Just in time for the first concert in Hudson's riverfront series, Hudson. Water. Music., the City has closed the Ferry Street Bridge because of what have been determined to be unsafe conditions. Jamie Larson has the story in today's Register-Star: "Waterfront bridge closed on eve of concert series." Reports and observation indicate that the pedestrian bridge is still open, but cars must cross the railroad tracks at the grade-level crossing just south of the train station.
Jamie Larson reports in today's Register-Star that U.S. News and World Report has released its annual statistics on hospitals in the country: "Report: Patient satisfaction low at CMH." When asked if they would recommend the hospital to others, only 47 percent of patients discharged from CMH responded "definitely." The national average is 68 percent, the state average is 62 percent. The number for patients discharged from Northern Dutchess Hospital in Rhinebeck is 77 percent.
Sam Pratt has the news on his blog: "Hudson on screen." The trailer for The Man at the Counter, the independent film shot in Hudson last year, primarily at The Cascades, can now be viewed online.
Hudson looks pretty good in the trailer, although uncommonly deserted.
Photograph from SamPratt.com.
Gossips has learned that Hudson appeared in a recently aired episode of The Real Housewives of New Jersey. In the picture below--a screen capture from the show--the real housewives are in front of Kosa at the corner of Warren and Fifth streets.
Season 3, Episode 7, "Teresa's Got a Gun," which apparently was filmed last fall, follows the Giudices, the Lauritas, and the Manzos on a weekend retreat to the Giudice cabin in the Catskills. While the menfolk shoot at targets from the back deck and blaze through the woods on ATVs, the real housewives head to Hudson to do some shopping. Their featured stop is Olde Hudson, where they chat with Dena and Richard Moran and buy lots of stuff. Two memorable quotes from the episode: "Wait. I think it's closed," uttered by one of the housewives as they park the Range Rover on Warren Street; and "You would swear you're in New York City," uttered by another housewife as they peruse the goods on offer at Olde Hudson.
The episode aired on Sunday, June 26. If you missed it, you can watch it online at BravoTV. The episode runs slightly more than 55 minutes, but if you don't want to watch the whole thing, the Hudson segment starts about 35 minutes into it.
Back in May 2010, Gossips celebrated the first bloom of a Japanese tree lilac--Syringa Reticula 'Ivory Silk'--on South Second Street. It was one of several trees that had been planted, from Allen Street to State Street, as a gift to the City from Eric Galloway. By the spring of 2010, several of the trees were dying or already dead, but this tree survived and was in bloom for the first time and only time.
By spring 2011, none of the trees along this stretch of South Second Street was alive. All had succumbed to the challenges of being a street tree in Hudson and stood along the curb like upended hearth brooms, leafless and lifeless.
Last weekend, Gossips noticed that the dead trees were gone. Some investigation discovered that Galloway had ordered them removed and has promised to replace them. Whether with more Japanese tree lilacs or with some other species is not known.
The Register-Star has two op-ed pieces of interest today. The first is an editorial about the proposed Significant Coastal Fish and Wildlife Habitat designations along the Hudson River: "OUR VIEW: Habitat designations involve sensitive areas." The arguments in the piece are a little evasive, but there seems to be some obliquely stated concern that the designations could interfere with economic development.
The second piece was written by South Bay Task Force member Timothy O'Connor: "MY VIEW: Hudson LWRP's sneaky creation." O'Connor focuses scrutiny on the Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) and questions the process by which the document was developed.
Over the weekend, Peter Jung was at the cemetery mowing the new grass at the restored Gifford family grave site when he noticed some Gifford graves that weren't part of the family plot.
Among the graves in this extra row of Giffords are those of Malcolm Gifford and his offspring. A little investigation discovered the story of the Malcolms Gifford--a tale of wealth, privilege, and unsolved murder.
Malcolm was the eldest son of the eldest son of Elihu Gifford and had inherited Gifford Iron Works and the wealth and position that went with it. His son, Malcolm, Jr., had all the advantages afforded a rich kid, but in April 1914, at the age of nineteen, Malcolm, Jr., was arrested for murder.
