A Neighborhood-Altering Proposal

On Friday morning, there was another challenging proposal before the Historic Preservation Commission. The current owners of 39 South Fifth Street are seeking a certificate of appropriateness to install a six-foot high privacy fence around the yard beside the house, where South Fifth Street curves into East Allen Street.

When shown a picture of the type of cedar fence to be used and told it would be painted white, HPC member Peggy Polenberg opined, "Very nice. I like it." Other HPC members, however, were concerned about the height of the fence and how it would block the view of the building and interfere with the sense of openness. 

In the late 19th century, there was a fence around the property, but it was low picket fence, open in its design, which could be seen over and through.

The HPC urged the applicant, who was there representing the owners, to look at other examples in the city where the desired goals of privacy and security were achieved in ways that were "more of an enhancement than a barrier." A wrought iron fence, a picket fence, and a privet hedge were suggested as possible solutions.

The application was determined to be incomplete because it lacked a site plan that showed exactly were the fence would be positioned and an image that showed what the fence would look like in context. The HPC will continue its consideration of the application at its next meeting on Friday, November 22.

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Happening Next Weekend

Next Saturday, November 16, BeLo3rd's ART/DINE Gallery Stroll returns, offering tastings from eight BeLo3rd eateries at seven Belo3rd galleries. Of particular interest is a tribute exhibition, opening that night at BCB ART, of outsider art collected by the late Cynthia Coulter.

A respected artist, Coulter had a passion for collecting unique and unusual outsider art from her native state of Oklahoma, as well as from rural locales in Texas, Illinois, and New York. The exhibition features select pieces from her collection--handmade lamps fashioned from ice cream sticks and marbles, tables made from twigs and spools, colorful paintings and drawings, and polychromed carved wooden animals.

In accordance with the artist's wishes, the proceeds from the sale of these works will be donated to charities dear to her heart, among them the Texas Women's Shelter and the Humane Society of the United States.

Ear to the Ground

Often, unexpected information can be picked up at meetings in City Hall. Yesterday, at the Historic Preservation Commission meeting, a building owner seeking a certificate of appropriateness to replace three ground floor windows revealed that a small record label is moving here from Brooklyn. 

More About the Hudson Upper Depot

John Mason catches up on the story of the threat of demolition to the train station at State and Seventh streets: "Depot in danger of demolition." City historian, Pat Fenoff provided for the article the information that the building was completed in 1871, which makes this depot three years older than the depot that is now the Amtrak Station. Fenoff also provided this historic photograph of the depot.

The depot can also be seen in the background of this historic post card image of the Public Square, a.k.a. Seventh Street Park.

At the Historic Preservation Commission meeting on Friday morning, Mark Schuman of Mountain View Masonry and Landscape Supply presented the application for a certificate of appropriateness to demolish 708 State Street--the former Hudson Upper Station on the Albany & Boston Railroad. As justification for the demolition, Schuman explained that the owner has had the building for ten years, and it is now in need for a lot of work. The owner, Van Kleeck's Tire, is not interested in maintaining the building and wants to demolish it to get "a little more staging area"--in other words, to park trucks there.

Schuman, whose company demolished the Old Brick Tavern at the intersection of Routes 66 and 9H in 2011 and "disassembled" 900 Columbia Street earlier this year, wants to salvage the materials from the depot and resell them. He told the HPC, perhaps in an effort to make what he does sound like historic preservation, "Buildings we take down let other buildings live on." Indeed, bricks from the Old Brick Tavern found their way into the rebuilt brick veneer front wall of 211 Union Street, General Worth's birthplace.

Obviously thinking that it somehow made a difference, Schuman pointed out that the current owner had purchased the building in 2004, two years before the locally designated historic district that includes the building was established.

HPC chair Rick Rector seemed ready to put the application to a vote, informing Schuman, "If we do vote and deny this, you can appeal to the Common Council." Carl Whitbeck, now counsel to the HPC, cautioned against voting immediately. "You don't have any facts," he told the HPC and advised them to "make appropriate findings on which to base your judgment." Whitbeck described the depot as "a structure that is significant in its own right." He recalled that Smith Tire, the previous owner of the property, had received a grant from the federal government in 1980 to rehab the depot and other nearby buildings for commercial use, among them what remained of the Gifford-Wood Foundry.

