Wallpaper at 135

In the spring of 2007 I was invited to harvest wallpaper samples from 135 Warren Street,


which was being gutted and rehabbed, and turned into an art gallery (Currently Verdigris Tea and Gallery).
Some of the oldest papers I have ever found were entombed behind the sheetrock in the stairwell here,

 

 and in the tiny bedrooms on the top floor.






It was somewhat frustrating,  though, as most of the papers were original layers, pasted onto either original plaster or wooden plank walls--- a combo that makes them very difficult to remove and save.

                                     
                                        Old papers are often very thin, with thick, chalky, brittle inks.

These blue medallions were stuck on the plaster on the side of the room that probably got a lot of sun.  The rest of the paper in the pattern had completely deteriorated, but this part of the pattern clung on over the years.

Many of the walls were like big collages in there.

The unabridged album of my photos and wallpaper scans can be found on my flickr page HERE. 

Park Square and Streetcar, Hudson

the house on first street

I liked that funky little house on First Street.

I used to walk by it a lot and wonder if someone would 

come along and rescue it

before it completely deteriorated.

Watched this valance of poison ivy that had grown inside the kitchen window 

and even ventured inside once years ago before it was boarded up---

there were purple and pink walls

and a faux tile shower held together with...masking tape!...

Anyway. The house was demolished last week---

but is immortalized in this beautiful moon-over-hudson painting by Edward Avedesian, 

which hangs in the church at Carrie's house

 (Edward lived a half block away--

most likely had a perfect view of the

 house from his upstairs window.)

bird's eye geek note

I've been doing a lot of cycling this summer, and one of my rituals after I get home from a ride is to map out my route  (different each day) with online software that will tell me how far I went, what altitudes I reached, even how many calories I burned.   Using google and its satellite imagery has a been a great tool in deciding where to venture next, but when I started to learn how to read weather maps recently, I made an interesting (to me, anyway) discovery.
Google hasn't updated their satellite images in our area in like- three years!  What up?

Check out upper Fairview Avenue, as it currently shows on Google:

Wasteland.

Now look at the exact same area on Weather dot com:

Complete with all the new bigbox crap.

Here's the Columbia Land Conservancy Area on Rod and Gun Road, as it appears today, with the pavilion and silo:

But if you were on your way up that road, and navigating with Google images - you'd think you were going to drive by a working farm on private property!

That farm hasn't been there for years.

I have yet to figure out how often the Weatherdotcom website updates their basic landscape satellite photos, which serve as an underlay for their weather info.  I'm guessing the websites probably have to pay a fee to the satellite companies to use their images, and then subscribe according to their need.

In any case, the current image for Union and First Streets shows an empty lot (now under development), and the trees on Union Street haven't been cut down yet.  So we can deduce the images are updated at least every few months.

 I'll be watching this area hoping to figure out the update schedule, unless someone can enlighten me...

"...she was incorrigible ..."

Was pleasantly surprised this morning to stumble on a garage sale that had lots of truly old stuff, including a small stash of early 1920s ephemera from the Hudson Training School for Girls  (now the correctional facility on the south edge of town).  Admission forms,  progress reports, letters, newspaper clippings, and photos.  Unfortunatly I don't have time today to get too immersed in it all, but here are a few quick pics.  More later.

Hudson Courthouse, Now and Then

WANTED: Married Man

also, single man, on fruit farm.

Hudson Beach Combing part 3: Metal

(february...the month for tying up loose ends.  This blog entry should have been posted last summer...)

The metals can be divided into two simple sub-categories: the junk I bring home in my bike basket,




and the junk I must leave behind for future archeologists, like this portable typewriter

and this extreeeemly heavy rusty bucket of railroad spikes.

which was buried deep down in the sand when I discovered it.

Of all my metal finds, my favorite things are these little mystery trinkets:

which appear to be once-molten bits of aluminum (though they feel heavier than aluminum).  Some of them have a sort of liquidy, art nouveau feel to them. (click to enlarge)

I like to pretend the one pictured at right here 

was perhaps once a tiny pocket saint carried off to sea with some WWII sailor, and found its way back up the Hudson over the years.

Hudson Beach Combing Part 1, Glass

      

Just as I was about to compile my own local beach glass guide, the New York Post Parade Magazine published A Shore Thing yesterday, a little Sunday piece about "sea glass" collectors.  It calls us "secretive, greedy, even starry-eyed" (yeah, I guess), and runs down a list of glass color hierarchy in the sea glass collectors world.  For the most part, the article works as a guide for river glass collectors as well:

            "Green and Brown are common"  it says.
                             
I couldn't agree more and have to stop bringing them home, unless they are particularly smooth and well-shaped.


                 "Blues are harder to find, but not impossible".

Here in Hudson, blues are indeed rare  (those boaters are drinking beer, not Perrier---)  and it is the lime greens that are rarest, and a personal favorite.

 This is where the river experience differs from seashore.
 Parade names red glass "ultra-scarce"; the "holy grail" of beach glass collectors.

But I can usually find 1-2 a day on the Hudson shores.

Probably because red ones are made of tail lights and boats are in a more confined area here. (?)  For all I know these channel markers have glass lights on them too, that occasionally bust and wash ashore.

In any case, while reds are rare, at least they will scream out to you.

Today I ventured into new territory, and my haul included an unprecedented 

five reds and four blues

Without salt water and high seas, glass shards around here don't get very smooth, so I doubt I will ever face much competition in the local beach glass-hunting scene.

I love the color combo-ing though.

This very dense opaque red one is my newest favorite, 

and feels like it's been knocking around for quite some time.