The previous spring, Malcolm, Jr., had been suspended from the Tibbitt's School in Hoosick Falls, for what the Chatham Courier assured readers was a "minor infraction." Malcolm didn't go home to Hudson or tell his parents about the suspension but instead went to stay with a school chum named Derrick Boardman, whose family lived in Troy.
On the night of April 1, 1913, Malcolm, Boardman, and some other friends were going to a dinner dance in Troy. Before arriving at the dance, Malcolm, according to Boardman's trial testimony, borrowed $1.50 from him and went off on this own. He appeared at the dance a few hours later in the evening.
On that same night, an unidentified young man engaged Frank Clute, a chauffeur, to drive him from Albany to Troy. Somewhere near Watervliet, the young man shot Clute in the back of the head with an automatic revolver, stole his money (which amounted to about $50), dumped Clute's body into a ditch, and fled. The first evidence discovered that connected Malcolm Gifford to the murder was a pair of blood-stained gloves found near Clute's body. They bore the trademark of Brooks Brothers, and all of Malcolm Gifford's clothes came from Brooks Brothers.
The evidence that led to Malcolm's arrest, however, wasn't discovered until almost a year later. The Boardmans hired a caretaker named Charles Carpenter to shovel snow off the roof of their house. While engaged in this task, Carpenter discovered a black bill book, a chauffeur's license, and other papers that belonged to Clute stuffed under the flashing near the window of the bathroom that adjoined the bedroom where Malcolm Gifford had stayed as a guest the year before.
Malcolm Gifford was arrested in Chatham on April 17, 1914, while on his way back to school after spending Easter vacation in Hudson. He was indicted and arraigned before a Grand Jury in Albany before his father knew anything about his son's predicament. The next day, Malcolm, Sr., arrived in Albany with family attorney Samuel B. Coffin, confident of his son's innocence and determined to see him through the trouble.
Malcolm Gifford, Jr., was tried twice for the murder of Frank Clute, and both trials ended in a hung jury. The first trial was held in July 1914, and in this trial, seven jurors thought Malcolm, Jr., was guilty and five thought he was innocent. Amazingly, the Hudson Evening Register, and probably other papers of the day, reported the names of the jurors who voted to convict and the names of the jurors who voted to acquit. Malcolm, Jr., was tried a second time in February 1915. In that trial, eleven jurors believed that he was innocent, and only one held out for a conviction. That juror's name, too, was published in the newspapers. After the second trial, Malcolm, Jr., was released on a $25,000 bond, and there was not a third trial.
At the beginning of 1917, Malcolm, Jr., along with some fellow students at Williams College, enlisted in a Canadian military unit. The United States had not yet entered the war--World War I--at that time. On November 8, 1917, he was killed in action in France.
A barge loaded with gravel left the dock in Hudson late this afternoon but not before a smaller barge loaded with trash--scrap metal, some said--was fastened to the side of the gravel barge.
These pictures were taken from the Rip Van Winkle Bridge as the barges passed beneath on their way south.
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The neighbors raised the alarm. Large and ancient conifers in the side yard of a property on lower Union Street recently acquired by Eric Galloway were being chopped down. Yes, chopped down. The three men who had been dispatched to fell the trees were equipped only with an ax. Very likely they were the same three men who appeared at the dawn one Saturday morning to remove the asbestos siding from the house destined for demolition on First Street at Cherry Alley with paper dust masks as their only HAZMAT protection.
The neighbors' outrage summoned Jamie Larson from the Register-Star, Mayor Richard Scalera, and Cleveland Samuels, the reason for whose presence there is not clear. This confluence of angry neighbors, officialdom, and the press succeeded in staying the workers' ax after only one tree had been felled, but who knows what tomorrow may bring?
at 8 a.m. this morning, heading down lower Allen Street toward the river, a big motor coach with "Nancy & Udean Christian Tours" emblazoned on its side. The sight of it caused me to wonder about the nature of a Christian tour. Did a Christian tour guarantee that you could travel in the exclusive company of other Christians? Was there something distinctly Christian about the itinerary of the tour? To find the answers, I did some research on the Internet.
