On April 15, we learned that 2 Note was closing its shop at 225 Warren Street. Today, it was announced that The Bee's Knees, which defined itself as "a children's store . . . supporting natural parenting, imaginative kids and a healthy environment," would be closing at the end of May. The shop started out at the corner of Warren and Third, where The Maker Cafe is now located, and moved to 725 Warren Street a few years ago.
The following message appeared on Facebook:
At the end of this month, after almost 10 years in business, we will be closing the doors of The Bee's Knees. This has been a very difficult decision, and although we are looking forward to whatever comes next, it is heartbreaking to say goodbye.
From Amanda: "I feel so lucky and proud to have been in business for this long and to have been a part of your families in such a special way. I do wish I could see you all and say a proper goodbye. When out paths cross again, you can be sure I will ask how your babies and grand babies are doing!". . .
We have lots of free donations (display items, toys, books, other random things that one collects after this long in business) that we would love to see end up in loving hands rather than the garbage. We will be putting stuff out in front of the store starting today until next weekend. Please come take a look . . . pass it on!
We love you, we will miss you and we thank you for the decade of support. The community and connections that were formed here will last a lifetime in our hearts. We wish you all good health and bright futures, and we look forward to seeing you again.
For the past two years, the insurance brokerage firm SDL+GHS has offered a $500 scholarship to seniors in the Hudson City School District who want to pursue a career in health sciences. This year, as health care workers continue to battle the COVID-19 pandemic, SDL+GHS has increased the amount of its Health Science Scholarship to $1,000 as a tribute to health care workers and their invaluable contribution to our community. Any Hudson High School senior who has an interest in health sciences should apply for the scholarship.
The deadline for applying has been extended to June 1, so there is still time to do so. The application can be found here: SDL+GHS Health Science Scholarship Application.
Rob Bujan of SDL+GHS commented, "We urge all Hudson City School District seniors who have an interest in health science to apply today! We are dedicated to providing a pathway to anyone whose dream it is to be in health care."
The Columbia County Department of Health released its numbers for today this morning. Since yesterday, there has been another death from COVID-19, but there have been no new cases. One more person has recovered, and there is one fewer person hospitalized. Since yesterday, test results for 261 Columbia County residents have been received.
As of 10:30 a.m. on May 23, 2020:
- We are sad to report Columbia County has had 32 residents that have pass[ed] away from COVID-19.
- 360 positive cases of COVID-19 with 139 active cases. There are 65 additional residents on mandatory quarantine and 3 residents on precautionary quarantine.
- 189 of the 360 cases have recovered from COVID-19
- 16 of the positive cases are hospitalized, none of those hospitalized are in the ICU
- We have received 4,222 test results completed for Columbia County residents
The bar graph below shows the pattern of new infections during the month of May. Today is the fifth day of no new infections. Unfortunately, it is not the fifth consecutive day.
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The Columbia County Department of Health has released its numbers for today. Since yesterday, there have been two new cases of COVID-19 and two more deaths. Six more people have recovered, and the number of people hospitalized and in the ICU remains the same. Since yesterday, test results have been received for 212 more Columbia County residents.
As of 2 p.m. on May 22, 2020:
- We are sad to report Columbia County has had 31 residents that have pass[ed] away from COVID-19.
- 360 positive cases of COVID-19 with 142 active cases. There are 61 additional residents on mandatory quarantine and 3 residents on precautionary quarantine.
- 188 of the 360 cases have recovered from COVID-19
- 17 of the positive cases are hospitalized, 1 of those hospitalized are in the ICU
- We have received 3,961 test results completed for Columbia County residents
On Wednesday, when there had been a total of 29 deaths from COVID-19 in the county, the Register-Star reported there had been 13 deaths among Barnwell residents. No information has been provided about the identity of the two people who died of the virus since then.
This afternoon, the Columbia County Department of Health released its breakdown of COVID-19 cases by municipality and nursing home. Countywide, there have been 21 new cases in the past week. The only places that have seen an increase of more than three in the past week are Kinderhook, which has seven new cases, and Barnwell, which has six new cases.
