Hudson: A Real Sparkler

by Anne Pyburn and photographs by David Cunningham, July 26, 2011

A diamond is a lump of coal that did well under pressure. And anyone looking to understand the metamorphic process that produces a solidly successful and enormously delightful small city from the pressures of the late 20th century might do well to begin in Hudson. At midcentury, the onetime whaling port’s Diamond Street was its primary claim to fame. Packed solidly with brothels and gambling dens, the two-square-mile city attracted plenty of customers—for all of the wrong reasons. Notoriety overbalanced practicality, and Governor Thomas E. Dewey sent in the state troopers to clean up the town in 1951.

F. Scott Fitzgerald to the contrary, second acts in American lives often outshine the first acts. After a fitful low spell that came in the wake of the raids, Hudson could be said to be proceeding into at least Act IV, and the audience continues to be utterly rapt. Teeming with entrepreneurial life and creative energy, today Hudson sparkles with world-class retail and dining, a vibrant art and music scene, hundreds of beautifully preserved historic buildings, all in a 24-karat natural setting—an urban gem that Budget Travel rightly deemed “One of the coolest small towns in the USA.”

One & Only Olana
This part of Columbia County is where Hudson River School painter Frederic Church sited his Persian-style, Moorish-inspired estate, Olana, and made its grounds a work of art. Paintings by Church as well as other period artists are included in daily tours. “Olana is very much part of Hudson. The Church family went to church on Warren Street,” says Sara Griffen, president of the Olana Partnership. “We’re constantly referring visitors to the B&Bs and restaurants in the city, and we try to maintain a resonant resource. We do everything from educational programming to fun stuff like OlanaReggae, movie nights, parties everyone can afford. I like to steal that old line, ‘We ain’t just paint.’ You can go hiking or birding and we’ve reopened more of the vistas, so people can wander through this lush, grand landscape the way Church created it.”