The 1,500 Square Feet Conundrum

Back in August 2013, Per Blomquist went before the Planning Commission seeking site plan approval for a new building he was hoping to construct at 248-250 Columbia Street, on the footprint of two existing houses that he intended to demolish. Blomquist's plans came a cropper when Cheryl Roberts, then counsel to the Planning Commission, consulted the Schedule of Bulk and Area Regulations for Residential Districts and declared that each unit in a multiple dwelling had to be a minimum of 1,500 square feet. The apartments Blomquist was proposing would only be about 750 square feet. Although other lawyers and architects familiar with bulk and area requirements disagreed with Roberts' interpretation, maintaining that the 1,500 square foot requirement per dwelling unit had to do with lot size not the interior space, Roberts' reading of the bulk and area chart carried the day. When Blomquist went before the Zoning Board of Appeals seeking an area variance to construct a new building containing five one-bedroom apartments, his request was denied. 

John Friedman, lawyer, Third Ward alderman, and chair of the Legal Committee, concurred with Roberts and decided that the bulk and area regulations had to be changed. He convened a zoning workshop, made up of Roberts, members of the Common Council Legal Committee, and others, to amend the regulations. Two zoning workshops took place at the end of February, during which consensus was reached about minimum apartment size (500 square feet), minimum lot size (3,000 square feet), and conforming setbacks, but no amendments were proposed to the Council. The group decided to do more than just make the immediate and obvious adjustments but foundered when it came to setback requirements for accessory buildings. A meeting scheduled for March 21 was postponed for a month and scheduled for April 25.

The experience of Wednesday night's Planning Board meeting clearly made Council president Don Moore, the only person present who had participated in the zoning workshops, wish the Legal Committee and the Council had taken some immediate action.

The specter of the 1,500 square foot rule emerged first when Brenda Adams was presenting Habitat for Humanity's application to subdivide 208 Columbia Street into two building lots of equal size. Habitat plans to build two of their passive houses on the site, and Adams assured the Planning Board that they would meet all the setback requirements set forth in the Schedule of Bulk and Area Regulations. But would they be 1,500 square feet? The answer, although she didn't offer it, was no.

The houses that Habitat has already built farther up on this block of Columbia Street are only 1,200 square feet, and the ones now being proposed are to be exactly the same. When it was pointed out that the 1,500 square foot minimum per dwelling unit applied only to multiple dwellings not to single-family homes, code enforcement officer Craig Haigh insisted that it applied to single-family homes as well. (He later acknowledged that he was mistaken in this.) 

Planning Board chair Don Tillson asked Adams to provide drawings of the property that showed the proposed houses superimposed on the lot, so that the Planning Board can make sure that they conform with the zoning requirements at the board's May meeting.
       

The first proposal to run seriously afoul of the 1,500 square foot rule was 742 Warren Street. There are currently two apartments in the building--one on the second floor, the other on the third floor. The plan is to divide each apartment in two to create four apartments. What was proposed were interior renovations involving no change of use, so it wasn't entirely clear why the project required site plan review, unless it simply had to do with the impacts of increasing the number of apartments, but Planning Board member Cappy Pierro raised the 1,500 square foot issue. "Does that kick in that apartment size thing?" he asked, and indeed it did.

The apartments, which are each now an entire floor of the building and meet the 1,500 square foot requirement, will be reduced to about 750 square feet each. But, it was pointed out, this building is in the Central Commercial District, and the Schedule of Bulk and Area Regulations is for residential districts. No matter. According to Haigh, all R-4 requirements need to be met in the Central Commercial District. Even though Lew Kremer, the architect for the project, weakly protested that "Craig had looked at these [plans] many times," Planning Board counsel Daniel Tuczinski advised that the project needed a use variance, presumably because of the increased number of apartments, and an area variance, because of the decrease in the size. The applicant was referred to the Zoning Board of Appeals.

Next up was Joe Catalano, attorney for the Galvan Foundation, with two Galvan projects, the first being 202-204 Warren Street. A few weeks ago, Gossips reported a rumor that this building was to be developed as some kind of subsidized, low-income housing, but based on the information provided by Catalano on Wednesday night, that seems not to be the case. As Catalano explained, the building--which is really two attached buildings--was originally designed to have six apartments, one on each floor of each building. As the plans for the building are now, the apartments on the second and third floors would remain as full floor apartments. The apartments on the first floor would become live/work spaces, with the front half having some nonresidential use--retail or office space--and the back half being living space.

Even though all the contemplated uses are permitted uses, the proposed live/work apartments constitute a change of use, which triggers review, and guess what? The original, full floor, turn-of-the century apartments are not 1,500 square feet each, and the dwelling units proposed for the first floor will be no where near 1,500 square feet, so this project, too, was referred to the ZBA for an area variance.

