Poughkeepsie Studio

Property Plotting and Dividing

Connection is made from Downtown settlement to riverfront for sloops to gain easy access to the downtown markets.

The Improvement Party (Matthew Vassar) - promoting creation of new industries, new streets, pavements and brick sidewalks, and private academies for young men and seminaries for young women (Flad)
Plan to make Delafield St (close to the Upper Landing) an avenue of handsome homes set back 50ft or more with lawns in the front.
Plan to make an elite residential square uptown

much of the area within Poughkeepsie City limits remained undeveloped (even on the river slope) (Flad)
THe Upper and Lower landings were somewhat separate clusters of business and residence connected with the main business area on the hilltop by a fringe of houses along Union and Mill Streets
Mill Street remained most fashionable address with its comfortable brownstones

competition for new hospital

Eastman elected mayor - implemented ambitious program of municipal improvements
bad problem with sick in Poughkeepsie
Eastman put city into debt to achieve state-of-the-art sewage and water systems

John Sutcliffe constructed filters on land a mile north of the city line - water began to flow to houses and business in the city

downtown becomes evening destination

“treeless streets and barren commons would be transformed and beautiful, that unnattractive towns would be made attractive, and waste places would be redeemed.”

Edmund Platt wrote “ the movement for the removal of fences gathered headway and produced so great a change in the appearance of many residence streets that photographs taken before 1880s are almost unrecognizable now, even where the buildings remain almost as they were. Every house, not actually on the sidewalk line, formerly had its fence in front. Now very few fences remain except as dividing lines at the rear of lots.” (Flad)

William W. Smith purchased College Hill and transferred it to the city as a park.

Lucy Maynard Salmon attended - city beautiful ideas (Flad)

After 1900 - electricty run underground/sewer and water under streets as well - streetscapes became less cluttered
Early 1900s - paving streets, aligning streets (paving of lower main sprouted more commercial/residential) (Flad)
Early 20th century - Municipal housekeeping - Lucy Maynard Salmon - history department at Vassar
communication through newspapers

1906 - Salmon penned letter arguing that Poughkeepsie was far behind compared to other American cities and towns in forming organizations for civic improvement
fraternal societies, social/political clubs don’t do much help, poughkeepsie needs municipal leagues, civic clubs, city improvement societies, art leagues, city music commissions, civic art guilds, playground associations, tree planting societies, street cleaning leageues (Flad)

Salmon believed in working with business and professional leaders wherever her planning and reform interests converged with theirs, as they did in improving the city’s appearance and its reputation as a healthy environment.

community services by Lucy Salmon, being held Sunday afternoons in Poughkeepsie’s Cohen Theater - attracting three thousand people under one roof for consecutive sundays (Flad)

Poughkeepsie Chamber of Commerce reported it had secured the greatest city palnning exhibit in the United States - industrial expansion fund of $250,000 (Flad)
City’s mayor began seeking funds for bridge across the hudson

Myron West presentation (well known planner from Chicago) (flad)
-West provided comprehensive zoning and street plan, including street corrections, evaluation of the location of transit, rail and water transportation, streets, schools, parks, and public buildings, and revitalization of its waterfront (never-ending concern for Poughkeepsie)

Mayor appointed a committee of twenty-five representative businessmen and professionals to review West’s plan, did not set up a planning commission though (Flad)

1930s - Many local efforts in soil, water and forest conservation were undertaken by both public and private sectors. (Flad)

1930s - Major initiative to update the image of the two million businesses on the Main Streets of America (Flad)
1930 - Poughkeepsie Chamber of Commerce in its industrial survey of the city reported that the city had had comparatively few labor difficulties in recent years. (Flad)
Low cost of living in Poughkeepsie “enables the workers to maintain higher living standards than large industrial centers where wages are higher.”
1931 - Increase in hospital care paid for by the city’s Board of Public Welfare. (Flad)
1931 - City of Poughkeepsie reached its borrowing limit and had to announce a delay in paying old-age pension claims, ALSO Governor authorized $6 million for work relief under the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration (TERA)
1933 - CWA - Civil Works Administration as a temporary emergency job-creation project
Renovated Lincoln Center (city owned clubhouse for poor children), installed new gymnasium floor. College Hill Park received new storm sewers, 115 laborers made grounds improvements at Hudson River State Psychiatric Hospital
1935 - FHA offered loans to local business owners for remodeling, while the building industry instituted a nationwide competition sponsored by the Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass Company
1935 - New Deal inheritance tax (made it costly for owners of the great Hudson River estates to pass them along to their heirs
1936 - a traveling exhibition of modern storefronts sponsored by the Pittsburge Plate Glass Company

1937/38 - Poughkeepsie Post Office (Part of Depression Era Post office construction boom - Roosevelt) (Flad)
Modeled after the former Dutchess County Courthouse built in 1809
1937 - Ecological Survey (Vassar College Professor Edith Adelaide Roberts) on the botanical resources of Dutchess County (Flad)

Poughkeepsie Area Development Association presented plan for increased downtown parking. (non-profit, nonpartisan, fact-finding organization devoted to the development of the Poughkeepsie area”
Traffic congestion harmed business (Chamber of Commerce quote) (Flad)