In the end, the HPC voted unanimously that the application was incomplete. After this decision was made, Craig Haigh, Hudson's newly appointed code enforcement officer, reported a sentiment he had heard expressed, although it wasn't entirely clear by whom, that the owner could just take down the building and suffer the consequences. He defined the consequences as a $250 fine and 10 days in jail and concluded that "the consequences are not onerous enough."

Whitbeck commented that municipalities had to decide to enforce their statutes and suggested that action might be taken in the New York State Supreme Court to prevent demolition or to require people to put something back if it was destroyed without a certificate of appropriateness, intimating that the $250 fine could apply for every day from the time the demolition began to the time the building was returned to the way it had been.
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Post card image courtesy Byrne Fone; photo of Gifford-Wood Foundry from Mirrored Memories, Columbia County Historical Society, 1991.

In Memoriam

William lost another dog friend this week: Quinn. We often encountered Quinn and his human on Warren Street or on Second as they headed toward the river. Quinn loved to swim. William and Quinn were cool toward each other whenever they met. They were guy friends. But hanging out at Bruno's just won't be the same for William without the chance of meeting up with his old bud. Our sympathy to Quinn's human for his profound loss.

Photo credit: Wendy Kenneally

Not to Be Missed

Jamie Larson has an article in Rural Intelligence about Lou Blasingame and Don Friday of Ad Lib Antiques and the very not antique chandeliers, sconces, and lamps that Blasingame, as Lou Blass, is now creating: "Lou Blass and Don Friday of Ad Lib Antiques Take Off into the Future." 

The Fate of the Garden

Last night, it was standing room only at City Hall as Hudson Urban Gardens (HUG) and Habitat for Humanity presented their proposals to the Hudson Community Development & Planning Agency, represented by executive director Sheena Salvino and three of its five board members (Cappy Pierro, Ohrine Stewart, and Don Tillson; Mayor William Hallenbeck and Lyle Shook were absent). John Mason reports on the meeting in today's Register-Star: "Compromise sought in garden dust-up."

Gossips took Salvino at her word when she said, after the presentations and the brief public comment period, that the meeting would move on to other agenda items. Mason didn't and was there to hear Salvino refer to the people in the community who came out to support the garden as an "excited mob," to hear Tillson (chair of the Planning Commission) use the term "mob mentality" at least twice, and to hear Pierro characterize citizens' desire to be involved in the decisions that affect them as "They love to battle." They must have not realized the press was still in the room.

Late in the brief period set aside for public comment, Victor Mendolia questioned how exhaustive the search for alternative building sites had been and mentioned the lot at the corner of Fourth and State streets, which the City has owned since 1994 and which a year ago the Common Council agreed to sell in order to close a gap in the much touted zero increase 2013 budget. Amazingly, as Mason reports, the HCDPA board seems to have glommed on to that as an alternative site for Habitat's single family passive houses--no matter that the site could more appropriately be used for a more substantial building that would provide affordable housing for more than just three or four families.

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History Threatened

The Historic Preservation Commission meets in the morning--Friday, November 8--at 10 a.m. One of the matters before them will be an application for a certificate of appropriateness to demolish 708 State Street--the former train station now owned by Van Kleeck's Tire.

This surely is a building that must not be lost. It was the passenger station for the Hudson and Berkshire Railroad, which opened for travel from Hudson to West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in September 1838. This ad for the line appeared in the Albany Argus for August 12, 1841.

An article that appeared in the Chatham Courier for December 23, 1891, contained this recollection of watching the train leave the station at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

It was an interesting sight to see a train start out of the Hudson upper station to go to West Stockbridge at 3 o'clock. The writer can remember when a small child in 1845 being taken by his father to "see the cars." The locomotive looked rather too formidable and a good distance was maintained as the idea was uppermost that there might be a discharge of steam or something of the kind that might prove fatal. But when the bell began to ring and old Capt. James Bagley, the conductor, mounted to his place on the foot board then it was interesting. One of the things that the writer can perfectly remember was than Benjamin Gates, the prominent New Lebanon Shaker, was one of the passengers.