The last project presented on Wednesday night was Galvan Quarters, at State and Seventh streets. Originally, the apartments proposed for the old Hudson orphanage were described as "transitional housing"--part of the county's three tier scheme to address homelessness. Now they are being called "affordable." As Catalano explained it, "They're going to be market price, but because of the size, they will be 'entry level.'" The size for these apartments, which Catalano called "efficiency apartments" but could also be called "studio apartments," is between 300 and 400 square feet--smaller than the 500 square foot minimum the Common Council has been contemplating.

When Catalano first presented this plan to the Planning Commission in January, he made the assumption that the building was exempt from the 1,500 square foot minimum because it was in the General Commercial Transitional District, and it is the "Schedule of Bulk and Area Regulations for Residential Districts." Haigh's declaration that all R-4 requirements need to be met in commercial districts succeeded in sending this proposal to the ZBA for an area variance.

Witnessing the series of proposals to create much needed new rental apartments being sent to the ZBA, which in November denied an area variance to the proposal for 248-250 Columbia Street because they felt that 50 percent less than the required minimum was too great a variance, Moore avowed that the Council needed to "move on the reduction of the minimum apartment size at the next Council meeting." He later stated that the amendment could be accomplished at the Council's May meeting.

Meanwhile, the ZBA, to which three projects, representing a potential eighteen apartments Hudson didn't have before, meets next Wednesday, April 16, at 6:30 p.m.
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Back to 1965: The Hospital Neighborhood

We return today to the assessment of neighborhoods found in the 1965 Comprehensive Development Plan. Next up is the neighborhood ranked third best by the consultants who did the study almost fifty years ago: the Hospital Neighborhood.

This neighborhood contains some expected parts of the city--Prospect and Worth avenues, Rossman Avenue, Green Street, Columbia and Warren streets beyond Eighth Street--and some unexpected parts--Union Street above Seventh Street and everything south of Union Street from Seventh Street down to East Court Street.

The Hospital Neighborhood

While the population of the Hospital neighborhood is similar to that of the High School neighborhood, the character of the neighborhood differs.

Four-fifths of the structures are residential. Of the rest, most are commercial or mixed residential and non-residential. The neighborhood is largely bounded by open land uses, cemeteries and the New York State Training School for Girls, and contains the Hospital, nursing homes, numerous churches but no schools. The only park facilities are Academy Playground and the Little League Field.

The neighborhood contains 671 housing units, almost all of which are in one and two-family houses. Three-quarters are in standard condition.

The areas of blight or incipient structural blight are concentrated in a few blocks bordering the Downtown neighborhood. The most adverse environmental conditions were also located here. The Development Plan calls for a major new road to be located here. Rehabilitation should be accomplished in conjunction with this new construction.

The picture below shows the remnants of the "Academy Playground." The Little League Field still exists on Hudson Street, owned now by the Galvan Initiatives Foundation.

The most provocative detail in the description of the Hospital Neighborhood is the mention of "a major new road to be located here." This is what that's about. 

The Comprehensive Development Plan included a traffic study. Preeminent among the findings of the study was this: "The major street system of Hudson requires simplified access to the central business district and improved connections between major roads." The first of a series of proposals meant to simplify access and improve connections was this:

Route 9, entering Hudson from the south:

A by-pass is proposed, starting approximately at the juncture of the southern boundary line of the City and Worth Avenue and cutting diagonally across the property of the New York State Training School for Girls and then north to Columbia Street, meeting it at the small triangle known as Rogers Park. This new Route 9 would be west of Eighth Street and east of Varick Street. While it is preferable to have this Route 9 by-pass built in its entirety, the segment of the by-pass that connects Rogers Park and Union Street should be given slightly higher priority than the section cutting across the grounds of the Training School, as this northern portion is essential to the entire circulation plan for the City. . . .

At the time of the construction of the Route 9 by-pass, Varick Street would be closed, and a parking lot created between the new by-pass and the rear of the buildings fronting on Park Place. Worth Avenue would become a local street; if the Training School released their property, both sides could be used for residential purposes. Where the new by-pass meets Columbia and Green Streets, several street closings (Varick and State Streets, and Long Alley), a new one-way traffic pattern, and traffic islands would simplify traffic movements.

Below is the map that accompanied this proposal, showing the details of the intersection around Rogers Park, the little triangle where Hudson's "Olympic torch" is enshrined.

