If you’ve walked around Newburgh recently, it seems like around every corner there is a new coffee shop or gallery popping up inside of an old industrial building or townhouse with Victorian architectural details. This sort of development has happens so much in the process of gentrifying. Some trendy eatery, bar, or boutique flower shop will open where there used to be an old record store or an abandoned machine shop. And the owners will keep the crumbling facade, as if to say, “hey, we love what used to be here. We're not here to change the neighborhood. We just want to be a part of it”.

We recently bought a two family townhouse on Lutheran street in hopes of moving upstate and helping restore this beautifully historic Hudson Valley town. It’s an exciting time for artist and designers in the Hudson Valley, but it’s more exciting to learn about what came before. Simone Kitchens gives a great overview in her recent article, “Where the Designers of Central Park Got Their Start”:

“It was here, in a little stone house beside the Hudson, that George Washington oversaw the end of the Revolutionary War. By the mid-19th century, Newburgh was home to some of the major architects and landscape designers of the era, among them Andrew Jackson Downing, a native Newburgher who opened a firm here and inspired Calvert Vaux, Frederick Law Olmsted, and Frederick Clarke Withers to build in town. The result is an incredibly charming mix of Greek Revival, Romanesque, Carpenter Gothic, Queen Anne, and High Victorian buildings and rowhouses (some preserved, some, sadly, less so). Newburgh, like so many towns along the Hudson, was a big manufacturing hub in the early-20th century, though when the Thruway was opened in the ’50s and the bridge to Beacon in 1963, they drew people away from the once-bustling downtown. After a series of failed urban-renewal projects in the ’60s and ’70s, the city lost over a thousand historical buildings, displacing a large number of the ­African-American families (many of whom had moved to town during the Great Migration), who made up a third of the population. Years of blight followed, along with a rise in poverty and crime. By 2010, Newburgh had one of the highest crime rates in the state. It’s now at a ten-year low.”

If you’re planning on renovating your home and need someone to help you envision the space, or just need assistance in navigating permits and contractors. Studio Den Den offers one-off architectural and construction administration services. Contact us today for a quote.

Ref: http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/09/newburgh-catskill-troy-new-york-real-estate.html