SamPratt.com

Local realtor Mary Mullane’s recent suggestion that Hudson’s Waterfront plan should encourage cruise ships to dock at (and bring passengers' wallets to) Hudson was met with derision by some Common Council members, as if this were some pie-in-the-sky fantasy.

But there is a very large cruise ship docked right now—on a rainy Wednesday afternoon—at The Point in Catskill. Real, live passengers are disembarking from the American Cruise Line vessel out of Wilmington, Delaware. A guide is giving them a list of attractions they can visit, and most are hoofing it up the hill to check out Catskill's main street.

Cruises of course are only one of many obvious economic development ideas that a full-fledged marina would attract on the east bank if the River—from bars to boat-builders. Yet as things stand, Hudson is poised to let those dollars and more flow instead to their more westerly neighbors.