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Hudson Valley Demolition Alert 2021 DEMO
ALERTS
2021
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· 2004-Part II · 2004
Part I |
January 1, 2022
On December 22, 2021, the c. 1897 Balmville
School on Route 9W was demolished by the Newburgh Board of Education. The
building appeared to be in good condition when we photographed it in 2003.
The school district ceased to use or maintain the building and did not
entertain offers by concerned citizens to acquire and preserve the school
building. The property appears destined to become a parking lot for the
adjacent, in-use, Balmville Elementary School.
The Rockland Drive-In Theatre screen was torn
down in early December. A 5-1/2 story office building is planned to take
the place of the 1,800-car capacity drive-in theater, which opened in 1955
and closed in 1987. Rockland Drive-In was one of two Rockland County
screens still standing in 2006 when it appeared in the Hudson Valley Ruins
book. The Nyack Drive-In screen in Blauvelt came down in the early 2010s.
Demolition
work began on the abandoned buildings of the Bennett
School campus in Millbrook. Several buildings have been completely
demolished already. Halcyon Hall, the centerpiece of the campus, remains
standing as of December 2021, but likely sometime in January will come
down in a giant pile of timber, stone, and slate. The 20
million dollar project will turn the Bennett school property into a
village park.
Sometime in summer 2021, Scenic
Hudson quietly demolished the Hudson Cement Company silos as part of
their plan to turn a 520-acre former industrial site into a park to be
called Hudson Cliffs Park.
It was exciting to think that the 300-foot tall cylinders would become the
focal point of the new park, repurposed and reclaimed from industrial
artifact to cultural monument, in line with the industrial chic
reclamation of the Hutton Brickyards just to south, and in the spirit of
the exciting and imaginative reinvention that is occurring at the even
more colossal Silo City location in Buffalo, New York. Curiously, only the
Albany Times Union reported on the demise of the silos. However, the Times
Union article emphasized more the graffiti at the site than the silos
themselves.
ISt. Joseph's CHurch, School, and rectory weer
demolished in April 2021. In 2018, St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church sold
this property to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The church, by
then, built a larger house of worship in Goldens Bridge with room for 800
worshippers – the increased capacity meant that fewer services could be
held, in comparison with the number of masses at the 200-person capacity
Croton Falls church. The MTA will create a 450-space permit-only commuter
parking lot at the site of the old church, right at a time when office
workers have not yet returned to Manhattan in anywhere near pre-pandemic
numbers
The Hyde Park Motor Company building, undoubtedly
was one of the earliest automobile showrooms built in the Hudson Valley,
was demolished this winter. Situated at the southeast corner of the main
four-corners intersection in Hyde Park, the old car dealership seemed to
be a perfect candidate for adaptive reuse – a restaurant or cafe
perhaps. It was demolished instead, and the corner was still a vacant lot
in late 2021.
The Farrand house in Greenport (just outside of
Hudson, NY) was demolished yesterday February 23. Photograph by David
Sacco whose grandparents operated the Hotel Glendale out of the house in
the late 1930s. Thanks to our friend Paul Barrett for the alert. Paul
advocated for the preservation of the Farrand house and thoroughly
researched its history. He believes that the house was probably made by
joining two houses built in the mid-1800s and that it attained its Gothic
revival appearance in the 1860s or later. After its short stint as a
hotel, the house was converted to apartments in the 1940s. The last
tenants were moved out in 2009 in anticipation of redevelopment of the
site. An Aldi's supermarket and shopping center is proposed for the
Farrand House site and adjoining property. A Gothic revival cottage behind
the existing McDonald's will also be demolished. The Gothic revival trim
on the house was not even salvaged.
Two historic buildings in the center of Ancram
(Columbia County) demolished in summer 2020, including Porter's Store. As
written in our book Hudson Valley Ruins: "Built in the 1840's, this
building originally housed a hotel and general store. Later its upper
floors were converted to apartments. The Ancram Post Office occupied the
building until 1995. It has stood vacant since then." These
photographs are from our last visit, February 20, 2017. Porter's Store was
demolished about June 2020. The other building that was demolished was the
19th-century Stiehle House, which was damaged after an intoxicated driver
drove into the house which stood right up against the shoulder of Route
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