The Hudson and Berkshire Railroad evolved first into the Hudson and Boston line and then became the Hudson Branch of the Albany & Boston Railroad. In 1959, after more than a century of operation, permission was granted to close the line. The removal of the tracks began in 1960. The tracks that remain today extend only as far as the ADM plant in Greenport. On August 20, 1959, an article in the Chatham Courier, commemorating the first railroad in Hudson, contained this reminiscence from the early years of the 20th century.

In the fall, when leaves turned scarlet there was always "The Vassar Special" bringing carloads of pretty girls en route to their New England homes for the holidays, leaving many a palpitating heart among the young swains who viewed this gay, feminine trainload on its way through the countryside.

By 1910 there were four passenger trains a day running between Chatham and Hudson. Trains moved daily between Hudson Station, Hudson Upper Station on State Street, Claverack, a flag stop at Country Club, Mellenville, Pulver's Station, Ghent and Chatham.

A wooden-legged Civil War veteran, "Font" Osborne of Hudson, bellowed out the stations from his conductor's post, while up front, Jim Armstrong of Hudson, the engineer, knew every lane and cow crossing and sounded a warning blast or tooted at a farmer friend doing his spring plowing at Old Ghent.

"Hudson Station," now the Amtrak Station, was built in 1874 and meticulously restored in 1992. "Hudson Upper Station" is older, possibly dating from the late 1830s, and deserves to be similarly respected and restored. It cannot be allowed to suffer the fate visited upon a building from the same era or earlier in recent months. Fortunately, the train station is in a historic district, and, unlike 900 Columbia Street, its destruction can be prevented.

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What's in Store for the Greenport School

Arthur Cusano reports today in the Register-Star on the plan to turn the former Greenport School into an apartment complex: "Greenport School housing project set for some changes." It seems the developer was told by the Greenport Planning Board that pursuing the original plan would require oversight by the Department of Environmental Conservation. To avoid that, the developer decided to alter the plan.

The developer is JMS Collective, which according to Greenport building inspecter, John Florio, is based in Athens but "owns a number of properties in Hudson." A visit to the JMS Collective website reveals that "a number of properties in Hudson" is actually two: 77 North Fifth Street and 816 Warren Street. From this information, it can be concluded that JMS Collective is also known as JMS Construction Services, Inc.  

77 North Fifth Street

816 Warren Street

A year ago, 816 Warren Street was the subject of several posts on The Gossips of Rivertown. It was the building, in a locally designated historic district, on which work commenced without a certificate of appropriateness from the Historic Preservation Commission or a building permit from the Code Enforcement Office and continued even after a stop work order had been issued by then code enforcement officer Peter Wurster, and for which a certificate of appropriateness was sought after all the work was completed. Rick Rector, chair of the HPC described this flouting of the law "cowboy action." Wurster called for punitive action, expressing this opinion that the project should be fined. City attorney Cheryl Roberts, then counsel to the HPC, said that the decision to pursue and prosecute those who ignore the laws of the City was the purview of the mayor, and apparently William Hallenbeck decided to give 816 Warren Street a pass.
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Important Meeting Tonight

Today--Thursday, November 7--at 6 p.m., there is a meeting of the Hudson Community Development & Planning Agency (HCDPA) at City Hall. At issue is the Hudson Community Garden's desire to remain on land it has tended and developed over the course of twenty years and Habitat for Humanity's plan to acquire the land and build houses on it--a plan that reportedly has been in the works for four years. Gossips reported the issue on Monday; the Register-Star published an article about it on Tuesday.

Also on Tuesday, garden directors Vanessa Baehr and Sarah Falkner issued an open letter to the people of Hudson, outlining the events of the past few months and calling for public participation and transparency in the decision about this property--a decision that impacts a vital neighborhood and community resource: "The garden feels that while Habitat for Humanity may have an overall very benevolent mission, when planning for 4 years to develop on the land the community garden has occupied for 20 years, they did not show due diligence in contacting the garden leadership to discuss the potential impact of their plans, nor assess how many people would be affected."

