon, and the music seems to linger, as if frozen with horror. A few moments after and the phantom train glides by. Flags and streamers hang about. The track ahead seems covered with black carpet, and the wheels are draped with the same. The coffin of the murdered Lincoln is seen lying on the centre of the car, and all about it in the air and the train behind are vast numbers of blue-coated men, some with coffins on their backs, others leaning on them.

In 1865, the funeral train arrived in Albany around midnight; it arrived in Hudson at 9:45 p.m. So, if you are free at 8:45 tonight (there was no Daylight Saving Time in 1865), you might want to go down to the train station to see if the phantom train passes through.

On a less otherworldly note, in Illinois, a man named David Kloke is building a replica of the locomotive that pulled the funeral train and the car that carried Lincoln's coffin. In 2015, to commemorate the sesquicentennial of Lincoln's assassination and funeral, the 2015 Lincoln Funeral Train will retrace the route of Lincoln's final journey, starting from Washington on April 21 and ending in Springfield on May 2. Wouldn't it be grand if the train stopped in Hudson, and we re-created the elaborate and dramatic pageant of mourning that Hudson staged in 1865?

Gossips is indebted to Bloody Crimes: The Chase for Jefferson Davis and the Death Pageant for Lincoln's Corpse, by James Swanson, for much of the information used in this post and to Jamison Teale for bringing the book to my attention and lending me his copy. 
COPYRIGHT 2013 CAROLE OSTERINK

New Publisher for Hudson-Catskill Newspapers

NYSCMA

It was reported yesterday in the Register-Star that Mark Vinciguerra, who has been director of audience development for the Times Union, will succeed the late Roger Coleman as the publisher of Hudson-Catskill Newspapers: "Vinciguerra to take reins of Hudson-Catskill Newspapers." 

Legal Committee Takes Up the Issue of Standard Oil

At the Common Council Legal Committee meeting on Wednesday night, the question of the location of Standard Oil was taken up again, with assistant city attorney Carl Whitbeck providing evidence that nothing ever existed on the Hudson waterfront west of the railroad tracks and south of the port. He began by displaying a colorized print of this image, which depicts the Hudson waterfront in 1824 from across the river.

Whitbeck talked about the Hudson and Berkshire Railroad built in 1838, the New York Central Railroad built in 1849, and mentioned Fred Jones's railroad through South Bay, begun in 1874 but not completed until 1889. He talked about the Hudson Gasification Works (located next to the building now known as the Dunn warehouse) and the cleanup undertaken there by Niagara Mohawk in the early years of the 21st century. He read aloud most of the passage reproduced below from Stephen B. Miller's book Historic Sketches of Hudson, published in 1862, and made the point that nowhere does Miller mention oil tanks.

When it was pointed out that all of the evidence predated the period (1888 to 1917 or 1918) when Standard Oil was believed to own the land, Whitbeck produced atlas maps from 1873 and 1888. Standard Oil appeared on neither one. Not surprising, since Standard Oil acquired the property sometime in 1888, and it is not likely that the buildings constructed there subsequent to the acquisition would be in place in time to be included in an 1888 map, but they do appear on the 1889 Sanborn map.

At some point, city attorney Cheryl Roberts questioned whether there were such things as oil tanks in 1888, and Whitbeck suggested that the use of oil hadn't started until 1885. Alderman Nick Haddad (First Ward), who was in the audience, made the point that there was a tremendous demand for oil at the turn of the century, although it was utilized for different purposes than it is today. 

After the fact, Gossips discovered this timeline, which reveals that Standard Oil was organized in 1868, and was reminded of this little news article, shared on April 1, which appeared in the Hudson Evening Register for January 7, 1888.

During the discussion, the images from the Gossips post "Stalking Standard Oil" were brought up by members of the Legal Committee—first by Alderman David Marston (First Ward) on his iPhone, then by Council president Don Moore on his iPad. Where, they wanted to know, was this cluster of industrial-looking structures that appears in two different photographs and is outlined on the 1889 Sanborn map?

"I'd like to know what those buildings are," said Alderman John Friedman (Third Ward), who chairs the Legal Committee. "We found a hole in [Crawford's] work, and they need to plug it." 

It was decided that Crawford & Associates should take the deed discovered by Timothy O'Connor and the historic pictures and "try to find out where exactly that parcel is."