It seems that Christian tours are a big industry. Nancy & Udean Christian Tours, headquartered in North Carolina, offers "bus tours, adventure tours, and international tours." In addition to "personal, impartial service to each tour member," they promise daily devotions on the motor coach and a Sunday School lesson taught en route every day.
I missed getting a picture of the bus this morning with the striking logo painted on its side, but I found this one online.
Tomorrow morning the dump trucks will likely resume barreling over the old rail bed through South Bay, raising clouds of dust, to bring aggregate to the dock. People in the Second Ward are presumed to be happy because only half as many trucks--the empty ones coming from the dock--now rattle through their neighborhood, but as Fifth Ward alderman Dick Goetz said at the informal Common Council meeting, "An empty truck can hit a kid just as well as a loaded truck."
The long history of moving rock--first coral and shell marble, now aggregate--from Becraft Mountain to the river seems to have some recurring themes--one of them being that what you think is the case isn't always. How a path through South Bay came to be, in 1874, the "stone route" is so uncannily similar to what's happening today, it's worth retelling. Fred Jones, the owner of New York Coral and Shell Marble Company, first proposed building a railroad for his use on State Street, but the people of Hudson protested. Jones tried to sweeten the deal by promising to have passenger cars on the train and let everyone ride for free, but the people weren't buying it. State Street was densely populated, and no one wanted a railroad running down the middle of it. So Jones proposed what some believe he wanted all along: a railroad on a trestle through South Bay.
The people of Hudson found Jones's second proposal a preferrable alternative. They probably believed that the railroad would have an acceptably low impact on South Bay and wouldn't interfere significantly with a water body that was part of the texture of life in Hudson. Unfortunately, they didn't get what they thought they were going to get. Work commenced on the trestle railroad in 1874, but it wasn't completed until 1889. It was soon discovered that South Bay had a "bad bottom" that couldn't support the trestle, so a berm through South Bay had to be created for the railroad--a berm that has evolved into what many today like to call the "causeway."
A hundred and thirty-seven years later, the people of Hudson are still discovering what they believe about the "causeway" isn't always true. In the fall of 2007, when the Waterfront Advisory Steering Committee handed the Local Waterfront Revitalization Program (LWRP) over to the Common Council, there was no statement that promoted the "causeway" as the City-sanctioned route to the river from the quarry. But two years later, when the document reappeared on the aldermen's desks, many were horrified to find this statement repeated at least three times in the 262-page document: "The City supports plans proposed by Holcim (US) and its tenant [O&G] to reroute heavy truck traffic from the Holcim mine in Greenport, New York, to the deep water dock port via the South Bay causeway" (quoted from page 18 of the November 2009 Draft LWRP). After great public protest, this language has been tempered slightly in the May 2011 "Final" LWRP with the phrase "As a temporary measure," but who knows what it says now? The LWRP has disappeared again and is being copy edited and proofread by city attorney Cheryl Roberts and the planners at BFJ, to eliminate inconsistencies introduced during years of revising the weighty document.
The Generic Environmental Impact Study (GEIS) provides another example of people believing things that turn out not to be the case. When, early in 2009, the Common Council approved undertaking a GEIS, the aldermen who thought about it at all thought they were approving a study that--as far as the "causeway" was concerned--looked at ten possible ways to get aggregate from the quarry to the river in order to determine which had the least negative impact on the city and the environment. It turned out what the Council approved was a study that looked at nine alternatives to see if any were equal to or better than the route "the City" supported--that is, the "causeway."