The planners were hoping that the State of New York would make the proposed improvements "as part of its arterial program." The document goes on to explain, "Under this program, the State pays 100% of both the right-of-way and construction costs." Obviously, what was proposed didn't come to fruition, for whatever reason. We somehow lost Varick Street anyway, but let's consider (thankfully) what we might have lost but didn't.

"New Route 9" would have cut across the grounds of the Dr. Oliver Bronson House, which there is good reason to believe is the work of early landscape designer Andrew Jackson Downing. If it survived at all, the Dr. Oliver Bronson House, now a National Historic Landmark, would be tucked behind a highway lined with late '60s–early '70s ranch houses--a fate not unlike that of the Joab Center House in Greenport. As the "new Route 9" made its way toward Rogers Park, it would have taken out several little Arts and Crafts houses on the south side of Union Street and most certainly the buildings on the north side of Warren Street where Crimson Sparrow and Bonfiglio & Bread are located, as well as the building where Vasilow's is located on Columbia Street.

Thank goodness not everything proposed happens.
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Airport Outcome

Sam Pratt reports it: "Porreca Plan for Airport Passes." Gossips was at the Hudson Planning Commission/Board meeting. More on that in the morning. 

Of Interest and Importance

Pat Bradley reported on WAMC earlier today about crude oil being shipped through the region--through the Adirondack Park as well as along the west bank of the Hudson River: "Environmental Groups Raising Alarms Over Rail Transport of Crude Oil Through Adirondacks and Hudson."

Supervisors Expected to Vote on Airport Tonight

After months of extensive and transparent examination, discussion, and deliberation, the Airport Committee, chaired by Ancram supervisor Art Bassin, is expected to bring its recommendation for meeting FAA runway safety zone requirements before the full Board of Supervisors tonight for a vote. Earlier this week, Bassin distributed a chronology of the events in the evolution of the Columbia County Airport, from its creation in 1966 until today, when the Airport Committee poised to recommend pursuing the solution known as the "Porreca Plan."

New Lebanon supervisor Mike Benson remains opposed to the Porreca Plan and is expected to present his latest argument against it at the Airport Committee meeting this afternoon. Meanwhile, this morning, Bassin distributed a list of the "top ten reasons" to support the Porreca Plan. (NOTE: RSA = runway safety area)

1) Meets FAA RSA guidelines, using approved FAA technique of declared distances

2) Can be done on County land, eliminating unpredictable negotiating risks and delays 

3) Adds 450 feet to the runway, giving us 5800 feet

4) Is more jet friendly and preferred by pilots at 5800 feet than at 5350 feet

5) Neighbors prefer

6) Town of Ghent prefers

7) Leaves golf course and Meadowgreens undisturbed in private hands, with no tax losses to County, Schools and Town

8) Has broad BOS and public support based on open public process

9) Well researched and fact based solution to the RSA problem, driven by public policy considerations, not by land acquisition motivation

10) Costs less 

The Airport Committee meets at 5 p.m. in the Committee Room at 401 State Street. The Board of Supervisors meets at 7:30 p.m. in the main meeting room at 401 State Street.

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Whatever Floats Your Boat

There is a new project starting up today, bringing together the folks from the Hudson Sloop Club and sixth graders at the Hudson Intermediate School. In nine sessions, between now and the end of the school year, Nick Zachos, Sam Merrit, and Ed Csukas from the Hudson Sloop Club will help a group of sixth-grade students build a traditional wooden boat. In the process of building the boat and developing carpentry and construction skills, the students will learn about the history and culture of the Hudson River Valley--from the Native Americans who first set out in dugout canoes, through Hudson's rich history as a whaling center and maritime port, to the modern uses of the river. Embedded in the boat-building process, too, are natural lessons in geometry, physics, chemistry, and ecology.

The class begins today during the students' lunch period and continues during the afterschool program. The finished boat will be launched on Underhill Pond, just a stone's throw from the Intermediate School.

The Hudson Sloop Club is a community-based boat club dedicated to reintegrating the Hudson River into daily life through education, access, and environmental stewardship. The boat-building project is the beginning of learning program for schoolchildren undertaken by the Hudson Sloop Club in conjunction with Hudson Reads and the Hudson Bluehawk Nation Afterschool Program. 

Endangered Building in Hudson's East End

This notice was posted recently on 723 Warren Street, which was once upon a time the Park Theater.

Curious to know the circumstances and the nature of the building's problem, Gossips called code enforcement officer Craig Haigh and was told that "half the foundation" has caved in, the whole building is leaning, and it is being propped up with hydraulic supports. Haigh has issued an order to remedy and is now waiting for an engineer's report and a plan from the owner outlining how the building will be repaired. In Haigh's opinion, although the building is structurally compromised, it can be fixed and stabilized.