As one more bit of evidence of the location of Standard Oil, Gossips offers this map, recently received, from 1932, which shows--on the riverfront, close to the border with Greenport, and directly across from the Hudson-Athens lighthouse--a two-story brick building whose footprint is remarkably like that of one of the structures outlined on the 1889 Sanborn map of the Standard Oil facility.

COPYRIGHT 2012 CAROLE OSTERINK

Spencer Day Returns to Hudson

Spencer Day, singer-songwriter-pianist, has been coming to Hudson for a few years now--since 2007 at least. He has performed at the Hudson Opera House a couple of times, at Stageworks, and at Basilica Hudson last fall for the Hudson Opera House gala (not to mention, of course, all the places he has performed in San Francisco and New York City or the Monterey Jazz Festival or the Tanglewood Jazz Festival or the Kennedy Center). This Friday night, April 26, Spencer Day will be back in Hudson, performing in a setting that seems perfect for him (not that the others weren't): Helsinki Hudson.

Friday's concert celebrates the release of his new CD, The Mystery of You. The songs in this collection chronicle an ill-fated romantic relationship--"from passionate beginning to painful demise to enlightened aftermath." They are the music that emerged from the experience of survival and self-exploration--the outcome of the effort to "take a situation that's personal and draw out those things that are universal." 

The concert begins at 9 p.m. Call the box office at Club Helsinki (518) 828-4200 for tickets.

A Railroad Runs Through It

The path of the railway through Hudson, which goes to the ADM plant on Route 23B, is the path of the Hudson and Berkshire Railroad, first opened in 1838. The original purpose of the railroad, historians tell us, was to move marble from West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, to the Hudson River, a task that had previously been done by teams of oxen pulling carts over bad roads. In her History of the City of Hudson, published in 1908, Anna Bradbury reports that the railroad was expected to promote business in Hudson, and on the strength of this expectation, the City of Hudson invested $50,000 in the project "on bond and mortgage," and individual citizens of Hudson, as stockholders, invested $250,000. The railroad, Bradbury goes on to explain, "did not prosper and the stockholders lost their investment."

In 1854, The Hudson and Berkshire Railroad ceased to exist, but, after a succession of owners, the train tracks that cross Hudson at Seventh Street and run through the Public Square are there and still used. Today, while many are looking to restore the Public Square and promote its use as a park, a new project is being pursued that would increase the use of the railroad that runs through the park. 

The project is LS Industries transloading facility. (LS stands for Lone Star, so named because the facility will be located on the site of the old Lone Star Cement plant on Route 23B in Greenport.) Last night, Ken Flood, planning and economic development commissioner for Columbia County, made an initial presentation of the project at a Greenport Planning Board workshop, and Gossips was present to hear what he and the members of the Planning Board had to say.

In 2011, the project received $2.2 million in economic development funding from the State of New York. The announcement of that award, from Governor Andrew Cuomo press office, described the project in this way: "$2.2 million will support the development of a rail transloading facility in Columbia County, which will serve businesses in the Capital Region that do not have rail access. The project will allow businesses to transfer products from trucks to rail cars for outgoing purposes and to move incoming products." This description of the project notwithstanding, Flood indicated that Colarusso would be the "major customer" for the facility, loading aggregate into rail cars bound for New York City and Long Island. He also indicated that a "major orchard" in the county, which now trucks apples to the West Coast, would use the facility. In his presentation, Flood mentioned in passing that ADM, which now uses the rail line through Hudson to bring grain to their plant, was looking to increase its rail traffic by shipping processed flour from the plant as well, and he told the Planning Board that CSX was "very excited about the project."

Some interesting information was revealed when the members of the Planning Board were invited to ask questions. The first question came from Michael Bucholsky, who wanted to know about the increase in the amount of rail traffic through Hudson. Flood told him that there would only be two more trains a week. The Greenport Planning Board was most concerned about the railroad crossing on Route 66 being closed more often and for longer periods of time as a consequence of more rail traffic--a concern which, of course, also applies to Columbia, Warren, and Union streets in Hudson. 

When the discussion turned to the length of trains, Planning Board chair Don Alger recalled that, at one time, trains traveling along that line could have as many as 50 cars, but in 1950, there was a problem with an ambulance not being able to get to the hospital in a timely fashion (he didn't indicate the outcome), and the City of Hudson succeeded in imposing an 18-car limit on trains passing through the city.

Bucholsky also mentioned Hudson's concern about truck traffic and asked, "Will there be a hard look at the transportation route for trucks coming and going from the facility?" Flood said simply that he was "hoping [the project] will reduce truck traffic."

