Over at Carole Osterink’s new blog, The Gossips of Rivertown,* there are several posts addressing Hudson’s draft Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan now under consideration by the Common Council and New York Department of State.
A little-known fact about the Waterfront is that the southernmost piece along the River was owned by the City until the early 1990s. In an amazingly short-sighted move, Hudson sold this prime real estate for a rock-bottom price to Independent Cement, later renamed St. Lawrence Cement, now known as Holcim.
And to add insult to injury: Several years ago while a member of the board of Clearwater, I was talking with a boat-builder in Saugerties who was repairing the organization’s Sloop. When I mentioned that I lived (at the time) in Hudson, a look of chagrin passed over his face.
“Hudson?" he said. “Do you know that I wanted to move this business to Hudson? I tried to buy that piece of land they had on the river, but they gave me a huge runaround. Then I found out they sold it to the cement company.” (He said the City attorney at the time who headed up the negotiations was Giff Whitbeck, of Rapport Meyers Whitbeck Shaw & Rodenhausen; this would have been during either the last Yusko or first Scalera term.)
So try to imagine what the LWRP would look like today if Hudson had an active-but-low-impact boat-building and repair business on the Waterfront... Imagine how much less “pull” Holcim would have had in its negotiations. And imagine how the presence of such a sustainable business—one which could train local workers in a highly-skilled trade—would add to proposals such as permanently docking the Halfmoon in Hudson.
ANOTHER HISTORICAL ANECDOTE: Years ago I was told by a prominent member of the Columbia County Sportsmen's Association that at the time the City obtained HUD funding to build what became the hulking L&B factory, the Sportsmen were very concerned about the fate of South Bay. In spite of its degraded state, the Bay attracted (and today still plays host to) a remarkable diversity wildlife, and many sportsmen had worked the area during the nearly two decades that ICC was ignoring it.
This sportsman told me that their organization had negotiated an assurance from the City as part of the L&B deal that nothing would be developed south of a certain point, and that markers were placed in the Bay to identify that line. However, once the cement controversy revved up, this source clammed up, as if he'd been told not to talk to any plant opponents.
Anyone with knowledge of whether or where such markers were place (or at least what back issues of local publications might be researched to find out more on the topic) can contact me via email by clicking here. The identify of the source of any such tips received will be kept strictly anonymous.
* The name derives from a 19th Century book of sketches by Alice Neal (not any relation to the 20th Century painter of the same name, to my knowledge). The full text of Neal's book can be read for free online.
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