Saving the Best for Last

Poughkeepsie

by Diane Pineiro-Zucker and photographs by Amber S. Clark, August 31, 2009

Renaissance. Transformation. Revival. Renewal. Change. Again and again, these are the words chosen by proponents of Poughkeepsie—the Queen City of the Hudson.

Tales of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s limousine making stops at the old Luckey Platt Department Store (now restored as retail space, artists’ lofts, and apartments) for sundries and Caffe Aurora (still there) for pastries, and of early 20th century New Yorkers making weekend pilgrimages up the Hudson, make this river city unique, as does its present-day reincarnation as a 21st-century destination paying homage to its past glory.
“You take a look at the Hudson River Valley, as far south as Rockland County, as far north as Columbia County, as far west as the mountains, and as far east as Pawling. We’re in the center; the center of the universe,” says Charles S. North, president and CEO of the Dutchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce. “Poughkeepsie is rich in history and rich in culture.”

The city’s first-term Republican mayor, John C. Tkazyik (pronounced tie-zik), agrees with North. “It’s at a great place to be. Poughkeepsie is at a point where it’s taking off,” he says. But it took a while to get here.

From Boomtown to Ghost Town
Settled by the Dutch in 1659 and incorporated as a city in 1854, Poughkeepsie is in Dutchess County, on the eastern shore of the Hudson River about 75 miles north of New York, and has a population of about 30,000, according to the 2000 Census. The city covers about 5.7 square miles, and is surrounded by a town bearing the same name, which is of Iroquois origin. U-puku-ipi-sing, means “the reed-covered lodge by the little-water place.”

After the American Revolution, Poughkeepsie was briefly the second capitol of New York. In 1788, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and George Clinton, among others, met at the courthouse on Market Street, in what is still the city’s downtown, to debate and ratify the US Constitution.