Historic District Review Board - Regular Meeting

Okay. 138, 140 Main Street.

Come on up. How are you? We're watching you guys on YouTube. We're viewers.

All right.

And you're new to the town?

No, I've been here 13 years.

Oh, okay.

Well, we live in Paris. Yes. Got it. Cool. So the question is, is that, what's your name? Mishara. Mishara?

My name?

No, no. Lauren. Yeah, Lauren. Lauren had come over to see you. And then you're looking for some information concerning the entrance column that are falling apart.

Yes.

This is helpful.

I don't know if it was helpful.

Well, I guess the question really is, and I don't have, I didn't open up my, my laptop, whether or not these columns are appropriate for this particular type of building, because it's a Georgian revival, right? Federalist. Federalist in Georgian. Georgian became Federalist after the revolution. And then there was another application. But these columns are not typical of that, right? So I think that we're glad that you're taking an interest and we'd like to help you with what you're doing. We do have sources of information. I think that Lauren sent you, okay, and that was for 138. And the reason it was 138, not 140 is because they decided to change the numbering on Main Street at one point because it used to be, I think, This building used to be 38. And now it's 36. Is it the other way around? It's 138. 138. OK. It used to be 136. But anyway, so I think what we'd like to do is have another meeting between you Lauren and perhaps Kate, Kate's an architect. So she should be able to provide some advice. We do have other materials and information concerning your building.

So did you find any? I mean, I saw Lauren afforded some some you met a couple of mouse with some photos and stuff. Is that that's largely the gist of it.

So I've been down a real deep rabbit hole. or Georgian architecture. She wrote in the body of the email that those are Egyptian papyrus combs, not good for revival. There is a difference, huge difference with historic Corinthian Ionic, but Egyptian papyrus, I think were mostly used in funeral homes, is my understanding from the deep rabbit, not mostly, but a lot of the times. There is a sense that this might have been a funeral home at some point.

Well, that's giving them the benefit of the doubt, because a lot of times things change just because, hey, I kind of like that. Yeah, somebody has a perspective on something.

Yeah, I mean, it's obviously, they're wraparound columns. They're literally rotting and falling off the metal, unwrapping, basically.

We saw the squirrel run in there.

Yeah, there's a squirrel living in there. I have spoken to the, I can't remember the name. His name is Francesco. He deals a lot of Hudson Valley columns. He was like, no, we don't do those anymore. That guy's gone. He can do Doric, Corinthian. He seemed to think that this didn't go with the style. I have spoken to a lot of architects who seem to think the same. However, understanding Lauren, when she came, she said a lot of the Cold Spring architecture is vernacular. Another rabbit hole I went down. which means folksy architecture. It doesn't necessarily have to match. Which I can understand that this is a unique column. I can't find them anywhere else in Cold Spring. I've seen the other columns on brick buildings and they're usually pretty simple. Homestead being one example. I think your house being another example. I mean, they're very simple. But it seems to me that these are like unique

Right. Well, I mean, my question is, is that what is your preference as far as the columns?

My initial preference that I have changed, I mean, I'm very flexible. My initial preference is to get rid of them.

Right.

And have a nice and clean slate. But I have studied other, I mean, I just saw it in Boston, too, with all these brick buildings. And there is a precedent to have the columns there. If I have to have columns, I would like to simplify them, have them not be as ornate. and have them be more kind of proportionate to the actual door. It seems like the Capitol is very small and the column itself is very big. But I'm willing to follow and keep with the historic tradition of the building. I can't find anything about these columns and when they were put up, by whom, for what reason. I don't think they're original to the building. I've looked through every, I wrote the Putnam History Museum to look for pictures. I may have a small little picture in this book, but not really. Is that the one that shows the rest of the block with the parade? Yeah. And then the homestead is the only thing that keeps coming up. But then we're covered by trees and all these old pictures. So I haven't been able to find anything from the 1970s. And I went on Facebook pages from Cold Spring and all that stuff, and I asked for pictures.

You looked for previous owners.

You looked for previous owners.

Well, all right. The thing is that I don't know if there's anything that we should do now. I mean, realistically, I think Lauren and Kate probably should meet with you and go over the options. they'll also be able to dig out any other information that we may have. There was a survey done in the, I think, 1990s, which may have some information, but I would tend to doubt it.

But anyways, she sent out the 2009. Yeah, it didn't really have anything. I'm not going to be here, which is maybe My recommendation would be if you, at the next meeting or another workshop, presumably with Kate and Lauren present, would be that you, obviously you've done a lot of research, so what your preferences, what your preference, maybe A, B, A, B, C, or paths forward to bring that in to present, I think would be helpful. I'm feeling Yeah, I think that would be helpful for probably for everybody in terms of gauging how to proceed. This is definitely an instance of these being in extremely bad shape. There's not really a world where we can interpret them as being in relatively bad shape. They're rotting into the brick stoop.

Okay, does that sound like a plan? It sounds like the plan would help them. Okay, so that will put you on the agenda for the September meeting, and it'll give Kate and Lauren a chance to speak with you and go over and see if there's any other information. I think I'll speak for myself, but I'm pretty sure that I'm not going out there on a limb, but I don't think that We have any burning desire to keep those columns because I don't think they're appropriate to the rest of the building. That being the case, it's just a question of finding what is appropriate for that building. Good. Right, and we'll work with you guys. Thank you so much. Well, thank you. Thank you for your interest. We watch you on YouTube, so why not?

Yeah, I'm happy to be here. Hi there. Well, thank you. That's very helpful. I really did a lot of work before I came. I didn't want to come with, like, did I get ripped? Worry about that, Bill. Yes. None of it. None of it.

Yeah, same with mine. Oh, thank you.

Thank you.

I would drive by every day and I'm like.

Thank you. Good luck. Thank you. Thank you.

Bye.

I'm getting messages that people are having problems logging into this meeting. And I'm wondering if we don't have the right link address to this meeting, if others are trying to join us.

I did not bring my laptop up. Do you want me to look and see if I can find...

I'm wondering if we should pause this and re-enter.

I want you to do that. I do have my laptop here so that I can... I haven't saved the link somewhere.

Can you just announce that we're going to do that? Can you announce that we are...

Okay, we're going to take a temporary pause to see if we can sort out our computer issues. I lied. I didn't take my laptop.