![]() ![]() The result is that a walk around Hudson today is a walk through architectural history. This gave people plenty to work with as they preserved and renewed building after building. When Hudson’s fortunes eventually declined, the city was mostly (and luckily) spared the large-scale urban renewal that erased the architecture of many other small cities. A prime example is North Sixth Street, where the city’s sea captains lived, and where many houses include such nautical details as round windows with hand-etched glass. With the river fueling economic activity, each generation left its mark, starting with the whaling Quakers and including, thereafter, owners of everything from ironworks to cement plants. Within the city, there are examples from nearly every major American period, from 18th-Century Nantucket townhouses, to solid Federal-style buildings, to rambling Victorians and early 20th Century Arts and Crafts structures. Hudson is called a “dictionary of architectural history” because of its great wealth of exemplary buildings, many of them restored and meticulously maintained. Among those facing ignominious arrest were eight or more officers of the law. The Feds raided every brothel on Diamond Street and pulled everyone out. Hudson’s wild side came to an abrupt end in the 1950s, after the FBI sealed off every entrance to the city and began making arrests. According to legend, beer runners used a tunnel to the waterfront to secretly fill barges with brew. During Prohibition, Hudson became a major supplier of illicit beer to New York. ![]() This underbelly attracted its share of characters, including gangsters like the notorious Legs Diamond, a frequent visitor for whom Diamond Street (now Columbia Street) was supposedly named.Īll along Diamond Street, houses were converted to brothels, and it is said that the longest-running craps game in history-two and a half years-took place in Hudson. But it was also a city that, throughout its history, offered sailors and laborers some added “entertainment.” From New York to Albany, everyone along the river knew about the “other” Hudson: the bars, gambling dens and brothels that existed all over the city in semi-secrecy. It was also the first planned American city based on a modern grid.Īs whaling declined, Hudson became a thriving industrial hub. Hudson was, incidentally, the first city chartered in the United States. The name of the port changed to Hudson when the city was chartered in 1785. This they established on a piece of land known as Claverack Landing. As the British shut down ports along the coast, two enterprising Nantucket brothers-Seth and Thomas Jenkins-sought a port that could get ships out to sea without drawing the attention of the Royal Navy. How did a city so far upriver become a whaling port in the 1700s? Simple-it was a matter of necessity being the proverbial mother of invention. This mix-history, farming, art, culture-makes Hudson an extraordinary city to visit, offering history, sights, sounds, curiosities and great food around every corner. Hudson’s compact urban core makes it an eminently walkable city-one linked by rail to a great metropolis, built beside one of America’s great rivers, and situated at the heart of an agricultural district at the head of the farm-to-table movement. While our population is equivalent to many small towns, Hudson is, and behaves much more like, a city, with an historical richness and contemporary vibrancy far bigger than its size would suggest. ![]()
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