HVR 2021 In Review – Part Two

Continuing from Part One.

July – Newburgh – City Club Opened
The Newburgh City Club, originally the Dr. William Culbert House, is one of the Hudson Valley’s most significant ruins owing to its being a rare surviving collaboration of architectural design work between Andrew Jackson Downing and Calvert Vaux. It is also one of the few ruins of the Hudson Valley that I had not seen the inside of, until this past summer. From July 10 to October 31, STRONGROOM presented Martin Roth: “From 2017-2021 Martin Roth transformed a ruin into a garden for a plant concert.” The Newburgh-based arts organization brought forth the the site-specific “plant concert” installation conceived in 2017 by late artist Martin Roth inside the walls of the City Club ruin.

August 3, 2020

August 1, 2021

August 1, 2021

1970. Photo Credit: Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress)

August – Kingston – Modjeska Sign Exhibit
Friends of Historic Kingston opened a fantastic new exhibit entitled “Signs of the Times, The Modjeska Sign Studio, Kingston, New York.” The exhibit chronicles signs and businesses of Kingston from the 1920s to the 1970s, including the Forst meatpacking company which appears in the Hudson Valley Ruins book. The highlight of the exhibition at is a neon sign that advertised Luigi’s Restaurant in Glasco, south of Saugerties. Lite Brite Neon Studio of Kingston rescued the sign from the Saugerties dump about eight years ago and restored the sign for this exhibit. Signs of the Times will continue in 2022.

September – Verplanck – KinoSaito Opens at Former St. Patrick’s School
The former St. Patrick’s School in Verplanck, NY (built 1921, closed 1991) was renovated and reopened on September 9 as KinoSaito, an art center rooted in the creation and practice of abstract art that honors the spirit of its founding muse, painter and theater designer Kikuo Saito.
I was allowed to photograph the building in 2017, not long after KinoSaito acquired the property. Fortunately the school building escaped the plague of graffiti and vandalism that befalls so many vacant structures. However, due to a few decades of disuse, the building did require rehabilitation. The first floor now contains two galleries and a restored classroom with local history information. Upstairs contains a performance space and two artists’ residences, converted from classroom space.
Photographs April 29, 2017 and October 31, 2021

October 2021

April 2017

October 2021

October 2021

October – Millbrook – Bennett School Demolition Begins
This fall 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 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.
When Tom Rinaldi and I began posting our photos to the internet, in the late 1990s, Halcyon Hall was one of a half-dozen or so Hudson Valley ruins that appeared on reputable urban exploration websites, and it also featured in numerous “World’s Most Haunted Mansions“-type articles. I haven’t been inside the Bennett School buildings in a solid decade, but it was always somewhat comforting to pull into Millbrook and see that Halcyon Hall survived another winter or another windstorm, like cheering on an underdog that should have lost its fight a long time ago. Take a last look ASAP and say goodbye to this celebrity ruin – we may not see another like it again.

October 2021

October 2021

October 2021

November – Ulster Landing – Livingston-Ferenczy House Restored and Sold
About 7 or 8 years ago, myself and Tom Rinaldi became aware of a certain old house along the Hudson River north of Kingston. We found it by “flying over” the shoreline of the Hudson using the late, great, aerial imagery of Bing Maps (I say late, great, because the original Bing aerials used fall/winter imagery which, thanks to bare tree limbs, revealed ruins and mystery structures worth further investigation. For the past few years, Google and Bing have used summer images which is terrible for our hobby.) The house, used as storage by the last family who owned it, wasn’t abandoned but it wasn’t occupied either. What it was, was that rare house that had not been modernized, nor torn down, or otherwise tended to in at least fifty or so years.
The house was an eclectic pile, its origins still not exactly known, and apparently built in at least two stages, but it was one of the rare West Shore homes owned by the Livingston family who were landlords over much of the east shore in northern Dutchess and Columbia Counties. It was incredible that something like this existed still and was not a complete ruin. Yet it was certainly possible, once the family placed the house on the real estate market, that its days may be numbered, eyed as a “tear-down” by potential buyers. In 2019, the house was acquired by Muddykill Ventures who set about to preserve the character and appearance of the house and yet make it into a home for the 21st century. It appears that the house sold this past week, for 4.5 million dollars.

July 2020, pre-restoration.

July 2020, pre-restoration.

December 2020, mid-restoration.

December 2020, mid-restoration.

November – Poughkeepsie – Scenic Hudson Plans New Headquarters
Hudson Valley Ruins was happy to hear the news that Scenic Hudson will preserve an old industrial building in Poughkeepsie and convert it into their new headquarters. The adaptive-reuse project is being designed by the MASS Design Group. 60 Minutes aired in October a very interesting segment about the inspiring work that MASS and its Executive Director Michael Murphy are conducting locally and abroad. Unfortunately the program is not accessible without a subscription, but a transcription still appears at CBS News – highly-recommended reading.

November 2021

November 2021

December – Monsey – Rockland Drive-In Theater Demolished
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.

December 14, 2005.

December – Newburgh – Balmville School Demolished
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.

2003

2018
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So that is 2021 in a blog post (in two parts). Please let me know if you think I missed something newsworthy such as a demolition or the completed restoration of a former ruin. Already I am aware of some projects that may kick off, or complete, in 2022, and I have photos ready to go for when they can be shared. I may yet blog again, hopefully, and myself and Tom Rinaldi certainly plan to continue posting relevant topics at the HVR Instagram account. Thank you for continuing to follow along, and best wishes to all for a Happy New Year.

-Rob