Poughkeepsie Plaza opened - “Largest parking area between Westchester County and
Albany” with 1,450 parking spaces - anchors W.T. Grant, Woolworth’s, and Grand Union
1958 - 45% of the city’s total 13,000 housing units had been constructed prior to the 20th century (Flad)
“Although the charm and character of these older homes is an important aesthetic asset to the City, they represent problems in terms of maintenance and in compliance with today’s plumbing, electrical and fire regulatory standards.” - A consultant

Bulldozed through historic neighborhoods, and created barrier between river and downtown
“Livingston Woods” gone - where the violet greenhouses were
Cut into 228 parcels, including 178 dwellings housing 200 families, a loss of $600,000 in tax revenue (at the then-current rate)

Five major project areas, ⅕ total area of the city, ⅓ of population for redevelopment, rehabilitation or demolition.

Would eventually by 120 residential, 30 business and industrial sites (including Poughkeepsie Yacht Club, Pirate Canoe Club)

June 1967

Model Cities committee strike about lack of public representation in planning

42 of Poughkeepsie’s civic leaders visited Kalamazoo and came back with approval for a main mall (Kalamazoo also had streets on either side of the mall)

600 homes were included in a neighborhood improvement program designed to bring existing structures up to code standards, improve street lighting, street resurfacing, and sidewalks

Located under the span of the Mid-Hudson Bridge, and with only one means of access, it earned a reputation for drug dealing and fell into neglect

Lower main street characterized as a “critical area of derelict alcoholism” (Flad)
City focuses on redevelopment of lower main

Approximate date - mid 1970s

Displaced 48 owners, 59 tenants, and 26 businesses (Josh)

Mayor Aposporos and the Common Council teamed up with the Downtown Council merchants to appoint a committee to focus on economic revitalization of the central business distirct. (Flad)
Frustrated with the perception of the mall by the press

57% retail - including 13 food, 9 clothing, 5 stationary, 4 jewelry, 4 shoe and 3 photography
32% service - banks, lawyers, dentists and hair stylists
11% vacant - accounted for 13% of available square footage fronting on Main Street

Waterfront Advisory Committee (with help of Matthew D. Rudikoff Associates) Local Waterfront Revitalization Program

Main Mall hired Hyett-Palma, Inc to submit “A Business Enhancement Plan for Downtown Poughkeepsie, NY” (Flad)
Hyett-Palma prepared a strategic plan in association with Retail Consultant Services and Real Estate Services Group that attempted to define marketing plan for the commercial district.

Poughkeepsie Partnership, a joint public-private nonprofit organization between the Chamber of Commerce, the Common Council and the mayor promoted project.
Suggested as a test to reopening Main Street altogether

63% vacant
Of more than 40 retail shops in the ‘88 survey, only 14 remained in 1997
Total of 22 retail on the main mall

Grecian

post-Colonial design with a hint of Greek Revival Influence

Gothic Revival

Grecian

Parthenon-like form rose from College Hill, the highest point in the village, Poughkeepsie’s own Acropolis

Grecian

Grecian

Greek Revival

Grecian

Gothic Revival & Romanesque

Neoclassical

J. W. Hinkley’s trolleys, Poughkeepsie City & Wappingers Falls Electric Railroad, open, reshape the city, receive investment from City Council, all lines converging at Main & Market

car fare $0.80

James Vassar, fire 1811 killing his son John, son Matthew takes over, rebuilds 1812

George Oakley arrives and partners with the Hoffmans at Upper Landing, builds new storehouse, adds new flour grinding machine to the grist mill

Steamboats → hotels & tourism - Exchange House (1834 - “at foot of Main Street”); Eastern House (purchased 1831, corner of Main and Catherine Streets); Northern Hotel (corner of Mill and Washington Streets)

1820s - lottery industry, George Oakley’s Temple of Fortune on corner of Main and Liberty

1832-mid 1840s - whaling industry: Poughkeepsie Whaling Company (f. 1832 Matthew Vassar shareholder) and the Dutchess Whaling Company (f. 1833, George Oakley treasurer, later acquired other company, whaling dock near Fall Kill)

College Hill School / Collegiate School, created by Improvement Party

Harvey Eastman, penmanship, banking, stock trading,

Lumber and coal baron James Collingwood builds Collingwood Opera House, now the bardavon

Poughkeepsie Transportation Company relocates from Upper Landing to Main Street Landing (Middle Landing), marking end of shipping from UL

outside investors open Poughkeepsie Glass Corporation at site of former whaling dock, remain until mid 20th c

De Laval Separator Company of Sweden builds factory for milking machinery at Lower Landing, major employer through to mid 20th C

W. W. Smith of Smith Brothers Cough Drops buys the College Hill site and bequeaths it to the city as a park

Poughkeepsie Electric Light & Power Company builds power station at UL
Turn of C - streets macadamized, street lighting, changes catering to automobile, water, sewer, telephone wires all put underground

Poughkeepsie Underwear Company opens in an 1870s building that previously made shoes and overalls

one of last remaining businesses at Upper Landing / Fall Kill, torn down