On February 17, 2009, when the scoping for the GEIS was discussed at a Common Council meeting, some aldermen objected to including alternatives that they considered unacceptable--for example, taking dump trucks down upper Union Street to the railroad tracks at Seventh Street and then having the trucks follow the path of the railroad tracks to the waterfront. These aldermen were told by Roberts, as recorded in the Council minutes, that "only feasible alternatives were legally required to be addressed" and "the alternatives would not be adequate unless all alternatives were addressed." What wasn't revealed at the time was that three days earlier, Mayor Scalera had received a letter from CSX that rendered any alternative involving the use of CSX right of way not feasible.
Now, more than two years later, it seems equally hard to comprehend what is the truth about the legality of the current use of the old rail bed. In October 2009, Roberts sent a letter to Ken Faroni of O&G which stated: "Though the City [of Hudson] has steadfastly maintained that O&G will require site plan approval from the City of Hudson Planning Commission prior to undertaking this action [i.e., "the construction of a roadway beginning in a mine owned by Holcim, LTD, in Greenport, New York, and terminating at the deep water port located in Hudson, New York"], the City Planning Commission has not received a permit application from O&G to date." She goes on to warn that "seeking approval from the Town of Greenport Planning Board in advance of a declaration of lead agency and undertaking a coordinated review . . . amounts to segmentation in violation of 6 NYCRR 617.3(g)." Just weeks ago, however, Scalera attributed to Roberts the opinion that site plan review and approval were not required for O&G/Holcim to pave the path through South Bay, but O&G "would likely need approval to begin actively trucking on the causeway." Many eyewitnesses will attest that O&G is now "actively trucking on the causeway," but there's no evidence that an application for a site plan review was ever submitted to the Hudson Planning Commission, and no one in City Hall--except for a few aldermen--seems concerned about it.
Rock-paper-scissors--in Hudson, for generations, rock seems to win every time. Is that the only thing we can count on to be the case?
Jamie Larson reported yesterday that, according to Mark Orton, vice president of the library board, two of the four buildings considered as possible new locations for the Hudson Area Library "were owned by people currently in or with potential to soon be in Hudson politics." This caused Gossips to wonder, in print, what the second building was. The answer came from a reader: 111 Fairview Avenue, originally Canape Brothers Chrysler and for the past ten years Hudson Health & Fitness--a building owned by mayor's aide, Planning Commission member, former Fifth Ward alderman, and one-time mayoral candidate Carmine Pierro.
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It's time for another excerpt from the original Gossips of Rivertown. It will be recalled that, in the last episode, Rivertown was humming with preparation for the Orphan Fair, to raise desperately needed funds for the Hudson Orphan Asylum. Now all is in readiness. It is opening night for the fair.
"Well, here we are again!" was Mrs. McCloud's salutation to Miss Seymour, as she took off her hood, and arranged the prettiest little cap imaginable. "Have they all got here?" and she turned from the small mirror to cast a furtive glance into the next room, through the half-opened door.
"Here's Mrs. Miller's shawl, and Mrs. Jorden's hood," was the reply—"I'll contrive to get the pattern of that, somehow, this evening; she brought it home from Washington. Yes, and Miss Brown's muff is over there, and Miss Barnard must have come with the Jacksons, for that's her old cloak, right by it."
"I suppose we 're late, then, but Harriet Harden promised to be here before the lamps were lighted and see to everything on our table. What should we have done if we hadn't have managed to get so much out of that girl? she'd do anything to get into our set."
"I believe you. Come, are you ready?" and the two ladies sallied out of the little dressing-room, giving a last glance at the ten inch mirror as they did so.
What was their astonishment, and Mrs. McCloud's indignation, to find no Miss Harden at the deserted post. Only two half-grown girls to support the entire dignity of the cake table! Mrs. McCloud looked around the room; the delinquent was not among the really brilliant assembly; no one had seen her, and in fact, she was the last of all the amateur shop-keepers to enter the room. When she did, all eyes were turned upon her, for she was leaning on the arm of a tall, gentlemanly-looking man, apparently some thirty-five years of age, and an entire stranger.