    
The building is in the locally designated Warren Street Historic District so it is hoped that the Historic Preservation Commission will be paying close attention, as will Gossips, to what happens with this building.
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Learn About the Vision

As part of its effort to raise $10,000 to fund a feasilibity study, Hudson Praxis has created a video that explores Hudson's past and articulates the vision for a center on the waterfront that celebrates history, nature, and art . . . and includes many familiar faces of Hudsonians of all ages. Click here to watch. Click here to support the effort.

A Better Way to Collect Parking Fines

Cities near and far that take themselves seriously as tourist destinations have done away with parking meters, examples being Rhinebeck, Millerton, Great Barrington, Saratoga Springs, and the city where Gossips was born and raised, Holland, Michigan (thanks to Sam Pratt for his part in generating this list), but here in Hudson we're looking to professionalize the way we collect fines and visit retribution upon scofflaws.

At Monday night's informal Common Council meeting, HPD Chief Ed Moore announced the plan to organize the parking bureau into "something that has more standards," by turning the revenue management over to Complus Data Innovations, Inc., thus eliminating the police department's involvement in collecting parking fines and pursuing payment. Moore prefaced his announcement by saying that the City's annual revenue from parking meters is a quarter of a million dollars and an equal amount is taken in from parking fines, but, he pointed out, another "$500,000 goes uncollected, and the figure is getting larger every year."

To the chagrin of Hudson residents who have been browbeaten into paying their parking fines by the threat (or actuality) of hefty penalties, getting their cars booted or towed, or even, as it was in the bad old days, being arrested, handcuffed, and hauled off to court, Moore revealed that, for some, presumably nonresidents, "after the initial letter, it pretty much goes into the wind." The good news for all is that, instead of hoping to experience, in a timely fashion, the confluence of remembering you have a ticket, having the correct amount of money in your pocket ($8 for an expired meter) or your checkbook in hand, and finding a place to park near the police station, with the new system, you will be able to pay your parking fine online using a credit card or maybe even PayPal. You can also go online to "manage" your parking tickets--to confirm that you've paid your fine or find out if you have a ticket that's soon to be overdue.

Complus will also "go after out-of-state scofflaws" and help clear up the half million dollar backlog of unpaid parking fines. Another advantage: Complus provides all the equipment, which is especially significant since the City's scanning devices, introduced five or so years ago, are "breaking down." Complus will also help the City develop a uniform policy for adjudicating protested parking tickets. They will do all this for 13½ percent of the total revenue, which, if the total revenue is a half million dollars, works out to $67,500. We're told forty-seven cities, both large and small, already use their services, among them Albany, Lake George, Poughkeepsie, and Middletown.
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Following Up with the Half Moon

It seems the news that the Half Moon was going to make its permanent home in Troy was greatly exaggerated. Reliable sources indicate that there are no such plans. The basis for the idea may have been that a couple of years ago the City of Troy received a grant from Hudson River Valley Greenway to have the Half Moon moored on its waterfront for a while during the summer. Gossips' highly reliable sources indicate that the Half Moon is still without a permanent home or any firm plans for acquiring one.
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Photograph of the Half Moon borrowed from Riverkeeper

Back to 1965: The Oakdale Neighborhood

On Saturday, Gossips began recounting the analyses of Hudson neighborhoods contained in the 1965 Comprehensive Development Plan. As noted then, the study focused on the condition and uses of the buildings. The City of Hudson adopted its zoning in 1968, no doubt informed by the assessments and recommendations of this document. Following the qualitative order of the neighborhoods in the Comprehensive Development Plan--from best to worst--the next neighborhood is the Oakdale Neighborhood.

The Oakdale Neighborhood

The Oakdale (or Oakdale-Underhill) neighborhood is directly south of the High School neighborhood, but of different character. One and two-family homes, well-spaced on moderately-sized lots, are within easy walking distance of schools and recreation, shops and employment. Many of the old Hudson families still live here.

The neighborhood is predominantly residential, although containing a number of commercial and industrial uses particularly along Sixth Street.

Within this neighborhood there were 528 housing units. The low vacancy ratio (3.2%) attested to the desirability of the neighborhood. However, only forty percent of the housing units were in standard condition, one-quarter were in intermediate condition, and one-third were substandard. Structural conditions were worst bordering Columbia Street and the Boston and Albany Railroad and some of the blocks are so badly blighted as to require clearance and redevelopment. Others can be improved to standard condition through rehabilitation and conservation.

Most of the northern part of the neighborhood is in good condition. Vigorous code enforcement is suggested (after adoption of housing and building codes) for most of the area, with spots of incipient blight corrected by rehabilitation and conservation.