During the discussion, it was twice conjectured by members of the Planning Board that this facility might eliminate the barge traffic from Hudson and the trucks hauling aggregate to the port. On this issue, Flood said he didn't know but stated, "It's a possibility." As a possibility, however, it seems at the moment to be an unlikely one, since these are two different operations: Colarusso, intending to ship gravel by train to New York City and Long Island, and O&G, now shipping gravel by barge to various points along the Eastern Seaboard.

The most stunning bit of information came when, in discussing the timetable for site plan review going forward, someone on the Planning Board voiced the assumption that "Hudson's going to be brought in on this," and Flood told them that Hudson's involvement was a "matter of public policy" but that "technically, Hudson has no say." "The rail is the rail," said Flood. This led Bucholsky to suggest that "if we adequately address the Route 66 crossing, we have addressed Hudson's crossing issues as well." Residents of Hudson, however, may have concerns that go beyond crossing issues.  

The Greenport Planning Board is expected to begin its formal review of the project no sooner than September 2013.
COPYRIGHT 2013 CAROLE OSTERINK

Preservation Watch: 123 Union Street

In March, 123 Union Street was granted a certificate of appropriateness for a new roof and work on the cornice to eliminate molding added in the late 20th century and restore the original profile. There was no mention of work on the front door. So when the outer door and the door surround disappeared recently, it attracted attention.

It appears that the original door surround is being replaced by a newly fabricated reproduction of what was there. That's reassuring, but it raises the question of whether architectural elements with age and authenticity can simply be removed and replaced with newly fabricated replicas without any oversight from the Historic Preservation Commission?

Emerald Ash Borers Approach

Yesterday, Marilyn Wyman from Cornell Cooperative Extension addressed the Board of Supervisors' Economic Development & Agriculture Committee, warning of the imminent danger of the emerald ash borer. She reported that the largest infestation in New York State is in Saugerties and Woodstock. The emerald ash borer is now in Catskill, and it has jumped the river and been discovered in Dutchess County. She recommended a course of action that involves identifying ash trees and monitoring them for early detection. She pointed out that woodpecker activity was an indicator of presence of emerald ash borer larvae.

Although Wyman stressed the importance of early detection, she did not suggest that early detection could save the tree. She told the committee that there was a 100 percent mortality rate for infested trees, and there was no remedy. The only benefit of early detection, it seems, is cutting the tree before it is completely dead because it is more expensive to remove a dead tree.

 

    

Lisa Dejong/The Plain Dealer

Wyman mentioned that ash trees were planted as street trees in many cities to replace the elms that were lost to Dutch elm disease in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s. In Chicago, where 20 percent of all the street trees are ash trees, a coalition called Save Your Ash is working to prevent the destruction. In an article that appeared earlier this month on DNA.com Chicago, the coalition's founder, John Friedmann (note the second n), is quoted as saying, "A tree can be saved if it is less than 50 percent infected." Chicago's Bureau of Forestry has made the commitment to treat all of the salvageable trees in the city's parkways (the grassy strip between the sidewalk and the street) with an injectable insecticide by the end of 2014. There are a total of 94,000 ash trees in Chicago.

Here in Hudson there are 26 ash trees.

A Summer Home for the New York Philharmonic

The Poughkeepsie Journal let the cat out of the bag last week. The New York Philharmonic is looking for a summer home--what would be to them what Tanglewood is the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Apparently, they have narrowed it down to two sites: some vacant land across Route 9 from the Culinary Institute in Hyde Park and Olana. According to Ken Flood, who reported all this to the Board of Supervisors' Economic Development & Agriculture Committee this evening, Olana is appealing because of Hudson--its restaurants and what's going on here. The New York Philharmonic summering in our midst--wouldn't that be loverly!

Stalking Standard Oil

Yesterday, the Register-Star published its story about the controversy over the location of Standard Oil on the Hudson waterfront: "Standard Oil enters Holcim land deal debate." Today, Gossips offers some visual evidence, provided by a reader, of where on the waterfront Standard Oil was located. (Click on any of the images to enlarge it.)

The first image compares the outline of the Standard Oil facility that appears on the 1889 Sanborn map with a photograph that shows the facility. 

The photograph above is a detail from this photograph. The building at the center of the picture is the Clapp & Jones Manufacturing Company.