The buzz of inquiry commenced directly. Mrs. McCloud forgot the reprimand she had duly prepared, (though she afterwards took care to administer it sharply,) to ask who "her distinguished-looking" friend was. Miss Harden looked more triumphant than ever, when she whispered it was a gentleman they had met the summer before in Berkshire county. "Immensely rich, and a widower," she added, with affected consciousness.
"You don't say? What's he here for?"
"That's best known to himself; he arrived this afternoon, and stops at the Rivertown House." Miss Harden's lips said this; her manner hinted that it was very plain! Of course he had come to renew his acquaintance with her.
Mr. Gould was introduced to Mrs. McCloud, who received him very graciously, and made him known to Miss Seymour. But as he shortly after proposed a tour of the room, Miss Harden again took his arm, and sailed away gloriously.
Of course they stopped at the fancy table, and were charmed with the dolls and the pin-cushions; Miss Harriet was agonized lest he should discover the pretty night-caps, and chance to admire them also. Here several purchases were made by Mr. Gould, who seemed very liberal, and they were quite loaded with small parcels, when they moved on. Harriet was made to accept a toilette cushion she had manufactured herself, and a similar gift was held in store for her mother.
Mrs. Harden, by the way, was in ecstasies at her fair daughter's triumph. That Mr. Gould came to Rivertown at all was unexpected good fortune, but that he should arrive in the very "nick of time," as she eloquently expressed it, was too much for her parental sympathy and pride. Known only to their family, he was bound to them in a measure, whatever acquaintances he might afterwards make, and she was delighted to see the impression his widowerhood and reputed wealth made at once on the ladies of Rivertown, for by this time the story was whispered throughout the hall, with additions and alterations. Some declared Mr. Gould was positively a millionaire, and had come to offer his fortune and himself for Miss Harden's acceptance. Others said he had proposed the very moment of his arrival, while this was disputed by a third party who knew, from the best authority, that he had not yet committed himself, but intended to do so on the way home, or, at latest, the next morning before breakfast. Mrs. Folger hinted that they might have been engaged ever since the last summer, and he had come on now to be married. Mrs. Smith scorned such a probability—"How is it possible," said she, "that she could have kept it from ME all this time!" How, indeed!
The walk of Mr. Gould and his fair companion of course ended at the ice-cream table. All promenaders make a halt at that interesting stand. There is such a nice opportunity for a little flirtation as you lean against the pillars and trifle with your spoon. It is a post of observation, likewise, and if you have an escort you are anxious should be noticed in attendance upon you, this is the place, of all others, to be patronized. Harriet pecked at the "vanilla," and looked up at her companion with a sweet timidity that would have become one of the Seminary young ladies. A full attendance of those interesting misses was to be noticed, by the way, who talked and giggled, flirted and roir with the clerks of the various dry-goods stores, and the young law-students before mentioned.
So here stood our heroine, as long as a very small saucer of ice-cream, furnished for "sixpence," would afford a pretext; with the delightful consciousness that all the young ladies were envying her, and even the Jordens had asked, in her hearing, who that fine-looking stranger was. And then she was reluctantly compelled to return to her duties at the cake-table, to the peril of leaving Mr. Gould to play the agreeable to Miss Seymour. However, he soon seemed to weary of her affectation, and vapid conversation, and, to Harriet's great delight, strolled off by himself without asking an introduction to any one else.
Sketch the Sixth, and Last. Retaliation. Chapter III. Part 1
Three days later, Jamie Larson has a report about Wednesday's library board meeting, which he did not attend: "Known unknowns: New location, buyer for library." Based primarily on a conversation with Mark Orton, vice president of the library board, Larson's article contains a couple of tantalizing bits of information hitherto not revealed: the library board allegedly considered four buildings as new locations for the library, and two of those buildings "were owned by people currently in or with potential to soon be in Hudson politics." We all know about 217 Warren Street, owned by Democratic mayoral candidate Nick Haddad, but what's the other one?
