SamPratt.com: 6 posts from October 20, 2013

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6 posts from October 20, 2013 - October 26, 2013

October 26, 2013

Record sale at Hudson auction

Photo by Walter Hill for Stair Galleries

Hudson art dealer and musician Peter Jung reports that the Fabergé figurine of a Russian bodyguard commissioned by Tsar Nicholas II brought an auction price of $5.2 million this afternoon at Stair Galleries. Found in a Rhinebeck attic, the piece was described earlier this month in a New York Times article. Even without doing a thorough search, it seems safe to say that represents the largest price paid for anything in the City of Hudson ever, including real estate.

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October 25, 2013

David Hockney slept here

Painted fireplace in abandoned apartment, Hudson (NY).

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October 24, 2013

Caveat emptor

Two longtime residents say they believe it likely that buried gas or oil tanks may be found on the triangular piece of property at the gateway of Hudson and Greenport, whose sale was reported here yesterday. The property sold sold for $5,000 last week as part of Columbia County’s foreclosure auction.

in Cities | Hudson, Towns | Greenport | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 23, 2013

Hudson gateway property sells at auction

An unknown buyer has purchased the triangle of land and abandoned building in Greenport which serves as the unofficial entrance to Hudson, at the dangerous intersection of Route 23B and Columbia Turnpike.

The price, according to Lisa Brightly of the County Attorney’s office, was the minimum bid set for last week’s auction of foreclosed properties: $5,000.

The goofy rendering above (created by Morris Associates) was circulated in April 2011 by a group of Hudson and Greenport politicos and developers, who proposed demolishing the dilapated building creating an “entry park.”

One Greenport insider speculated that the likely buyer might be accountant and County GOP ringleader Richard Koskey, who was listed as one of the proponents of the plan in this Register-Star article from the time. The other proponents were then-Mayor Richard Scalera, then-Mayor’s assistant Carmine Pierro and County engineer David Robinson, gravel king Paul Colarusso, then-Greenport Supervisor Ed Nabozny, along with Guy Apicella, Mary Mazzacano, Daniel Kennealley, and Cathy Bucholsky of the Greenport Garden Club.

New Hudson Building Inspector

According to the outgoing Hudson building inspector Peter Wurster, his replacement is Fire Chief Craig Haigh. Haigh, who is also a real estate agent, supposedly has been sworn in already.

Wurster claimed that his retirement was speeded by a sense that he was “tired of being bullied.”

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Sard’oh!

The Facebook postings of Ghent Town Board member (and Thruway toll-taker) Richard Sardo are becoming a campaign issue for some local voters.

Most recently, Sardo compared FOX News anchor Megyn Kelly with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, misogynistically referring to the latter as “Madcow” and likening her to “an ugly man.” A screenshot is above.

A day earlier, Sardo decided it was important to post a Yearbook photo of Jeh Johnson, Obama’s Homeland Security nominee, seeming to to imply that there is something inherently dubious about Johnson having once been a young African-American male. UPDATE: An email from Sardo’s son, Alexander, offers the contrary explanation that Johnson attended the same high school as his father, claiming that his father was “proudly” posting about the appointment of a “fellow alumni”:

Sardo, a Tea Partier who has also stated that “man-made global warming/climate change is a fraud,” is campaigning against Mike Benvenuto for Larry Andrews’ former Town Supervisor seat. Benvenuto has both the Republican and Democratic nominations, while Sardo is running on the Conservative and Independence Party lines.

in Politics | Columbia County, Towns | Ghent | Permalink | Comments (0)

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