In the list below, the first number indicates the number of cases last Friday; the second number indicates the number of cases today.
Ancram 5 | 5
Canaan 9 | 9
Chatham 12 | 15
Claverack 8 | 8
Clermont 4 | 4
Copake 14 | 17
Germantown 7 | 8
Ghent 16 | 16
Greenport 13 | 13
Hillsdale 8 | 8
Hudson 32 | 32
Kinderhook 30 | 37
Livingston 8 | 8
New Lebanon 4 | 4
Stockport 1 | 1
Stuyvesant 9 | 9
Nursing Homes
Livingston Hills 2 | 2
Pine Haven 36 | 37
Barnwell 121 | 127
Were you able to recognize the seven people who appeared in the Gossips "Wear a Mask" ads this week?
If you could, email your list to carole@gossipsofrivertown.com or text your list to 518 610-5339. The first person to identify them all correctly wins a bag of cookies from Trixie's Oven, which can be claimed at the Hudson Farmers Market tomorrow morning.
When I noticed yesterday that green signs had replaced these signs at Henry Hudson Riverfront Park, I figured DPW had upped its game and decided to print on green paper.
I was wrong. The green signs are the kickoff of the Hudson Safe campaign created by Peter Spear and Jonathan Lerner of Future Hudson and Alison Matheny of BEST Creative Studio.
You can read all about the Hudson Safe campaign at the City of Hudson website.
Recently a reader, who was exploring the more remote parts of the Hudson City Cemetery, sent me these pictures.
I am familiar, as most of us are, with the section of the cemetery set aside for those who fought in the Civil War--those who fought for the Union and are buried in the plot dedicated to the Grand Army of the Republic. I was surprised that a Confederate soldier was buried in the Hudson City Cemetery, so I set out to learn about Robert T. Taylor. What little I was able to discover about him is pretty intriguing.
Robert T. Taylor, who has no apparent connection to Robert Taylor the tanner, whose house stands at the head of Tanners Lane, was born in Virginia. His tombstone indicates he fought with Company D of the 17th Virginia Infantry, which was organized at Manassas Junction, Virginia, in June 1861. Men of this unit were recruited from the city of Alexandria and the counties of Arlington (then called Alexandria County), Fairfax, Fauquier, Loudoun, Prince William, and Warren--the part of Virginia closest to Washington, D.C.
Information from the Virginia Regimental Histories Series indicates that Taylor, whose occupation is given as "farmer," enlisted on April 25, 1861, at the Fairfax Court House. He was 21 at the time, and his rank at enlistment was Private. A history of the 17th Virginia Infantry indicates that in 1865, the final year of the Civil War, much of the regiment was captured on April 6 at the Battle of Sayler's Creek and on April 9 at Appomattox Court House the regiment surrendered two officers and forty-six enlisted men. Taylor might have been one of men captured at Sayler's Creek or one of the forty-six surrendered at Appomattox.
How Robert T. Taylor found his way to Hudson is not known, but in 1870, five years after the war ended, he appears in the census as living in Hudson and in the Hudson city directory. His occupation is given in both places as "laborer." The directory gives his address as "Public Sq n N Seventh"; the census indicates that he has a wife named Hannah (whose name appears elsewhere as Anna) and a two-year-old daughter named Lulu. We learn from the 1880 census that Anna (or Hannah) was the daughter of William Holsapple, who was a physician. In 1880, Robert and Anna, whose occupations were recorded in the census as "laborer" and "housekeeper" respectively, were living with Holsapple in his home somewhere on North Sixth Street. The 1878 Hudson city directory indicates that William Holsapple lived at 22 North Sixth Street. That address would have been somewhere near the southeast corner of Sixth and Columbia streets. The actual corner was occupied by this house, the home of Elihu and Eliza Gifford, oriented toward Columbia Street, then known as Gifford Place.