Oakdale Recreation Area, the largest, best-equipped, and most used park in the City, is largely within this neighborhood. The athletic fields of the John L. Edwards Elementary School are more conveniently located for Oakdale residents than those of North Bay. In addition, Oakdale contains the inadequate and little-used Junior High playground.

The "inadequate and little-used Junior High playground" must have been behind 401 State Street, what is now used as a parking lot. Built in 1913-1914 as the high school, 401 State Street became the junior high school after the new high school--the Colonial Revival school building on Harry Howard Avenue--was built in the 1930s.

The Oakdale Neighborhood c. 2012--Courtesy Bing Maps

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The Women of the House of Refuge

Today we return to Mary A. Worswick's article about the House of Refuge, which appeared in the New York Press in August 1890, to learn the stories of more of the young women incarcerated there.

A good home and a good husband, Annie T—, aged 19 years, had no excuse for her downfall. After a year and a half of married life she separated from her husband, led astray by a divorced man. Finally she sank lower and was convicted of disorderly conduct.

After the death of her two children Martha S— became intemperate. She is 24 years old and married to a man of 60.

Ella D—, a white woman, was 25 years old and living with a colored man when arrested for petit larceny and sent here.

An unhappy home—father and mother separated and mother living with another man. A life of hardship. Has earned her living since she was 10 years old. Since that age has had no schooling. Those are the causes that led to the downfall of seventeen-year-old Lizzie C—.

Born in Pennsylvania and graduated from a common school in that State, Clara H—, a pale, delicate looking woman of 25 worked as a saleswoman. She became a victim of the morphine habit and finally drifted to the Western part of this State, from where she was committed as a vagrant.

One poor girl, Hattie S—, was the only support of a widowed mother in feeble health and great poverty. She is quiet and sad faced and cries for her mother when alone, the matrons say. Was four days in jail for striking a man, six months in the House of Shelter in Albany and sent here for vagrancy.

"It was the only way I could support myself and my mother," said Mary C—, a Canadian, 26 years old, who was committed for keeping a disorderly house. She had worked in factories and as a nurse girl.

Katie S—, 19 years old, has been on Randall's Island and in the Protectorate at Westchester, and was sent here for vagrancy. Her mother is dead and her father drives an ash cart.

Sixteen-year-old Jenny A— is a country girl who ran away from home and went to the city. Her mother sent her here. She has a stepfather.

Married at 16 to a drunkard, separated from her husband, the mother of two children, both cared for by charity; sixty days in the Rochester workhouse, committed here for intoxication, a physical wreck. That is the summary of the sad history of Lillian S—, 27 years of age.

Ellen McK— and Maggie C— are two Irish girls, 16 years old, who were together committed here after having escaped from the House of the Good Shepherd in Troy. Only 16, yet Ellen is in broken health and Maggie has been pronounced incurably diseased by physicians. Ellen was brought up by her godmother, Maggie's mother is dead, and both went to the bad when very young.

Got drunk on the day she was to have been married. Committed to the Refuge, aged 18. That is the record of Florence M—, a gentle faced girl who is the mother of a child now in the Babies' Nursery at Albany.

A victim of the morphine habit, Lizzie McM—, aged 23, was committed, convicted of prostitution. Her mother is in the penitentiary.

There is still more of Mary A. Worswick's account of her visit to the House of Refuge for Women, but we will save it for another day.

Dissing the Dishes

Chapter 169-5 of the city code requires that a certificate of appropriateness be obtained before installing a satellite dish in a historic district. The idea is that the satellite dish be positioned someplace where it cannot be seen from the street. If not the least known part of the historic preservation law, this is certainly the most widely ignored. In recent days, 534 Warren Street—smack-dab in the middle of the locally designated Warren Street Historic District—sprouted three new satellite dishes on the roof, fully visible above the cornice, to go along with the one already on the facade of the building.

     
If it is impossible to make the owners of buildings in historic districts aware that, if they want to install a satellite dish, they need a certificate of appropriateness from the Historic Preservation Commission, perhaps the City should inform the satellite TV providers—Dish and DirectTV—of the law.
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Signs of Spring

William and I took a nice walk in the sunshine this morning, searching for signs of spring, and we were rewarded by sprouting bulbs, budding lilacs, hellebores, daffodils in bud, and crocuses. After a brutal winter that lingered too long, it seems that spring is finally here. 

Footbridge Update

Responding to Gossips' inquiry, DPW superintendent Rob Perry explained why the pedestrian bridge over the railroad tracks has been cordoned off: "The repairs that CSX made a few years ago are exhibiting multiple failures. We brought it to the attention of Amtrak and taped it off."