Clapp & Jones, founded by Mertilew R. Clapp and Edward D. Jones, built 500 steam fire engines in this building on Hudson's waterfront between 1862 and 1892. The 1884 Sanborn map below shows the location of Clapp & Jones in relation to the Hudson Iron Works--Clapp & Jones was farther south and Standard Oil was south of that.

The picture below, probably taken from the vantage point of Deer Alley, between Third and Second streets, shows the Hudson Iron Works at the right and Clapp & Jones at the far left. The railroad track that appears in the picture is what we now know as the ADM track. 

In the final picture, taken from Promenade Hill in the 1890s, the Standard Oil facility appears in the distance. The superimposed circle marks the site.

Happy Earth Day

Forty-three years ago, on April 19, the Sunday before the first Earth Day, Wisconsin senator Gaylord Nelson, one of the originators of the observance, had this to say on Face the Nation:  

The country can't survive with constant growth. We have demonstrated our lack of will or capacity or both to stem the tide of deterioration of the environment with 200 million people. When we get to 300 million people, it will be a disaster. You can't have constant consumer growth of the kind that we have seen. The fact of the matter is, in a hundred years we will run out of all the major--practically all of the major resources upon which a highly sophisticated technological society now depends. So I think we have to revise our attitudes and our philosophy and modify the works of our institutions in order to preserve the environment that is liveable. . . . You cannot, we cannot continue to intrude upon the works of nature, destroying living creatures all over the world, without us being in the line some place. . . .

At the moment this post was published, the population of the United States was 315,721,911.

Dining Out for Life

This Thursday, April 25, marks the tenth anniversary of Dining Out for Life, the annual fundraising event to benefit the AIDS Council of Northeastern New York. Eight Hudson restaurants are participating, and a couple of them are offering more than just an excellent meal with 25 percent of your bill going to help people living with HIV.

For those looking for a good party, the evening starts out with Happy Hour at Mexican Radio, from 5 to 7, presented in collaboration with the Hudson Pride Foundation. Rainbow margaritas will be on offer, along with tasty bocaditos, with DJ Lisa (Lisa Durfee of Five & Diamond) providing the soundtrack for the merrymaking.

After Happy Hour, the reveling moves to the Red Dot, where Dini Lamot (a.k.a. Musty Chiffon) and Windle Davis will be the hosts for dinner. They will be serving FREE dessert (but probably no pizza), and there is a chance that Musty may sing a song or two. 

For those seeking a more restrained but no less convivial dining experience, here is the entire roster of participating Hudson restaurants from which to choose where and when you will be Dining Out for Life.

Breakfast
Relish Hudson  Victor Mendolia

Lunch
Ca' Mea  Elaine and Jiro Shimono
Mexican Radio  Wendy Appell-Bopp
Relish Hudson  Victor Mendolia

Dinner
Baba Louie's  Mary DiStefano
Ca' Mea  Paul Barrett
DA|BA  Peter Bevacqua and Stephen King
Helsinki Hudson  Peter Frank
Mexican Radio  Rob Bujan and Jeffrey Perry
Red Dot Restaurant & Bar  Dini Lamot and Windle Davis
Swoon Kitchenbar  Sidney Orlando

Where Was That Meeting House?

Yesterday, Mayor William Hallenbeck, perhaps as a consequence of misreading a handwritten historic document, stated in his proclamation commemorating the 100th anniversary of the city clock that the original Presbyterian meeting house was located on Pattison Street--a street that does not now and never did exist in Hudson. Today, Joe Gentile, writing for the Register-Star, offers another account of the location of the church's earliest place of worship: "In 1785, Hudson's Puritan founders established their Presbyterian congregation inside a schoolhouse on what later became Columbia Street. Its members then bought the city's former city hall at the corner of Fourth and Warren streets in 1835, modifying its edifice with locally-quarried blue limestone." 

Franklin Ellis's History of Columbia County, published in 1878, generally considered to be an authoritative source, says this about the early history of the First Presbyterian Church and the location of the first church building:

The commencement of the existing records of this church is in the year 1790. There is no doubt that a Presbyterian organization existed in Hudson some time before this, but we find nothing showing its numbers, the date of its formation, or the place where its members met for divine worship.

On the 23d of February, in the year above named, a meeting was held for consultation in reference to the building of a Presbyterian house of worship in Hudson. This meeting is supposed to have convened in the then unfinished city hall, upon the site of the present church [i.e., Warren and Fourth streets]. . . .