There are a few curious discoveries made about Robert T. Taylor. In November 1871, his father-in-law filed a claim with the U.S. Southern Claims Commission (SCC). The SCC was was created by an Act of Congress in March 1871 to consider claims by Southern Unionist citizens seeking compensation for supplies that had been confiscated or furnished to the Union Army during the Civil War. Part of the process of reviewing the claim was certifying the claimant's loyalty to the Union. It is not known exactly what Holsapple sought compensation for, but his signed and notarized oath of loyalty can be found at ancestry.com.
In the oath, Holsapple states "that he did not voluntarily serve in the Confederate army or navy, either as an officer, soldier, or sailor, or in any other capacity, at any time during the late rebellion; that he never voluntarily furnished any stores, supplies, or other material aid to said Confederate army or navy, or to the Confederate government, or to any officer, department, or adherent of the same, in support thereof; and that he never voluntarily accepted or exercised the functions of any office whatever under, or yielded voluntary support to, the said Confederate government." Interestingly, one of the witnesses to Holsapple's oath, the last named on the document, was his son-in-law, Robert T. Taylor, who did indeed voluntarily serve in the Confederate army. The fact that Holsapple filed a claim with the SCC suggests that during the Civil War he lived in the South as well, which may explain how Robert T. Taylor met his daughter. But why they all came to Hudson remains a mystery.
Here's another interesting tidbit about Robert T. Taylor's life. On April 30, 1875, the Hudson Evening Register reported his resignation as "scavenger of the Third and Fourth Wards." In the 19th century, a scavenger was a person employed to clean the streets, and apparently Taylor was employed by the City of Hudson in that capacity.
Robert T. Taylor died on January 9, 1892. He was probably just 51 years old when he died. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the Hudson City Cemetery, but in October 1929, Guy H. Taylor, who I believe was Robert T.'s nephew, applied to the War Department for a headstone, and the request was granted.
Guy H. Taylor was born in Virginia in 1875, the son of Charles and Eglantine Taylor. By November 1901, when he married Edith Bachman of Hudson, Guy Taylor had moved to Hudson. In 1929, when he applied for a headstone for his uncle's grave, he and Edith were living at 501 Warren Street, in the building that had been the Central House Hotel but was converted into flats in 1918.
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Your evening is your own . . . at least, so far as Common Council meetings are concerned. Gossips just got word that the Economic Development Committee meeting, which was to take place at 6:00 p.m., has been canceled.
The Columbia County Department of Health has released its numbers for today. Since yesterday, there have been 5 new cases of COVID-19, and 17 recoveries. There is one fewer person hospitalized with COVID-19, and there have been no more deaths. Test results have been received for 223 more Columbia County residents.
As of 3 p.m. on May 21, 2020:
- Columbia County has had 29 residents that have passed away from COVID-19
- 358 positive cases of COVID-19
- 182 of the 35 cases have recovered from COVID-19
- 17 of the positive cases are hospitalized, 1 of those hospitalized are in the ICU
- We have received 3,749 test results completed for Columbia County residents
- 133 residents are under mandatory quarantine and 5 under precautionary quarantine
At the Common Council Finance Committee meeting last night, city treasurer Heather Campbell presented her projections of the effect of the COVID-19 shutdown could have on city revenue. Her analysis, which can be reviewed here, charted a possible low impact and a high impact. The low impact scenario anticipates a net drop in cumulative revenue, excluding property tax, of $1.3 million. The high impact scenario sees a $1.9 million drop.
The initial reaction to the report from Council president Tom DePietro, who chairs the Finance Committee, was: "We'd have to hit the fund balance if we don't get some assistance." He then observed, "If there were another lockdown, we'd be tapped out."
John Rosenthal (Fourth Ward) suggested, "We have to look at cuts."
Campbell said she was still waiting to get the information about the 5 and 10 percent cuts to each department's budget that the mayor had requested but noted that departmental expenses are less than half the budget.
