Pike Plan work briefly exposes details from Uptown’s past

Vanacore said the Bernstein family apparently still owned the building in the 1970s, which would explain why the sign survived. (Sam’s widow, Flora Bernstein, was a signer of the deed creating the easement for the Pike Plan, he noted.) Vanacore purchased the building in 1995 and subsequently renovated it, including removal of the drop ceilings, which revealed the magnificent coffered tin ceilings installed by Bernstein on the first floor, which are now exposed and restored.

The iron columns of the original building are also preserved, along with the black glass walls beneath the store windows, which probably date from the 1930s. Vanacore said he would have liked to keep the sign on the exterior of his store, which would definitely have helped him attract customers, he said. Instead, he plans to display it in the café.

Vanacore said business has been slow thanks to the construction of the new Pike Plan, which has periodically closed off the street and caused pedestrians to weave in and out of scaffolds and around workers. He said it’s unfortunate the renovation retains the bump-outs on Wall Street, which take up the equivalent of 40 parking spaces and, he says, are a safety hazard. Plus, the new white planters aren’t appropriate for the historic retail area. He said the difficulty retailers have doing business under the canopy are a factor in why so many offices are located in the storefronts instead.

“The three main problems with Uptown are the traffic flow” — Vanacore said Wall Street should either be two-way or the traffic should run in the opposite direction, to better accommodate motorists coming from the Thruway — “visibility and directional signage. The overhang is oppressive. It’s a parasite that takes away and doesn’t add anything.”

Across Wall Street further east on North Front, Vanacore points out the spot where bluestone headers were discovered when the old canopy came down, positioned over the windows of Storm Photo, Inc. (One can see the feature on the upper floors, where the headers are exposed.) He said he successfully lobbied the contractor to at least cut away the ceiling of the canopy to accommodate the tops of the taller windows.

Most façades nothing special

However, these sorts of finds are the exception, noted Theodore Holk, the project manager of the renovated Pike Plan (he is an employee of Lochner Engineering, which was retained by the City of Kingston to administer the contract from the New York State Department of Transportation). Holk said that most of the exposed façades “are not anything you’d want to restore.” He pointed out the supporting I-beam and ugly sheets of plywood that characterizes many of the exposed portions of façades on North Front, which has yet to be covered with the new canopy.