Gossips has heard that there's an accepted offer on the Robert Taylor House, believed to be the oldest surviving house in Hudson, predating the arrival of the Proprietors in 1783 and the incorporation of the City of Hudson in 1785.
Jamie Larson's story about the lawsuit filed against Columbia County by nine mothers who are clients of the Department of Social Services appears in today's Register-Star: "Moms sue to keep DSS in city." The lawsuit claims that 54 percent of DSS clients live in Hudson and relocating DSS offices in Greenport would put "an undue burden on those in need of services like food stamps, rent assistance, counseling and more."
An intriguing aspect of the story is that Board of Supervisors Chair Roy Brown, County Attorney Robert Fitzsimmons, and several supervisors, including Hudson Fifth Ward Supervisor Bart Delaney, seem to think that Mayor Scalera is behind the lawsuit. Scalera vehemently denies it.
After two days of idleness, activity at the dock picked up again this afternoon. Shortly after 2 p.m., a gravel truck was observed coming and going, providing evidence that trucks are using the old rail bed on trips to the dock and using Front Street and Columbia Street on trips from the dock.
Last night, at the Planning Commission meeting, the owners of Christopher Norman Chocolates, the chocolate factory that wants to locate in the former Sacred Heart Church, showed up, but they were told they needed to go first to the Zoning Board of Appeals. Making chocolates, it seems, is not a permitted activity in that part of the city, so a use variance is needed to establish a chocolate factory there. The ZBA meets next Wednesday, July 20, at 6 p.m.
Although Cheryl Roberts, city attorney and counsel to the Planning Commission, has expressed the opinion, according to Mayor Richard Scalera, that Holcim/O&G (recently dubbed H/OG by Sam Pratt) would need approval from the Planning Commission to "begin actively trucking on the causeway," no one from H/OG appeared before the Planning Commission last night.
On the topic of the causeway and the dock, after Monday, when there seemed to be trucks running on the old rail bed and on city streets, there has been a strange lack of activity for the past two days, even though there's been an empty barge tied up at the dock.
The Trustees of the Hudson Area Library met tonight, and because the thirty days during which 400 State Street was offered for sale ended on July 8, it was reasonable to expect that something substantive about the building's fate might be learned by attending the meeting. Not so. When, after approving the minutes of the previous meeting and receiving the treasurer's report, the president's report, the library director's report, and various committee reports, the board got to the topic of library relocation, they went into executive session, ejecting the two members of the public in attendance.
Half an hour later, when they reconvened the public meeting, the board passed two resolutions--both of which were carefully worded to provide no real information. The first resolution authorized the building committee to enter into a lease for suitable space in the Hudson area, the terms of which would be subject to board approval. The "suitable space" was not identified, but it is generally believed to be Hudson Electrical Supply at 217 Warren Street. The second resolution authorized Virginia Benedict, the lawyer on the board, to enter into contract negotiations with the sole party interested in buying the building. The "sole party interested" wasn't identified either, but there's a rumor that Eric Galloway offered $470,000 for the building--$20,000 over the library's asking price.
After the two resolutions passed unanimously, board member Mark Orton opined enthusiastically, "We could have this all tied up in a month."
The Friends of the Hudson Area Library typically have a used book sale on the first Saturday of every month in the book room at the back of the north wing of 400 State Street. The books they sell are books that have been donated to the library, and the income from selling the books, at ridiculously low prices, eventually makes its way back to the library.
This summer, the Friends have scheduled two sales a month--one on the first Saturday of the month, the other on the third Saturday. The next one is coming up this Saturday, July 16. Other sales are scheduled for August 6 and August 20.
The book room is overflowing with books, and one reason for the glut is that, in anticipation of a move to some still undetermined location, the library board has decided to get rid of 6,000 books. So far, Gossips has learned, the library director has turned 500 novels over to the Friends to sell, and presumably there will be more to come. In the 21st century, why does a library need books anyway?
