New Sidewalk, Short on Common Sense and Oversight, a Disaster for Pedestrians

Graffiti an Eradicable Problem

Articles in The Gossips of Rivertown and Register Star about the marking of fresh concrete sidewalks in front of WunderBar and the forthcoming The Crimson Sparrow with graffiti inspired considerable comment.

Can’t Erase This with a Trowel

04/15/2012 bad sidewalks in Hudson NYA recent walk up the street revealed a problem with this sidewalk work that can not be eradicated with a trowel. There is a mismatch in elevation of roughly three inches as you walk up Warren and another at the end of the new section of an inch or more, an obvious hazard to pedestrians, an insurmountable barrier to wheelchairs.

Common sense dictates that sidewalks be flat, regular surfaces without such hazards. Doubtless design standards for sidewalks say more.

What does this say about the owners of these buildings? What does it say about the workmanship of the contractor, a local one at that, to build something like this? And, where is the oversight of the city? Can one simple jack hammer a sidewalk and put down anything you want? 

By way of prediction, this ramp of concrete that the contractor put it to mask this travesty will not survive more than a winter of two before it begins to disintegrate. Good old mother nature, here through the freeze-thaw cycles of our winters, will reduce this to rubble.

Bad Construction and Poor Oversight Persist  for Years (Decades?)

Mid-Hudson Cable Continues To Be a Rip Off

Mid-Hudson Cable continues to provide substandard internet services here. I have written of this earlier. Last summer I suckered up for the “up to 10 MB/sec” service for an extra $5 per month. Recently I updated my test results over this time span. The average download speed (all results based on 130 tests from August 2011 through today) is 5.9 MB/sec; the average upload speed is .43 MB/sec. The ping time average is 160 milliseconds.

So, in the strange world of Mid-Hudson Cable 5.9 equals “up to 10 MB/sec”. One does not need a calculator to see that there is a 40% shortfall here.

You can download the spreadsheet here to check out the data

Truck Pizza Delivers at Basilica – mystery melts away

Almost immediately after my previous posting, “Mystery Pizza Truck – still somewhat of a mystery“, my Facebook page lit up with comments from Gary Shiro at Hudson Opera House and Peter Pehrson at Acres Food Coop about the future whereabouts of my mystery. Gary informed that Truck Pizza will be at 347 Warren St during Winter Walk on December 3rd. Peter delivered the news that Truck Pizza would be operating that very evening at the Basilica.

So, off I went last night, arriving fashionably late at 8PM for a party that began at 5:30.

Sam Starr and crew were right there inside the truck in front of the roaring oven. Being late I didn’t get a chance to taste the featured pizzas, but Sam whipped up a couple. I took them home. Karen and I gobbled them up. We give them a big thumbs up. Karen particularly liked the slightly burned edges. The crust was very thin and crisp. Total cooking time about a minute. Just as Sam had told me early in the summer when we first talked about this venture.


Truck Pizza Pizza Truck prep 1
Pizza Truck-prep 2
Pizza Truck prep 3

Mystery Pizza Truck – still somewhat of a mystery

Exactly why should I be concerned about this wood-fired pizza truck??? (Earlier report here)

I discovered that it has its own blog: Brick Oven Diaries.

This stolen image shows that more progress is being made virtually.

pizza-truck

image stolen from http://brickovendiaries.wordpress.com/

Seen in Hudson

We continue to see comments on current events in the store front at 243 Warren St. Most windows are obvious in their intent. I had to ask about the first. I am guessing about the last in this series.

09112011

09/11/2011

Taste of Hudson

The Annual BeLo3rd Food Event

243 Warren - Nick Haddad

Nick Haddad for Mayor - primary day

 

Arts Walk October 2011

Arts Walk October 2011

Halloween 2011

Halloween 2011

Nick Haddad election day

Nick Haddad for Mayor - election day

Waiting - for the election results? or just waiting...

Mystery Truck with Chimney – source of pizza?

This morning’s jog took me down to the South Bay, then along the Holcim roadway to 3rd St. From there I ran along the back side of LB Furniture to The Basilica. On passing the Basilica, I saw this aluminum step van rigged out with a chimney.

20111113-133543.jpg

A well placed rumormonger informs (can a rumor be information?) that this is a wood-fired organic pizza truck. The black soot around the chimney suggests that it must have been fired up and tested out. From the outside, everything seems ready to go excepting the absent front bumper.

Where and when with the pizza??

BTW – watch out for the criminally high speed bumps along the LB Furniture building. I am sure that low riders like my Corolla will loose their oil pans on those things.

