Staircase an economic incentive
Officials can be forgiven some hyperbole when it comes to Walkway Over the Hudson.
The attraction is already proving popular beyond even the most optimistic projections and now a new access linking Washington Street to the Walkway is bringing additional business to Poughkeepsie.
The new Washington Street stairway to the Walkway Over the Hudson was unveiled Aug. 4 before a crowd of Walkway staff and supporters, state and local officials and curious onlookers.
“I’d like to welcome you all to our new stairway to heaven,” Dutchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Charles North said of the two-level staircase leading to a spot on the eastern side walkway roughly midway between the parking lot a quarter mile east and where the pedestrian bridge reaches the water”™s edge over the Hudson, showing a panorama that includes river vistas and cityscapes.
But it is the new staircase”™s economic impact on ground level that has business people in the area optimistic.
“It already has made a difference,” said John Gilmore, a chef at Lola”™s Café and Gourmet Takeout, at 131 Washington St., about half a block north of where the staircase reaches the street. He was speaking two days after the official ribbon-cutting ceremony and said the increase was striking and immediate.
Judith Hafner, a server at the café, is a Poughkeepsie native. “As a kid I watched the trestle burn,” she said, referring to the 1974 fire that ended rail use of the span and turned it into a derelict until the walkway opened last October after a $30 million renovation. “The transformation is amazing.”
She, too, attested to an upsurge in business since the stairway to the Walkway opened. “We had a family in from Georgia yesterday; they loved it,” she said.
The stairway project, funded with a $2 million Empire State Development grant, was completed in two months. Walkway Executive Director Elizabeth Waldstein-Hart described the stairway project as being part of a “huge, joint effort” for improvements to the Walkway. Future upgrades will include lighting on Walkway approaches and underwater pier repairs.
When the ribbon was cut, Poughkeepsie Mayor John Tkazyik provided a $950,000 check from the city of Poughkeepsie made out to the Walkway Over the Hudson State Park. The check represented an Economic Development Initiative grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.