At the adjourned meeting above mentioned, Marshall Jenkins, Captain Thomas Frothingham, Nathanial Greene, Russell Kellogg, and Samuel Nichols were made trustees to receive the deed of the lot which had been donated by the generous and public-spirited proprietors, on Second street between Partition and Allen, and they were also constituted a building committee to erect thereupon the church edifice. . . . 

The church, a plain but solid and commodious brick building, large enough to seat five hundred worshipers, was commenced at once, but was not completed until the autumn of 1792; the congregation, in the mean time, continuing to meet in the city building. In this church--the first erected in the city of Hudson--the first sale of pews realized the sum of £1635, almost double the amount of the committee's estimate of the total cost of the church. In speaking of this old church, the Rev. George C. Yeisley, in his discourse delivered July 16, 1876, said, "It was surmounted by a steeple of no inconsiderable height. Those who had the vigor to climb to where its open windows invited the summer breezes, were rewarded by a magnificent view of river and mountain. No edifices cut off the view from its porches to the Hudson, and the hills sloping from its commanding site to the waters of the river were covered with the brightest verdure. The bell that hung in its belfry was for a long time the only bell that called the inhabitants of the city to their morning labors, and announced the coming of the welcome hour of rest. . . . The weather-vane that surmounts the tower, and the broad stone that has been made the threshold of our present church edifice, are the only remains of the structure in which for nearly half a century the fathers of this congregation worshiped God. . . . Yet while the old church on Second street has thus passed away from sight, with so many of the good and worthy that refreshed their souls within its courts, its plain walls and plainer interior, its green blinds and high-backed pews, its elevated pulpit with the huge sounding-board hanging over it, threatening to extinguish the preacher beneath,--all these still hold a place, I am sure, among the cherished memories of many. . . ."

By 1835, Ellis reports, "The congregation had become the largest in the city, and one of the most prominent in the valley of the Hudson." The church building at Partition and Second streets was no longer adequate to accommodate the congregation, and a new church building was constructed at the corner of Warren and Fourth streets. Reported by Ellis to have cost $21,500, the new church building was dedicated on May 24, 1837. The account in Ellis continues: "The old church building was offered at public sale, bought in by the trustees, and by them sold to Rev. William Chester, a former pastor."

Gossips does not know what use Chester made of the building, nor is it known exactly when the building was demolished, although it can be inferred from Yeisley's comments that it was long gone in 1876. For a time in the early 20th century, the lot on which the old church stood was owned and maintained as a formal garden by Mrs. Isaac Newton Collier, who lived in the grand Greek Revival mansion on the other side of Second Street. Today, a vaguely Art Deco style factory building, now virtually unused, occupies the site where the first church built in Hudson once stood. 

More About the Clock

This morning, at the annual meeting of the Friends of the First Presbyterian Church, Mayor William Hallenbeck read a proclamation declaring April 20, 2013, a "day of remembrance" to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Seth Thomas clock that resides in the tower of the First Presbyterian Church. An interesting fact about the clock was revealed. In 1912, the clock that still tolls the hours today cost the City of Hudson $650. According to Ellis, the first city clock, installed in the first Presbyterian meeting house at Partition and Second streets in 1801, cost the City $465.28. There seems not to have been much inflation in that hundred year period. Imagine what replacing the clock would cost today.

The faces of the clock are familiar to all, but few have had the opportunity to see the actual clockworks. Thanks to Dan Region, who took the photographs, and Phil Forman, who shared them with Gossips, we offer a look at the part of the clock that is inside the tower.

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A Concert for an Early Spring Evening

While our attention has been focused on extraordinary events of tragedy and turmoil, spring is happening all around us. Flowering trees are beginning to blossom, trees are leafing out, the yellows of daffodils and forsythia brighten the drab landscape of winter. This moment of tension and contrast between human events and the natural phenomenon of the seasons may be the perfect moment for a concert of the music of Laura Kaminsky.

Kaminsky's original musical compositions are deeply individual responses to the world around her. Social and political themes are a common thread in her work, as is an abiding respect for and connection to the natural world. Her music, which has been described as "innovative," "spare and evocative," "delicate and imaginative," has earned praise from audiences and critics and recognition from the likes of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Koussevitzky Music Foundation.

The concert of Kaminsky's music happens tonight at 8 p.m. at the Hudson Opera House. Tickets are available at the door: $18; $15 for HOH members. 

Before the Day Slips Away

Perry Cooney sent me this picture of a gathering to celebrate our David-and-Goliath victory over St. Lawrence Cement, which took place at the Red Dot on April 19, 2005--the celebration, that is, not the victory. As he reminded me, "It was a Tuesday, but we opened for the occasion."

