Church Street Row

Church Street Row is a group of nine houses along Church Street between Academy and South Hamilton Streets in downtown Poughkeepsie. The earliest, dating from the mid-1850s, are two-and-a-half-story frame houses in Greek Revival and Bracketed styles. Most of the row was built in the last quarter of the nineteenth century as more elaborate brick dwellings in Gothic Revival, Second Empire and Queen Anne styles, with contrasting materials, textures and colors. Details include turrets, decorative shingled bays, bracketed cornices and Eastlake-style porch roofs. Several carriage barns survive. Church Street is one of the city's earliest major east-west routes, named for the first Episcopal church at Church and Market Streets. The row was recognized as Poughkeepsie's largest and most distinctive collection of late-nineteenth-century brick residences, forming a cohesive streetscape. The architect Arnout Cannon lived and worked on the block. Later changes include a three-lane arterial that removed the shade trees, modern porches on three western buildings, and the loss of one house to fire in 1982.