In a letter to the community issued late on Wednesday, Sheena Salvino, executive director for HCDPA, responds to the letter from Baehr and Falkner, offering her account of what has transpired in recent months. Salvino's letter concludes: "It is my belief, sincere hope and goal to come to a solution that satisfies, if not exceeds, the expectations of both organizations and the community we serve. I have little doubt that we have the capacity to do this together." (Elsewhere in the letter, Salvino describes herself as "an unflappable optimist.")

Read both letters--the one from Baehr and Falkner, and the one from Salvino--and plan to attend the HDCPA meeting tonight at 6 p.m. at City Hall.

In Case You Missed It

Food writer and cookbook author Susan Simon, in her weekly column Food for Thought, wrote most recently about food and film: "Good food and a good movie." The column features Susan Schultz, the chef and caterer whose offerings were the culinary stars of two recent movie-related fundraising events to benefit Fairview Cinema 3: the premiere of Fighting for Freedom and the screening at Basilica Hudson of the film noir classic Odds Against Tomorrow. Simon's column appears in the Register-Star on Fridays.

Photo credit: Helen Arrott  

The Morning After

Right now, on WGXC, Victor Mendolia, who was unsuccessful yesterday in his bid to win the mayor's race in Hudson, is back on his show @Issue, with the show's stand-in host Tom DePietro, interviewing three candidates who did win: Alexis Keith, newly elected Fourth Ward alderman; Heather Campbell, newly elected city treasurer; Tiffany Garriga, newly elected Second Ward alderman. DePietro will also be talking with Mendolia about the campaign now behind him. Listen on 90.7 FM or online at wgxc.org.

Another Opportunity to Help Fairview Cinema 3

In the past two months, Gossips has promoted two events to benefit Fairview Cinema 3: in September, the premiere of Fighting for Freedom, and in October, a screening of the 1959 film noir classic Odds Against Tomorrow. In both cases, the response was amazing, and the events were wonderfully successful. So far more than $10,000 has been raised to buy the digital equipment needed to keep Fairview Cinema 3 from going dark. But this equipment is staggeringly expensive, and there's still a long way to go.


Now there's a way to help save our local hometown movie theater (across the border in Greenport) without leaving your home or even getting up from your computer. Last month, Kristen Decker launched a gofundme campaign with the goal of raising $15,000 to help buy digital projectors for Fairview Cinema 3. Decker says in her appeal statement: "This movie theater has been a part of the community for as long as I can remember. . . . I am not begging anyone or asking for large amounts but even if I gave everything that I had, it wouldn't be enough. So I figured that I would just put it out there for anyone else to donate a little. I am sure everyone in the community has some type of memory here!" That's the essence of crowd sourcing and quintessence of community.

To help the campaign reach its goal and help Fairview Cinema 3 survive, click here.

Getting Ready for Tomorrow--Election Day

Can you explain each of the six proposals that will be on the ballot tomorrow? Have you decided on which proposals you will vote yes and on which you'll vote no? If not, you may want to review last week's "Election Prep." You may also want to take a look at the sample ballot for your ward (or your town, if you're not a Hudsonian). They are all posted on the Columbia County Board of Elections website and can be accessed by clicking here.

Tension in the Garden

The Hudson Community Garden, at the corner of Columbia and Second streets, has been around for twenty years. The land used for the garden belongs to Hudson Community Development & Planning Agency (HCDPA), and over the two decades of the garden's existence, there have been a few times when its future seemed less than secure. Now there's a new threat to the garden's continued existence from an unexpected quarter: Habitat for Humanity.

Despite its name, which suggests a broader scope, Columbia County Habitat for Humanity has for the past decade focused on building new houses in Hudson—five on Mill Street and six so far on Columbia Street, two in the 400 block and four in the 200 block. Now it seems that Habitat wants to build four or five more of their passive solar houses on the land that is now the community garden.

Awkward as it may seem to oppose the altruistic efforts of Habitat, the members of the Hudson Community Garden have launched an urgent campaign to save the garden. In an informational letter received by Gossips yesterday, garden directors Vanessa Baehr and Sarah Faulkner make the case for the garden:

For 20 years, the Hudson Community Garden has provided its members, the general public and the city of Hudson with a modest but meaningful place to practice and achieve both food justice and urban environmental sustainability. Each year, up to 40 families and individuals depend on the garden for serious food production--often for a significant portion of their diet. Many of the Bangladeshi community grow vegetables they cannot even purchase in a store in the area.