DePietro asked, "If the school district is hit by a 20 percent reduction, will they try to make it up in property taxes?"
In answer, Campbell noted, "The school budget increases at a higher percentage than the city or county does." She also shared the observation that "the city cannot increase taxes to the amount they should because of school taxes." She also commented that the city has "increased expenses at a rate that far outweighed our ability to pay for them."
On the subject of the school budget, last night the HCSD Board of Education voted to approve a 2020-2021 budget of $50,684,738. The budget is a 1.79 percent increase over the current year, or $892,275. It will mean a 1.99 percent increase in the tax levy, or an average increase of $29.84 for each $100,000 of assessed value.
A Footnote: In his conversation with Mayor Kamal Johnson this afternoon, Congressmember Antonio Delgado said that if the HEROES Act were to be passed by the U.S. Senate in its current form (which seems unlikely), the City of Hudson would be getting $2 million in federal assistance.
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The Columbia County Department of Health was released its numbers for today. Since yesterday, there has been another death from COVID-19. There were no new positive cases. In fact, today's number of positive cases is one less than yesterday's because one of the cases reported yesterday was someone from another county. There is one fewer person hospitalized, and test results for another 173 Columbia County residents have been received.
As of 3 p.m. on May 20, 2020:
- Unfortunately, Columbia County has had a 29th resident pass away from COVID-19.
- 353 positive cases of COVID-19 (One of our cases from yesterday actually belonged to another county.)
- 165 of the 353 cases have recovered from COVID-19
- 18 of the positive cases are hospitalized, 1 of those hospitalized are in the ICU
- We have received 3,526 test results completed for Columbia County residents
- 156 residents are under mandatory quarantine and 4 under precautionary quarantine
On May 5, during his daily briefing, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a competition to create a video for a "Wear a Mask New York" PSA. It was a project undertaken by his daughter Mariah Kennedy Cuomo. Today, it was announced that there had been more than 600 submissions and five finalists had been chosen. New Yorkers are asked to vote for their favorite.
To view the five finalists and to cast your vote, click here. You must vote by May 25.
The Common Council has received two letters from the Columbia-Greene Democratic Socialists of America commenting on the proposal to construct a 77-unit apartment building at 75 North Seventh Street.
The first letter, dated May 6, expresses strong support for the project but calls it an example of "actions done as stop-gap measures upon the inability of the profit-driven market to meet basic needs." It calls on the Common Council to "consider other, additional means of providing secure, affordable housing to the residents of Hudson," opining "merely to plan the construction of cheaper rental properties shows little imagination. True leadership means looking beyond tired forms already in use to solve endemic social problems of long standing."
The second letter, dated May 18, was submitted "to amplify the position of the Columbia-Greene branch of the Democratic Socialists of America in regard to the construction of affordable housing for 75 North 7th Street." The letter calls for a public hearing on the proposed project, carried out through videoconferencing, and enumerates information the Galvan Foundation should to provide. This letter concludes:
There is, also, a broader question that the Common Council should pose to itself: why can't the City construct and manage affordable housing? If the Galvan Foundation finds this plan for providing affordable housing profitable enough, can't the City just as well be developer and landlord, then to use they modest profits in rent to lessen the tax burden on the rest of Hudson?
At its meeting last night, as is the routine, the Common Council was asked to accept the communications, which consisted of these two letters. In a voice vote, Alderman Eileen Halloran (Fifth Ward) voted nay, saying she was doing because the letters were anonymous. Both letters were signed "The Columbia-Greene Democratic Socialists of America," with no actual person's name. Counsel to the Council, Jeff Baker advised, "It's an organization. It's not anonymous."
Halloran's nay vote triggered a roll call vote, during which five Council members---Tiffany Garriga (Second Ward), Halloran, Dominic Merante (Fifth Ward), Shershah Mizan (Third Ward), and Jane Trombley (First Ward)--voted no, and five Council members--Calvin Lewis (Third Ward), John Rosenthal (Fourth Ward), Dewan Sarowar (Second Ward), Rebecca Wolff (First Ward), and Tom DePietro (Council president)--voted yes. (At this point, Fourth Ward alderman Malachi Walker had not yet joined the meeting.)
