Dear Mayor Sottile;

It has come to my attention that Kingston will permit (or has already permitted) the demolition of an 1867-built structure once used to house horsedrawn and electric street cars. In its stead, a Walgreens will rise.

Kingston is fast getting a reputation as a city bent on destroying rather than preserving its historic fabric.

The cookie cutter sprawl that you welcome when you put out the mat for Walgreens and similar chains strips communities of their identities. In the historic Hudson Valley many towns are working hard to save their history for future generations. Kingston is taking steps backwards.

I encourage you put historic preservation at the top of your list and seek adapative reuse of the treasures in your town. Your tourism business and citizens will all benefit.

Rob Davis
Frequent Hudson Valley Tourist
Rumson, NJ

Unfortunately (from a preservation standpoint) the City of Kingston received a 'brownfield' designation for the site that includes a pot of state cleanup money and tax credits to redevelop the site. There was no financial incentive for either the previous owner of the property or the City of Kingston to give it Landmark or National Register status. The city historian already put up a gallant fight to save the building, but between him and the Trolley Museum of New York we just don't have the money or clout to stop the brownfield juggernaut.

At the moment, the contractor doing the work is doing the asbestos removal in the car barn, and once that is done, the building is slated for demolition. They will then remove 9' to 12' of material from the entire site to complete the cleanup.

Wouldn't it be ironic if the drugstore ends up going bust, and the adaptive reuse of the building is to turn it into a car barn for TMNY....

Brownfield programs are not incompatible with historic preservation. If you look at the website below I have laid out in specific terms how federal and state (Wisconsin) brownfield programs could have provided funds to both remediate and restore a C. 1883 roundhouse in Wisconsin (now demolished – long overdue site update in progress).

Preservation of any industrial site requires independent research and creative thought – accepting somebody’s prouncement that it can’t be done will be that it won’t be done.

http://www.altoonaroundhousemuseum.org

Sounds like the Solvay Coke Plant compressor house all over again. :(

Is there any local support for saving the trolley barn? Have any of the local newspaper editors come on board?

As Tom said, has anyone proposed any alternate development plans that would adaptively reuse the site, and turn the continued existance of the building into an asset rather than a liability?

With these two items, you might be able to generate some support from the city to save it. Without it, I am afraid it is all in vain.

I heard a radio spot for the National Historic Society just last night that encouraged people to save their local buildings. That ad is only a sign that in most people's mind; demolition of historic buildings is nothing more than "progress". We have a lot of work to do to change that mindset to one of keeping and even adaptively reusing these old structures; rather than bulldozing them down. I think that progress has already been made in terms of saving old homes, churches, and some commercial structures; industrial buildings are a different story.

-James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

Surviving World Steam Project

Unfortunately (from a preservation standpoint) the City of Kingston received a 'brownfield' designation for the site that includes a pot of state cleanup money and tax credits to redevelop the site. There was no financial incentive for either the previous owner of the property or the City of Kingston to give it Landmark or National Register status.


Once again, not to preach on and on- government intereference in the economy proves to be a wrecking ball full of coins.

This is in the last moments of nearly five years of efforts to save the building, and the building has been listed on more than one perservation group's list of endangered buildings of state-wide historic interest. There have been a number of letters to the editor in the local paper over the years to save the building, but this has not changed the city administration's steadfast support of a new cookie-cutter drugstore. Unfortunately, New York state preservation laws don't kick in unless either the property owner or the municipality petition for Landmark status. Neither did. There doesn't seem to be a provision for a 3rd party to step in and say 'whoa.'

If any readers have any more bright ideas we can try, we're all ears, but they're already peeling portions of the roof off during the asbestos removal phase of the project...the time left that the walls will still be standing can probably be measured in days.

I believe the folks saving the roundhouse in Evanston, Wyoming got Brownfields funds also. The project's energetic director left a while back for another job, so I don't know whether they are still thinking of adaptive reuse (city offices) there or proper development as a historic site.

The Kingston loss gives me reason to preach again.. When possible, save and develop the historic site instead of building something new and unhistoric somewhere else. Imagine what kind of V&T museum we could have in Carson City had a strong fight to save the old shops there begun 40 years ago? The list of losses in recent years is heartbreaking, with most of the structures falling without a whimper from any in our field. Yet we continue to start new museums in cornfields. If we don't speak up for them, odd industrial buildings like roundhouses and carbarns will, at best, end up as poorly adapted outlet malls, with a frequent turnover of tenants, lasting only until the next new shopping emporium opens down the road. In Kansas City, the RR museum idea should have been part of the plan from day one, before the adaptive developers got hold of the station.

Despite the losses, there are still several roundhouses that can be rebuilt into accurate historic sites, such as at Como, Hugo and Leadville, Colorado; Newport, Vermont; Victoria, BC; Las Vegas, NM; and others. I know less about trolley carbarns, but suspect there is potential there also.

The building is down. The end of a frustrating road for us.