In the past two years, with a new small but focused and energetic volunteer Board that was consistently active through the 2011-12 & 2012-13 seasons, the Garden has seen many rapid improvements, including newly designed and better maintained common spaces and communal beds, overall improved infrastructure, as well as new programs such as public composting and both youth and adult educational, arts and culture programs for the public. In 2013, the Board crafted a new mission and vision statement for the future that further expands all these programs to serve an even broader audience. The Garden consistently has a waiting list for plots beyond its 40-family capacity, and the community feels it would benefit from expanding to include other green spaces as satellite gardens.

But amidst all this progress, we now have learned that Habitat for Humanity would like to purchase the city lots the Garden occupies, which the city has leased to us on an annual basis for 20 years.

While we feel Habitat's overall mission is also very worthy, we feel that destroying the existing Garden to make way for Habitat's new development would be a total waste of resources as well as a shameful punishment of all the people who have contributed 20 years of sweat equity, hard-earned resources and community spirit in order to build this amazing resource.

. . . An organic garden is a delicate ecosystem that cannot be easily replaced or moved, and to replicate it elsewhere--even if a suitable site could be found--would require a great amount of money and labor.

Garden supporters have created a petition, appealing to HCDPA to preserve the garden. If you agree that the Hudson Community garden is "vitally important and . . . should stay exactly where it is," click here to show your support and sign the petition.

More About the Bygone House

Yesterday I returned to the Hudson Area Library to see if I could locate the house that was 217 Union Street on the 1881 aerial drawing of the city found in the History Room, and I did. Unfortunately, although the drawing is extraordinary in that it includes every building in Hudson in 1881, it doesn't represent the buildings in very accurate detail and it shows the house at 217 Union from the back. 

The above detail from that aerial drawing shows the western end of the 200 blocks of Allen, Partition, and Union streets, viewed from the south. In the foreground are the backs of the houses on the south side of Allen Street. The house that appears at almost the center of the image is 221 Union Street, and 217 Union is to the left. The detail below hones in on 217 Union Street.

Gail Grandinetti, who lived on the 200 block of Union Street for most of her life, told Gossips that when she was growing up, 217 Union Street was divided into four apartments occupied by four families. The building at the back of the lot, facing Partition Street, was also a residence. She recalled that the side and back yards of the house were filled with lilac bushes.

Tom D'Onofrio, who grew up in the 200 block of Warren Street, recalled that the front of 217 Union Street was covered with asphalt brick siding, popular in the 1950s. Both he and Grandinetti thought that it might have been Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church that bought the houses in the 1960s and demolished them, possibly to create a parking lot for the church. 

Related to these recollections, an anonymous commenter on Gossips a while back provided the information that the barns where the horses of guests at the General Worth House were stabled, which were across the street from 217 Union, evolved into or were replaced by garages. According that source, those garages were purchased by the church and demolished to create a parking lot. That source couldn't recall how the lot on the south side of the street had come to be vacant.

At some point, Mt. Carmel Church also purchased an early Federal house that stood next to the church and demolished it to build a rectory. The church building itself, constructed in 1928, replaced a house that in 1867 belonged to Sherman Van Ness. It was one of the houses mentioned in an article that appeared in the Evening Register entitled "Private Residences":  "This house is considered very desirable, as it has the appearance of a very stylish and aristocratic mansion."   
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Dark Afternoons Ahead

Tonight is the night we "fall back." In exchange for an extra hour's sleep tonight, we must endure weeks of darkness falling while it's still afternoon. Why, oh why can't Daylight Saving Time last all year long?

The State of Historic Preservation

Ward Hamilton, principal of Olde Mohawk, historic preservation contractor and consultant whose projects in Hudson include the C. H. Evans Mansion (416 Warren Street) and "Apartments of Distinction" (501 Union Street), has a new post on his blog, Preservation in Action, that deals with adaptive reuse, the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation, and historic preservation tax credits: "Putting Preservation Back in Historic Preservation Tax Credits." It's a very interesting if somewhat troubling read.