Getting things (Up)right in Hudson Signage

The city has been busy with its Spring cleaning. On a recent jaunt up Warren St. I was pleasantly surprised to see two eyesores in the Sixth St. Park at least brought upright and cleaned. The map of the city (mislabeled “directory” earlier) looked so much better that I first thought that it is new. But, on examining the photo from a year ago I have concluded that the glass and map have simply been cleaned.

Amazing what a little housekeeping can accomplish. I now am dropping my muttering about the need to tear down these as a sad commentary on our sense of civic pride. They may not be the most graceful public amenities but at least now they look as though someone cares.

Kudos to the folks at DPW!

before after

April 2, 2010 Park Signage Hudson

April 2, 2010

April 21, 2011 signs upright Hudson NY

April 21, 2011

April 2, 2010 city map Hudson NY

April 2, 2010

April 24, 2011 city map Hudson NY

April 24, 2011

Authenticity in Hudson, NY

authentic |ôˈθentik| (abbr.: auth.)

adjective

  • of undisputed origin; genuine : the letter is now accepted as an authentic document | authentic 14th-century furniture.
  • made or done in the traditional or original way, or in a way that faithfully resembles an original : the restaurant serves authentic Italian meals | every detail of the movie was totally authentic.
  • based on facts; accurate or reliable : an authentic depiction of the situation.
  • (in existentialist philosophy) relating to or denoting an emotionally appropriate, significant, purposive, and responsible mode of human life ((definition adapted from Dictionary Version 2.1.1 Apple, Inc.)

In part because of the vigorous discussion in the various “Signage” postings in the Hudson Business Coalition discussion group and other discussions I have had recently about Hudson, I have come to think that a major feature of Hudson is authenticity. Hudson demonstrates authenticity in all four senses described in the definition above. People who own businesses here, whether in antiques, art, music, and many more, do so from some central personal passion. Visitors experience this directly. Visitors must digest the experience and make it their own. And, many times businesses receive direct feedback about their passions from visitors and not in frequently new perspectives and information about their passions. Continue reading

Mayor Scalera’s “Naive or delaying LWRP passage?”

Mayor Scalera’s commentary, “Naive or delaying LWRP passage?” in today’s Register Star requires some comment. Here are my comments posted on the Register Star website.

First, Mayor Scalera mis-characterizes the potential uses of the waterfront as “recreational boating and perhaps some limited shipping….”. In fact, from my perspective, and from all of the people I have heard talk about the waterfront, the uses included recreational boating, cruise operations, hotel, restaurants, retail shopping stores, galleries, and more. These uses fit into a larger picture that the future of jobs in Hudson is tied to the extension of the city as an arts, antiques, entertainment, and history destination. This job creation engine has a track record in the city and an obvious future for growth with the addition of the waterfront as part of the overall destination package.

The problem is that none of that is possible with a large scale industrial use cheek and jowl with the rest of the waterfront. The choice we are facing is a trade off between a limited number of seasonal jobs hauling gravel (it was reported elsewhere in today’s Register Star that Calarusso only operates during non-winter months) or developing the track the city has been on for the past 10 to 15 years, becoming a destination for those interested in arts, antiques, entertainment, food and history. I want to place my bet with that development path.

A second point might be to point out that Mayor Scalera went to lengths to point out the Open Space Institute and Scenic Hudson would not support an eminent domain taking. That is not the only way in which those organizations might be involved. A simpler path is the old-fashioned one of buying the land in question.

As someone who has only lived in Hudson for a year and half of the twenty three years of the LWRP process, it seems wise to continue to get the policies right even at the cost of a bit more time.

Mark Orton

Internet Service, the New York Times and Choice in the World of Mono-Duo-poly Capitalism

What Planet is the Times Orbiting?

Today’s New York Times editorial page included a piece titled “How Fast Is Your Broadband?“. It provides a reasonable review of the sad performance of the Internet service providers in the US. It is widely known that Internet service providers like Comcast, Time-Warner and locally Mid-Hudson Cable chronically provide significantly less than their advertising claims. Here in Hudson, NY Mid-Hudson claims “blazing speeds” of 5 MB/sec (download). Repeated measurements, now numbering over 280 in the last six months prove that they provide speeds 30% less than this mark. Service technicians from M-H have acknowledged that this is the typical service they provide.

Worse is that the latency frequently reaches 2 seconds instead of being under the 100 milliseconds that is commonly accepted as OK latency on the Internet.. This means that after your click your mouse on a link in a browser, you can literally count “1 Mississippi 2 Mississippi” before you get any response to your query. This latency disables common communications tools like VOIP telephone services and audio and video services via Skype or Google. Continue reading