Besides Sam Pratt, the leader of the David contingent, Gossips spies Sarah Sterling and the back of Moisha Blechman's head. Gossips was there, too, years before assuming her Gossips persona.
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Discussing Economic Development

Although there were several items on the agenda distributed at the Common Council Economic Development Committee on Thursday night, most of the discussion was focused on two topics: trucks and waterfront development, specifically the Dunn warehouse.

On the topic of trucks and the truck route, Common Council president Don Moore, who chairs the committee, began by saying that he wanted to reach some consensus about the goal: Was it partial rerouting or total rerouting? Moore also said that he wanted to keep the discussion of the state truck route through the city separate from the route of gravel trucks traveling between the quarry and the port. The sought-for consensus and segmentation both seemed elusive.

The discussion repeated many things that have been said before in the ongoing conversation about how the truck traffic devalues property, devalues people's lives, and damages the infrastructure. It wound up with Moore lamenting, "We keep getting incomplete information about what our options are." In the discussion, the best idea yet may have come from Alderman John Friedman (Third Ward) who suggested that we lower the speed limit and add lots of bike paths to make the city "so unpleasant that truckers want to avoid it."

Although only the night before, the mayor had talked about "retail development on Water Street," Moore and the members of the committee seem to be moving away from the notion of "full-blown commercial development" along Water Street in favor of developing the former Dunn warehouse for some public purpose and using the remainder of the land along Water Street as park land. Several ideas were mentioned for the historic industrial building--an aquarium; a maritime museum, in conjunction with a winter home for the Half Moon; "something like Catskill has at Catskill Point." Moore spoke of the "culture of Hudson" and made the point that "whatever goes down there should reflect what we want Hudson to be."

When Alderman Ohrine Stewart (Fourth Ward) brought up the fact that the Council had written into the 2013 budget $300,000 in anticipated revenue from the sale of the Dunn warehouse, Moore reminded her that there were two properties that were to bring in that sum: the Dunn warehouse and the vacant lot at State and Fourth streets, currently being used as a parking lot. Friedman observed that "nobody's sniffing around the parking lot," to which Moore replied that the City has not gotten an appraisal on it yet.
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Where Were You When You Heard the News?

Sam Pratt reminds us that it was eight years ago today that the State of New York denied a critical permit to the proposed St. Lawrence Cement Greenport project and effectively brought an end to the plan to build a massive cement plant just outside Hudson. Then New York Secretary of State Randy Daniels said of the proposed plant, "It doesn't meet the standards for what is considered waterfront revitalization."

Photograph by Byrne Fone

Celebrate the City Clock

It may seem odd, given modern-day sensibilities about the separation of church and state, but since 1802, when the church was situated at Second and Partition streets, the city clock--owned and maintained by the City of Hudson--has been located in the tower of the First Presbyterian Church. The following is quoted from a footnote in The History of Columbia County, written by Captain Franklin Ellis and published in 1878:

The city clock was also placed in the tower of this church. In 1801 (August 8) the council resolved "that Mr. Pratt and Reuben Folger be a committee to procure a suitable clock, with three dials, to be placed in the steeple of the Presbyterian meeting-house, and that they be authorized to procure a sum not exceeding $200 on loan for that purpose, to be applied with the sum already subscribed and now in the Bank for that purpose." That committee reported, Oct. 9, 1802, that they had placed the clock in the steeple, agreeably to directions. The cost of clock and dials was $465.28.

The tradition of the city clock in the church tower goes back more than two centuries, but this year--2013--marks the one hundredth anniversary of the Seth Thomas clock that now resides in the tower of the First Presbyterian Church at Warren and Fourth streets. Tomorrow, Saturday, April 20, the Friends of the First Presbyterian Church will be observing the clock's centennial at their annual meeting, which begins at 11 a.m. Mayor William Hallenbeck is expected to be on hand to proclaim the clock's centenary year. There will also be a photo presentation of restoration projects completed during the past year and "an inside perspective on plans and challenges for restoring the Rose Window." The meeting is a great opportunity for people to learn about the efforts being made to preserve this monumental and treasured Hudson building.

Everyone is invited to attend the Friends' annual meeting. The meeting begins at 11 a.m. at the church and is followed by a buffet lunch, provided by The Cascades, in the church narthex. A contribution of $15 is suggested for lunch.
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