You Can't Get There from Here . . . Not on Foot

Gossips has received word that the pedestrian bridge adjacent to the Ferry Street Bridge has been cordoned off. There is no word at present about whether this action was caused by a specific incident or just general concern for public safety, nor do we know anything about plans to repair the pedestrian walkway.

Photo contributed

Back to 1965

We understand the present from studying the past. This is why Gossips is finding Hudson's 1965 Comprehensive Development Plan such a fascinating document. It reveals how the city perceived itself and was, in turn, perceived by planning consultants in 1965. That knowledge helps us understand some of the tensions that exist today.

The Comprehensive Development Plan of 1965 divided the city into six neighborhoods: "Downtown," essentially Warren Street from Third Street to Eighth Street; "South Bay," everything south of Warren Street from the river to East Court Street, including the area that was known as Simpsonville; "North Bay, everything north of Warren Street from the river to North Fourth Street; "Oakdale," the area north of Columbia Street and east of North Fourth Street, including Carroll, Clinton, Washington, and Prospect streets; "Hospital," made up of Worth and Prospect avenues, Green Street and Columbia Street beyond Eighth Street, Rossman Avenue, Columbia Turnpike, as well as East Allen Street and Partition Street above East Court Street; "High School," comprising the Boulevards, Paddock Place, Riverledge Road, Michael Court, and Joslen Place.

The map of the neighborhoods included in the Comprehensive Development Plan is primarily meant to chart what was determined to be the Structural Conditions of buildings in Hudson, marking the "Level of Substandard Condition by Block": crosshatch for "Serious," a category equivalent to what the federal Census of Housing called "deteriorating"; dots for "Critical," what the Census of Housing called "dilapidated." On the map, almost everything in the North Bay Neighborhood is marked as "Critical," except for the first two blocks of Warren Street, the north side of State Street above Third, and the east side of Third Street north of State, which are only "Serious." Almost everything in the South Bay Neighborhood below Third Street is marked as "Serious," as are the houses on Willard Place, with the exception of the one at the very end. The area that was Simpsonville is, of course, marked as "Critical."

The document contains a narrative about each neighborhood, and these narratives are interesting to contemplate almost fifty years later. The neighborhoods are presented in qualitative order, beginning with that was considered in 1965 to be the best neighborhood and ending with the worst. Gossips will present the neighborhoods in the same order, beginning with the best: the High School Neighborhood. Remember that in 1965 the school building we now know as Montgomery C. Smith Intermediate School was the high school.

High School Neighborhood
The High School neighborhood, suburban middle-class in character and appearance, contains few problems. The neighborhood splits into two parts:

North of the school are well-maintained, single-family homes on large lots. Almost all of the new construction of the past decade and a half has taken place here.

South and east of the school, the blocks known as the Boulevards contain one and two-family homes on somewhat smaller lots. The only commercial uses of the neighborhood are located along Fairview Avenue. The only significantly poor environmental conditions were found along Spring Street.

Oakdale Recreation Area, the High School grounds and the open character of the neighborhood all provide ample recreational facilities.

Of the 298 housing units in the High School neighborhood, all were occupied, and almost all were in standard condition.

Except for code enforcement along the Boulevards, no treatment is required for this fine neighborhood.

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Has That Ship Sailed?

Ever since the Half Moon visited Hudson in 2009, the centerpiece of the Namesake Celebration commemorating the four hundredth anniversary of Henry Hudson's first visit to America, the notion that the City of Hudson might become the home port to the replica of the ship in which Henry Hudson discovered the river that bears his name and sailed on that river to the city that bears his name has been the persistent dream of many in Hudson. 

The idea was first publicly articulated by then mayor Rick Scalera in his speech at the dedication of Henry Hudson Riverfront Park, and it is regularly mentioned whenever waterfront development is discussed. Yesterday, though, when the possibility of Hudson becoming the home port of the Half Moon was brought up by Ellen Thurston on WGXC's Thursday Afternoon Show (Thurston chaired the committee that planned Hudson's Quadricentennial celebration and brought the Half Moon here in 2009), Jennifer Schwartz Berky, a conservation architect and urban planner who is working with Damara Stolfo and Sarah Dibben on the Hudson Praxis project, said matter-of-factly that the Half Moon was going to Troy. 

Troy? Those of us who long to see the replica of Henry Hudson's ship make its home in the namesake city want to know: Is this true? And, if it is, when, how, and why was this decided?
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Gossips' Picks for Saturday Night

Tomorrow, there are two events that you can attend and enjoy and know you supporting good work and worthy causes. 