Commenting on the tie vote, Rosenthal said, "This is ridiculous. We should accept communications." Baker said, "They have a constitutional right to voice their opinion. It's been received." DePietro called the vote "very disappointing" and suggested it was "a bizarre form of red-baiting."
At the end of the meeting, Halloran explained that she wanted to be able to contact the person or persons who wrote the letters, particularly the second one, to understand better some of the things being suggested. DePietro told her the letters provided an email address and that should be sufficient.
In March, Rebecca Wolff announced on Facebook that she had joined the Democratic Socialists of America.
It's curious that when the provenance of the letters was questioned, Wolff could not or chose not to provide any information.
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Be prepared. The relief from having to put quarters in the parking meters is going to end on June 1. Council president Tom DePietro, who shared this news at the Common Council Finance Committee meeting and again at the regular Council meeting last night, said he didn't know if alternate side of the street overnight parking, also suspended since March 18, would resume on June 1, saying that was up to the mayor. In the Finance Committee meeting, city treasurer Heather Campbell reported that, in the first four months of 2020, the City has seen a $87,000 drop in revenue from parking as compared with last year.
In February, before Mayor Kamal Johnson suspended the use of parking meters, the Council voted unanimously to double the cost of parking on Warren Street. A quarter inserted into the meter would buy 30 minutes instead of an hour. Last night, the Council voted to extend that increase to apply to on-street parking meters throughout the city.
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At 3:30 p.m. today, Mayor Kamal Johnson and Congressmember Antonio Delgado will talk about the Direct Support for Communities Act, which was part of the Heroes Act passed by the House of Representatives last Friday, the economic stimulus, and "other efforts to address our community's needs." The live stream can be viewed here.
The Capital Region--our region--begins the reopening process tomorrow, but in the meantime, the Columbia County Department of Health has released its numbers for today. Since yesterday, there has been another death from COVID-19 and nine new positive cases. Three more people have been hospitalized with the virus, but only one of the hospitalized is now in the ICU. Since yesterday, four more people have recovered from COVID-19, and test results for 186 Columbia County residents have been received.
As of 3 p.m. on May 19, 2020:
- We are sad to report a 28th resident that has passed away from COVID-19
- 354 positive cases of COVID-19
- 164 of the 354 cases have recovered from COVID-19
- 19 of the positive cases are hospitalized, 1 of those hospitalized are in the ICU
- We have received 3,353 test results completed for Columbia County residents
- 153 residents are under mandatory quarantine and 5 under precautionary quarantine
Hudson Bonds became available for sale today.
Hudson Bonds are a little like savings bonds, except what you will be saving are the small businesses of Hudson. The bonds are available in three amounts: $25, $75, and $100. The price of each bond is actually twice its face value: $50, $150, and $200. For every bond you buy, half the amount is a tax deductible contribution to the Hudson Small Business Relief Fund. The other half--the face value of the bond--is yours to spend at any one of the participating businesses through July 31, 2021.
To learn more about the program, to find out what businesses are involved, and to purchase your Hudson Bonds, click here.
In March 2018, Gossips bemoaned the loss of trees and shrubs around 6 West Court Street.
Today, two years later, when the house has a different owner and is ongoing an extensive restoration, the silver maple beside it, which had been spared in the initial assault, came down.
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In his daily COVID-19 briefing today, Governor Andrew Cuomo noted that what was keeping the Capital Region from reopening was assembling the needed "army" of contact tracers. It was determined that 383 were needed. As of today, 430 have been identified. The tracers are being trained today. The Capital Region, which includes Columbia County, will reopen tomorrow, May 20.
Reopening means that businesses identified as Phase 1 businesses—construction, manufacturing, and select retail (with curbside pickup)—may resume operation.
