fbpx
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Print Edition
    • Get Home Delivery
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Submit Your Event
    • Customer Support
    • Submit A News Tip
    • Send Letter to the Editor
    • Where’s My Paper?
  • Our Newsletters
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial
Hudson Valley One
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s UP
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Subscribe to the What’s UP newsletter
  • Opinion
    • Letters
    • Columns
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Log Out
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s UP
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Subscribe to the What’s UP newsletter
  • Opinion
    • Letters
    • Columns
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Log Out
No Result
View All Result
Hudson Valley One
No Result
View All Result

The empty building blues

by Brian Hollander
April 13, 2016
in Editorials, Voices
0
(Photo by Dion Ogust)

With talk of closing Phoenicia Elementary School and Zena Elementary School, we could be faced with two more large pieces of land with empty industrial-sized plants sitting unused, the detritus of the 20th century. You could add them to the ones that already exist — the West Hurley Elementary School, which costs Onteora taxpayers some $40,000 per year to keep it from deteriorating into a condition where it could never be saved; the Simulaids building on Dixon Avenue in Woodstock; the soon to be empty Meagher Elementary School in the Kingston School District, which will join with the Tillson Elementary school, empty now. Let’s not forget the old Ulster County Jail, rotting up there on Golden Hill in Kingston, perhaps soon to be joined by the Ulster County Health Care Facility, the old Infirmary, in need of perhaps $80 million in repairs, if whoever buys the license for the beds in Ulster County chooses to invest. Or leave it to rot like the rest.

There’s the old Sears, or Ames, in Kingston Plaza, and the old Woolworths in uptown. Midtown Kingston is dotted with numerous ancient empty factory buildings, a few of which have been converted to artist lofts — though that’s an expensive proposition, and the artists they’re designed to attract don’t have much money.

What they all have in common is that nobody wants them. Many sit on what once would have been considered primo pieces of real estate…look at West Hurley, or Zena Elementary, complete with their ball fields…once upon a time they might have been snapped up for housing, growth possibilities, industrial uses. Now they could be empty. They have, or could have, unused gymnasiums, offices, theatrical facilities, communications systems. They have been anchors for last century communities, and each costs more to remove now, in the millions, than they are worth. Good ideas that ordinary people have for them are so prohibitive in expense as to be rendered impossible.

Could it be that we’ll look prescient for holding on to them when the Colorado River runs dry and everyone out west looks to move back here for the fresh water? Supply and demand, after all…

Or we’ll end up treating them like we’ve done with our landfills…just covering them over at some far distant moment when the walls have crumbled, and civilizations in a future too far off to contemplate will treat them like archeological projects, digs that seek to discover the reasons for the demise of what was once a people of great promise, who soiled themselves irreparably. ++

Join the family! Grab a free month of HV1 from the folks who have brought you substantive local news since 1972. We made it 50 years thanks to support from readers like you. Help us keep real journalism alive.
- Geddy Sveikauskas, Publisher

Brian Hollander

Related Posts

Citizens want Woodstock to become sanctuary town
Letters

Letters to the editor: July 2, 2025 (The town we lost, Fighting back, Graceful Aging and more)

July 1, 2025
Lower Esopus Creek,  recent elections, Central Hudson and more letters from our readers
Letters

Letters to the editor: June 25, 2025 (George Washington Elementary, Winston Farm, unjust war and more)

June 24, 2025
Blue: Your favorite color
Columns

Blue: Your favorite color

June 24, 2025
Local rallies draw large crowds
Letters

Letters to the editor: June 18, 2025 (local elections and more)

June 17, 2025
How we see each other and ourselves
Columns

How we see each other and ourselves

June 16, 2025
Suddenly summer
Columns

Suddenly summer

June 11, 2025
Next Post

Pantano’s branches out with beer-maker’s club

Weather

Kingston, NY
88°
Mostly Cloudy
5:26 am8:35 pm EDT
Feels like: 97°F
Wind: 9mph S
Humidity: 60%
Pressure: 29.93"Hg
UV index: 7
TueWedThu
86°F / 68°F
86°F / 68°F
82°F / 66°F
powered by Weather Atlas

Subscribe

Independent. Local. Substantive. Subscribe now.

  • Subscribe & Support
  • Print Edition
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
  • Our Newsletters
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial

© 2022 Ulster Publishing

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Art
    • Books
    • Kids
    • Lifestyle & Wellness
    • Food & Drink
    • Music
    • Nature
    • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Contact Us
    • Customer Support
    • Advertise
    • Submit A News Tip
  • Print Edition
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
    • Where’s My Paper
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Log In
  • Free HV1 Trial
  • Subscribe to Our Newsletters
    • Hey Kingston
    • New Paltz Times
    • Woodstock Times
    • Week in Review

© 2022 Ulster Publishing