At 4 p.m., at Christ Church Episcopal, on the corner of Union and East Court streets, there is a concert entitled Love, Nature and Time Well Spent. Mary Deyerle Hack, mezzo-soprano, Martin Mansfield, baritone, and Gili Melamed-Lev, piano, will be performing works by Hahn, Schumann, Copland, Bernstein, Vaughan Williams, and Berlin to benefit the Columbia-Greene Humane Society/SPCA. A reception follows the concert, with refreshments provided by Destino Cocina Mexicana in Chatham. The suggested donation is $20. All proceeds benefit the humane society.

From 5 to 7, Chris Jones and Susan Simon invite you for cocktails and snacks at 127 Union Street. The event, which is hosted by Carrie and Nick Haddad, benefits the Hudson Children's Book Festival Scholarship Fund. Guests are asked to make a donation of $25. Each $25 donation enables a student in the Hudson City School District to purchase a book of their choice at the Hudson Children's Book Festival on May 3 directly from an author and have their book signed by the author. A similar event last year enabled 400 kids to buy books at the book fair. There is still time to RVSP via email to join the party and give a kid the chance to participate fully in the 2014 Hudson Children's Book Festival.

He's Back!

After a two-year hiatus, during which he was busy doing other things, Scott Baldinger has returned to writing his blog, Word on the Street, on gotohudson.net. For the first post of his comeback, Baldinger turns his attention from the goings-on on Warren Street to a noteworthy development on upper Union Street: "Serving Danish." 

Turn Your Radio On

Today, on the Thursday Afternoon Show, from 4 to 6 on WGXC, Ellen Thurston and Tom DePietro will be interviewing Damara Stolfo and Sarah Dibben about Hudson Praxis, the initiative to create an aquarium/maritime museum in the former Dunn warehouse building, former gasification works at the Hudson waterfront. WGXC is at 90.7 FM, or you can listen online.

An indiegogo campaign to raise $10,000 to fund a feasibility study for the project is currently underway and continues throughout the month of April. On Monday, a film that has been created about the project will be released. Gossips will have more about that when the time comes.

The Women of the House of Refuge

Gossips has been following along on a visit made to the House of Refuge in August 1890 and reported on by Mary A. Worswick in the New York Press. So far, we've learned about the buildings and routines and how the institution went about its noble work of reforming fallen women. Today we meet some of the women of the House of Refuge--those in charge and those incarcerated.

To me, as I listened to the stories of the poor girls of the Refuge, there came the pictures of unhappy homes; of childhoods of hardship and ignorance; of the great wrong of child labor not alone in shops and factories but in households and kitchens; of small wages, long hours and few pleasures of these workers' lives, and above all, there recurred to me the plea of Browning's "Mildred," the simple pathetic words, "I was so young; I had no mother."

Mrs. Coon [the superintendent of the Refuge] has taken the record and listened to the experiences of every girl admitted to the Refuge.

This woman, tall, dignified, refined-faced, "clothed in authority," as though the garment fitted her nature, is still so cordial and motherly in manner as to win confidence in her kind heart from even the most timid and distrustful among the unfortunates. With her own words, "In talking with these girls from time to time one learns to pity rather than to condemn them. With few exceptions they have bad records. Through ignorance and neglect they have been left to drift along as best they could. From their earliest years they have been subject to the worst influences, have never known a better life. They do not seem to realize the degradation nor the low level to which they have sunk. They relate their miserable histories as freely as one would tell a pleasant story."

"Poverty is 'the root of all evil' in the lives of most of these girls," said Mrs. Herriman, the bookkeeper, in answer to my question, "and vanity, I think, comes next--love of dress which they are unable to gratify honestly. So many of them have unhappy homes, are motherless, with unkind stepmothers, perhaps have harsh or intemperate fathers or stepfathers. Poverty and hardship drive these girls out into the world very early in life. They begin work so young that they have had no fair advantage of education, home training, though most of them have been servants. They have generally speaking, little knowledge of domestic work or the right way of doing it. A number have no occupation at all.

"There are so many pitiful stories here it makes one's heart ache to think of them. There is constant appeal to one's sympathy, and some of our girls are so bright, intelligent and good. No! Do not think that the women sent here are the lowest of the low, for they are not. There are not more than a dozen really vice hardened cases among the whole number here, and even they struggle to improve."

