SamPratt.com

As alluded to in an earlier post: Here’s the text of a piece published locally back in Summer 1998 in response to Mayor Rick Scalera’s towering rage that anyone would suggest in print that Hudson was an interesting place to visit. The reaction was interesting to say the least—especially from the many longtime residents who quietly let me know that they’d been waiting years for someone to talk back to Ricky that way...

IT’S NOT A CRIME TO LOVE HUDSON—YET

ALERT THE GUINNESS BOOK: Mr. Richard Scalera of Hudson just became the first mayor in American history to demand that fewer nice things be said about the city he represents.

“I think these writers get caught up in their adjectives and create a perception that it is really better here than it is,” the mayor told The Independent. According to another paper, Mr. Scalera wishes that articles would be “more reflective of how the city truly is.”

Some might caution Mr. Scalera to be careful what he wishes for. For now I just stand in awe of his place in history and his command of grammar, while begging his pardon for any flattering “adjectives” I may have used to describe Hudson in New York Magazine, The New York Post, or on WOR radio.

But to my knowledge, it’s not a crime to love Hudson—yet.

Cast your thoughts back to mid-April, when respected urban expert Roberta Gratz called for more “positive thinking” in Hudson. City Hall jumped on this bandwagon, and in a hollow interview the Mayor blustered to me that “Roberta and I think a lot alike.” (That might surprise Ms. Gratz, who is quick with an adjective herself.)

Now along comes the mayor in July with a sour new song-and-dance routine, crooning off-key that we’ve got to accentuate the negative—and don’t mess with Mr. Jimmy D.

If only he could blame last week’s heat wave for his sudden change of tune. No, the mayor’s real beef with my New York article was not that it made Hudson sound “too charming,” but that I didn’t make him sound charming enough: “Scalera recently appointed the same deposed [police] chief—a high-school buddy—as head of the city development corporation over vehement taxpayer objections.”

And if Mr. Scalera had finished reading that article—instead of tossing it angrily away at a recent development meeting—he would have found a still more “realistic view”  of the city:

“Hudson’s police blotters overflow with burglaries, domestic violence, and drug arrests. While neighboring towns log mostly traffic accidents, the city has seen two murders in six months, one on Christmas Eve. A neighborhood watch instituted by Time & Space Limited keeps an eye on the heroin and crack trade operating out of derelict homes on side streets with front doors propped permanently open and poorly stocked bodegas.”

If that’s sugar-coating, then Common Council president Mim Traver is sweeter than Lucille Ball—another comedienne known for pouring syrup on a guy named Ricky.

The mayor did take a shine to one idea in my article, namely Richard Artschwager’s comment that Hudson is not Rhinebeck. Here’s some more big news: it’s also not Millbrook, Woodstock, Bennington, Freeport, Scarsdale, Darien, Disneyland, Six Flags Great Adventure, nor indeed Stockbridge. Thank goodness—I, for one, am grateful that a small-minded Armonk malcontent and some anonymous crank didn’t “get” what’s good about Hudson. That leaves two more parking spaces for the remaining 99% of visitors who enjoy their stay.

Self-reliant Hudsonians have recognized that making a strength of the city’s historical weakness—what local activist Dan Region calls its “Wild West vibe”—is the key to turning the city’s fortunes around. Entrepreneurs have harnessed the potential of Hudson-style edginess, not Rhinebeck-style cuteness, and given the city its legs back despite considerable foot-dragging by City Hall. 

Sadly, many of the mayor’s increasingly irritable remarks  suggest that he might prefer to see Hudson fail than to watch it succeed without the control of his creaky political machine. Rather than smile proudly at this rebirth, Scalera and his dwindling cadre of allies seem to regard Hudson’s future as some metaphorical numbers game, with their own political fortunes as its jackpot.

I feel his pain; old habits die hard. Still, the mayor might spend less time spit-shining his tarnished image, and more time making the city gleam again. Some say that Mr. Scalera did an OK job at first. Maybe if he’d drop these petty grudges and stop fobbing lubberly fish stories off on the local press, he could salvage what little is left of his term and reputation.

Meanwhile if, as The Independent reported, good publicity is putting new tax revenues in the city’s coffers, the mayor could donate some of these apparently unwelcome new monies to worthy causes like Habitat for Humanity or even Historic Hudson. In his current mood, though, he seems more likely to raise a banner across Warren Street instead, reading “Not Quite Stockbridge Yet—Please Go Away!”

Of course, all this is just a sideshow to divert attention from what’s really happening in Hudson: in spite of all the poverty, crime, and slumlords which the Scalera administration has condoned, the city’s streets, stores, and restaurants are bustling again. We all hope this traffic may soon lure other types of business back to town. And the credit goes neither to magazine writers nor to politicians, but to Hudsonians new and old who honestly appreciate their hometown’s peculiar, but considerable, charms.