The Pocketbook Hudson Hotel and Baths: The Gift That Keeps On Giving To The Neighborhood!

I'll try to make this quick.  (It won't be easy!)

A few weeks ago, I noticed a wonderful and unexpected development in my neighborhood that we should all be happy about.  Of course, this could happen in your neighborhood (if it hasn't already).   

While waiting for hotel (and restaurant, spa, etc.) guests to arrive, the valet driver for the Pocketbook Hotel and Baths business complex sits in his parked car, usually while it is parked idling on Washington Street. Idling on fucking Washington Street!  It isn't unusual to see his orange Subaru parked illegally along the yellow curb at the intersection with 6th Street. Until a few months ago, all the parking spaces on Washington Street, like any residential street without any businesses nearby, were used almost exclusively by residents of Washington Street and their visitors.  The same can be said of Prospect Street and of North 6th.  Times have changed.  Quickly and for the worse.  

Employee parking!

This past Saturday night at 6:30, I noticed that there were no parking spaces available between 6th and Franklin along the houses of Washington Street's 500 block.  I had a hunch where the valet driver was waiting in his idling car: a block to the south on Prospect Street.  And I was correct.  There he was, scrolling on his phone in the dark of his idling car, waiting to be called or texted by someone inside the building he was parked next to to come park another guest's car waiting for him on Washington so that he could drive it to the PBH's fenced-in lot on Washington Street a few hundred feet from the PBH and across the street from the Firestation.  But to do so, the valet driver would have to accomplish a whole lot more after finding a parking space for his car closer to the north side of the building where the valet service is offered (dare he try Washington and come up empty?).  After parking his car (perhaps illegally), he would have to walk to the guest's car, get the keys, then drive the car west on one-way Washington to Franklin, take a left, then a left on one-way Prospect, then a left on 6th (be careful there buddy, it's not your car and that is a dangerous intersection!!!), arrive at Washington Street 150 feet from where he began his journey one minute prior, take a right on Washington, then a left into the PBH's parking lot, then park the car, get out of the car and walk back to his parked car (which may or may not be idling) and get back in it to wait for another call or text message from someone at the PBH telling him that another guest needs their car driven a quarter mile to the lot a few hundred feet away, or a guest's car retrieved from the lot so they can get back home.  To get home, those guests will have to first give the valet his tip, drive down narrow, one-way Washington Street, maybe even making their way to Prospect Street and to 6th, then crossing Washington Street (150 feet from where they began their journey) to head to Fairview to get out of town and back home.  

Employee parking!  (idling on Prospect Street)

Are you feeling dizzy?  Can you feel the noxious, carcinogenic vehicle exhaust in your lungs?  Can you feel the anger that certain Washington Street and Prospect Street (and other nearby streets) residents are feeling, particularly those that own their house and have to park on the street every day and night and who had gotten accustom to not worrying at all (or much) about finding a nearby parking space, perhaps even directly in front of their house and especially a space for the night they won't be ticketed for?

Didn't the Common Council recently pass an anti-idling law?

Did the PBH developers tell the Planning Board four years ago that their valet driver's waiting area would be inside his idling personal vehicle while it is typically parked in any parking space he is able to find on or near Washington Street's 500 block, preferably as close to 6th & Washington as possible?  Or did Gabe Katz and Sean Roland forget to mention this important detail to the Planning Board?  Do either of those fellows live anywhere near Washington Street?  Do they live on Washington Street, perhaps directly across the street from their business complex, relying on on-street parking for their vehicles, especially overnight?

Gabriel Katz, of Suretsy Realty and Macarthur Holdings, located in Manhattan at 75th & Broadway, is the money behind the multi-million-dollar PBH development.  According to the Planning Board's Site Plan Review application from early 2021, Katz's phone number has a 914 area code.  Katz may not live in Westchester anymore, but I know that he doesn't live anywhere near his latest real estate development project, the one here in Hudson on once quiet Washington Street where no residents ever had to post signs at the curb telling people to park their cars elsewhere.  And where no one who lived elsewhere could ever be seen sitting in their idling car taking up a parking space and not doing much of anything besides occasionally getting out of their own car and getting into someone else's to drive it around the neighborhood on the way to a leased parking lot on city-owned property.

First, it's grumbling and complaints among neighbors, maybe even calls to the police. Then it's signs at the curb and cones in the street.  Then it's a verbal argument or two between a resident and hotel guest parking their car.  Finally, it's a knife or bullet to the neck to settle an argument about a parking space.  One or two people dead or in the hospital, one person in jail.  Peace in the neighborhood at last!

Thanks, Gabe and Sean, we really appreciate the improvements you've made for the neighborhood!  Got any more improvements in mind for us; any others that you didn't bother letting the Planning Board or local residents know about first?  Will you be hiring a second valet driver if business really picks up at the PBH?  Let's hope so!

This should be a code violation!