Peekskill Downtown Historic District

Peekskill's downtown historic district occupies the center of the city on the east bank of the Hudson River, where the Albany Post Road and the Danbury Road crossed Magregere's Brook. The area began as an agricultural milling and shipping center, then became a regional iron center producing stoves and farm implements. After the Civil War, industry moved toward the gorge and the river while brick commercial buildings, many in the Italianate style, filled the main streets. Churches such as the 1846 Greek Revival First Presbyterian Church, early houses, and a Moorish-towered corner building add variety. In the 1930s, Bank Street was cut across the last downtown foundry site, and Moderne buildings there spurred further redevelopment. Local architect Ralph Hopkins also designed the city hall. Urban Renewal removed many buildings in the 1960s and 1970s, yet the district still holds 157 contributing resources and keeps a compact nineteenth-century scale that is now uncommon in the Hudson Valley.