Truth is sadder than fiction oftentimes, and among the poor girls of the refuge there are characters as innately noble, with lives as sadly ruined, as ever were read in romance. One sad instance is the case of Hattie V—, a tall, fair haired, pretty, intelligent girl, with the capacities for a noble, useful womanhood, who was saved by the Refuge from a life that is worse than death. Mrs. Coon showed me a clipping from an Elmira paper, relative to the commitment of his girl:

"If I have to go to prison for five years I think some of those who are responsible for my trouble, and who are as guilty as I am, ought to suffer," said Hattie V—, the sixteen-year-old who is confined in the county jail awaiting her transfer to the Hudson Reformatory on the charge of being an immoral character. 'My father lives in Geneva,' she said. 'He is married to his second wife, and it was not pleasant to live there, so I was induced . . . [line missing] with my uncle, though not married to him. It was there a year ago that I was ruined, and that woman was responsible for it.'"

A beautiful girl of good family and ladylike in speech and manner, Frances G—, is an especially sad example of fallen womanhood. She had lived a life of shame only four weeks when committed here, aged 17 years.

Emily P— was convicted of prostitution and brought to the Refuge by her brother when she was within three months of becoming a mother. Her baby was born in the Refuge. She is 20 years old.

Convicted of frequenting disorderly houses, six times; convicted of drunkenness, five times; married twice and the mother of two children, both illegitimate. This woman, Emma P—, is a hopeless moral wreck at 24.

Married at 14; divorced from her husband who ill treated her and drank; convicted of keeping a disorderly house, and on this charge Kittie H—, aged 26, was sent to the Refuge.

The descriptions of the women Mary A. Worswick encountered at the House of Refuge go on, and Gossips will continue recounting them in a few days.

The reference to "Browning's 'Mildred,'" is to a character, Mildred Tresham, in the tragedy A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, written in 1843 by Robert Browning. A 'scutcheon or escutcheon is an emblem bearing a coat of arms. 

Time and Again

A month or so ago, Gossips discovered a cache of snapshots taken in 1996 or 1997. We've shared a couple of them so far, juxtaposing the pictures from almost two decades ago with pictures taken in recent days. Today we share another: 225 Union Street.

The question of whether or not to remove the ornamentation that early houses acquired later in the 19th century does not have a definitive answer. Although the impulse is often to return a house to its earliest appearance, there are many who value the palimpsest quality of Hudson architecture, which has survived and evolved over time. Historic preservation advocates today usually advise against removing historic detail, arguing that doing so takes away years of architectural history. Consider the Dr. Oliver Bronson House. Returning it to its earliest appearance would eliminate the very reason the house has been designated a National Historic Landmark--the work done by Alexander Jackson Davis to "refit" and expand what was originally a Federal house in the then fashionable Picturesque style.

Hudson's Historic Preservation Commission does not have an established policy on the removal of historic fabric, taking the position that every proposal is judged on its own merits. Every proposal is also judged by the people serving on the HPC at any given time. Back in 2010, the HPC approved removing an Italianate door surround from 211 Union Street to return the building to what was believed to be the house's original Federal appearance. In 2014, the HPC approved a proposal to reconstruct 900 Columbia Street, a house of similar Federal design, which included reusing the Italianate door surround from the house, which is very like the one removed from the house two doors down from the house's new location.

900 Columbia Street, before it was disassembled

211 Union Street, before it was reimagined

We will never know what the HPC might have decided about removing the Victorian elements from 225 Union Street, because it happened in 2004, before the house was acquired by its current owners and before the Union-Allen-South Front Street Historic District, in which the house is located, was created in 2006. As a matter of taste (which should not be the basis for HPC judgments), removing the Victorian elements to restore the house's elegantly simple Greek Revival design appeals to our 21st-century sensibilities.
COPYRIGHT 2014 CAROLE OSTERINK

The image of the Dr. Oliver Bronson House is a detail from a c. 1819 watercolor by William Guy Wall in the collection of the New-York Historical Society and borrowed from The Dr. Oliver Bronson House Day Book.

Festival Funding

The guidelines for applying for funding from the City of Hudson for your festival or event are now online. Those planning events that "have an impact on the economic and social fabric of our city" are encouraged to apply for a piece of the $15,000 that has been budgeted. The deadline for submitting applications is May 15. 

About the New York State Budget

Assemblymember Didi Barrett announced today that the final 2014-2015 state budget includes more than $160 million in funding for Columbia and Dutchess county school districts in her assembly district. Receiving the largest percentage increase, although not the largest actual amount, is the Hudson City School District, which will receive $16,843,065 in state aid, a 7.46 percent increase over the previous year.  The entire press release can be read here.  

Of Interest and Importance

Brian Nearing reports in today's Times Union that Global Companies, which is shipping crude oil along the Hudson River, is being fined by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality for allegedly running six times more crude oil through its terminal on the Columbia River than its permit allowed: "Albany crude oil shipper hit with fine over West Coast terminal."