Work Begins on the Linear Park

In recent days, Gossips has noticed that work has begun on the linear park being developed as a gift to the city by the PARC Foundation. 

From State Street, looking south

From Columbia Street, looking north

When completed, the linear park will be a swath of green connecting the PARC Park on Warren Street, across from the Hudson Opera House, which was created by the PARC Foundation in 2007, with State Street.

The plan for the linear park between Columbia and State streets

Pursuing the Past

Gossips' search to discover what once stood on the vacant lot that is to be the site of the "reassembled" 900 Columbia Street began on Wednesday with the Beers Atlas maps in the History Room at the Hudson Area Library. It continued yesterday with the remarkable collection of historic New York State newspapers archived at FultonHistory.com.

The atlas maps for 1873 and 1888 show a house facing Union Street and a second building at the back of the lot, facing Partition Street. Both belonged to Thomas Tilley, partner in the clothing store Tilley & Aldcrofft.

In the summer of 1917, the property was for sale, and this ad, which appeared in Hudson Register for August 17, provides some details about the house.

According to census records, by 1900, Thomas Tilley no longer lived at 217 Union Street. In 1900, Tilley, who was then 76, lived at 541 Union Street, with his wife, Hannah, their daughter and son-in-law, Mary and George W. Harris, their son Carleton, a boarder named Sylvia McCord, and a servant named Florence White. 

It seems, however, from the evidence at hand, that up until it was offered for sale in 1917, 217 Union Street was still owned by Tilley or his heirs. In March 1916, the house was offered to let, and interested parties were asked to "inquire at Tilley & Aldcrofft's Store."

References to 217 Union Street appeared in the Hudson Register fairly often, most often in the classified ad section when various parts of the house were rented out. In August 1910, an ad appeared that read: "TO RENT--Furnished front room, with use of bath for gentleman 217 Union street." The following notice appeared in December 1915 and a similar one in March 1917: "Two rooms, heated and lighted, bath adjoining, suitable for light housekeeping or rooming. Inquire 217 Union street."

But 217 Union Street is mentioned in the newspaper in other contexts as well. On October 19, 1902, it was reported that "Mrs. Edwin Kelly, of 217 Union street, fell off her front porch and broke her wrist." On February 11, 1914, the death notice for Sally Ann Proper appeared in the Hudson Register, with this information: "Funeral from the residence of her son-in-law, John Klemmer, 217 Union street, on Friday afternoon at 2 o'clock." On October 20, 1916, the Hudson Register published this account of a reception for a new bride that took place at 217 Union Street.

In the 1940s, Mr. and Mrs. Cecil Coons lived at 217 Union Street. From the Hudson Evening Register we learn that they had a son, Charles William, who was born on February 6, 1940, at 217 Union Street, and a daughter, born in February 1944 at Hudson City Hospital.

In 1940, there was also a mason named Hester who lived at 217 Union Street and advertised his services in the Evening Register.

The newspaper provides evidence that the house was still there in 1965. In July 1965, there was a report that Raymond Smith, 22, of 217 Union Street, had been injured in a car crash. 

The search isn't over. Gossips still wants to find out what happened to 217 Union Street and is curious to know what the house looked like. 
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Of Interest

The Register-Star reports today that Flag Day 2014 will not be the extravaganza we have come to expect--at least not the parade: "Flag Day Parade to be scaled way back." Because of lack of funds, there will be no Caballeros, no Clydesdales, no military flyovers, no fireworks, but we can probably still count on the Rock Solid Church to have a major presence.

Highlights from Girlgantua's Drag Race

Despite the gloom and drizzling rain, the first ever Girlgantua's Drag Race, to benefit the Hudson Moose Lodge, took place as scheduled on Halloween night. Only in Hudson.

The winner, being crowned in this picture, circled the square in 1 minute and 5 seconds . . . or was it 1 minute and 9 seconds?

For details of the event, see Arthur Cusano's report in the Register-Star: "Drag race sprints for good cause."

In Case You Missed It

Tom DePietro's interview with incumbent mayor William Hallenbeck on WGXC, which took place on October 31, has been archived and can be heard here.

DePietro's interview with Democratic mayoral candidate Victor Mendolia, which took place on September 18, 2013, can be heard here.