OUTSIDERS MUST WONDER about the bathtub-toy-like whale logo that lingers on some City of Hudson signs. Some sort of upstate joke? Whales don’t swim in the river.
Actually they do sometimes, although the rare sightings are mostly around New York City, where the water’s still salty. As most local people know, the logo is less about whales than whalers, the seafaring Quakers who fled their homes on the islands off Massachusetts during the Revolution and settled here. They laid out the grid for the City of Hudson and engaged in various maritime activities, including whaling. And though it’s hard to believe from the vacant land and derelict industrial buildings there now, the city once had a bustling waterfront.
Can it have one again?