Union Street Historic District

Union Street Historic District covers about eight blocks of downtown Poughkeepsie, New York, on a slope above the Hudson River. Union Street, its backbone, began as a footpath to the Union Store on the river and became the first road to the water in 1767. The district holds about 173 historic structures, mostly two- or three-story brick houses on long, narrow lots. A single house plan, two and one-half stories with a three-bay facade, repeats from the Federal period through the Victorian era, built first in brick with stone trim, then in wood, then in more elaborate brickwork. Larger buildings, some with ground-floor shops, mark the angled street intersections. The area was listed as the oldest remaining section of the city and as a well preserved nineteenth-century working-class neighborhood. German, Irish, Polish, Italian, Slavic and Black residents have each settled here in turn. Arterial highways and urban renewal clearance have left the district isolated.