Hudson, We Have Problems

 

If you stand to the side of the pedestrian crosswalk at the Warren Street end of Park Place on a busy day and observe pedestrian-vehicle activity (interactions?), it usually doesn't take long to witness a scary WTF moment.  Early yesterday afternoon, such a moment occurred directly in front of me no more than 3 minutes after arriving to the intersection to have a look at the insanity that is that intersection.  And it was a unique WTF moment, having nothing to do with a vehicle turning off of Warren, the prevailing hazard (often unseen) for pedestrians in this crosswalk.  

I watched as a pedestrian essentially got chased out of the crosswalk by a driver on Warren who decided it would be a good idea to turn their vehicle around in the intersection, needing a portion of the city's most dangerous crosswalk to do so.  It didn't seem to matter one bit to the driver that there was a pedestrian well into the crosswalk headed toward their moving multi-ton vehicle.  Pedestrian right of way in a painted crosswalk?  In Hudson?  At Park & Warren?  Are you kidding me?

Hudson, Where Progress Comes In The Form Of "I Don't Think So."

On Wednesday night at 8:30, I came across 4 illegally parked cars surrounding the Pocketbook businesses complex. Four! Two were about to be issued tickets by a HPD officer on the east side of 6th Street across from the business complex where it is extremely rare to see parked cars with no one in them.  It's safe to say that the drivers and passengers of those two cars were not visiting friends in one of the nearby houses. 

Soon Enough There Won't Be Any View Left Of The Refurbished, Historic Upper Depot Building

 

The city code is clear: real estate signs can be no more than 15 square feet in area. 5 feet by 3 feet is all you get!  But the real estate sign that recently appeared at the corner of 7th & State is exactly 6 feet wide by 4 feet high.  That's 24 square feet of sign, more than 60% over the limit allowed by our city code.  Of course, the bottom of the sign is nearly 4 feet off the ground, which means the top of the 6-foot-wide sign is nearly 8 feet above the ground, making the sign appear even larger and more of a disgusting code violation eyesore with no right to be in a residential neighborhood than it already is.  Situate yourself just right on the sidewalk in front of the sign and your view of the Upper Depot completely disappears.  How fantastic is that!  

One wonders if Nick Fox at Code Enforcement has noticed the oversized code violation real estate sign yet.

If The Common Council Continues to Rely On HPD For Help, Nothing -- Absolutely Nothing -- Will Get Accomplished!

During the HPD portion of the January 2024 Common Council Informal meeting, Police Chief Mishanda Franklin described an incident involving a female pedestrian and her "two-year-old child" that occurred the previous month during Winter Walk at the intersection of 7th & State.  She said, "a mother holding her child crossing the street was bumped by a car and fell to the ground. Baby was fine, child was fine.  The mother had some scrapes.  Everything was fine."   The driver of the vehicle, who apparently had been "driving at a slow rate of speed," blamed the incident on "darkness." 

No Matter Their Offer, Do Not Sign Up With Archtop Fiber!

 

Archtop Fiber is printing signs for their customers to display on their lawns.  As close to our streets as possible, of course!  No thank you!

And Then There Were None! And Then There Was No Money To Worry About?

According to the minutes found on the webpage of the City of Hudson Common Council Finance Committee, the committee met 11 times last year.  With the end of this year's fifth month about to arrive, the committee has met just twice.  The city, as we all know, is in financial trouble.

Greenport, Hudson: Same Zip Code, Same Toleration For Ugly!

 

What should we call this most abhorrent development in the public sphere that City Hall has no idea how to handle? Shit creep? The demise of Hudson? Mayor Ferris's legacy? Signs of the ugly (end?) times we live in? Scraping the bottom of the fucking barrel?