Palisadian., 1923-10-12
"REMINISCENCES OF
PALHADE
By CHARLES T. LOGAN

The Hudson River Realty Company
employed John Hunter as superintend-
ent of road construction in the open
! ing of Palisade He did all of the fill
ing and grading under contract, and
mighty fine job he did of it. Palisade
! avenue was the hardest job he had,
/ next to Bluff road. These roads re-
quired rock fills varying from one to
/ twenty feet. The whole top of the sec
ton from Abbott boulevard to the cliff
was a marsh. Cumhermede road was
the same, and after Engineer Paul Nc
i Cloud had set the grades and run the
Z curves on the roadWays the grading
4 began. 1t was a herculean task and
cost piles of money. Gravel sidewalks
were laid and for six or seven years
i there were no other kinds of side
walks but gravel all over Palisade.
But they were not bad, albeit the Ia
dies who wore thin shoes never cher
ished them very highly These side
walks, while well put down, proved
!
ment walks were put in by the bor-
ough, and which were mostly paid for
by the property owners. Ralph ID.
Earle, Sr, was in charge of the work.
/ He was county engineer and also bor-
ough engineer. He was stubborn
/ sort of a man, however, and where he
| thought the old gravel underpinning
was sufficiently substantial, down
went the new cement walks, wheth-
| er or no. He was sent for at one
! time by some citizens and told that
he was not laying the walks ac-
cording to specifications, but the citi-
zens to whom he talked had their
trouble for nothing. 1t didn't do bit
of good, the engineer saying they were
good enough regardless of what the
specifications called for. The bother
was about the first six or eight inches
of rubble stone as a foundation, with
other layers on top of this, then the
cement. The result of this running
roughshod over the specifications gave
Palisade in scores of places about the
worst laid lines of sidewalks ever laid
anywhere. Instead of being in perfect
order today. look at them-and this is
history.
Houses by Wholesale
The company did wise thing in
! giving Palisade right start. First,
it had the location. Right on the cliff
front, with native forest trees making
the location a natural park, the Hud-
/ f,H VII III
| that was lacking was people and
houses. They brought here one of the
| best builders ever seen anywhere IN
the person of Mr.. Grasman, who occu-
| pied the old Frew home on the corner
| of Bluff and Dearborn roads and he
! at once began the erection of forty
new houses of good design, such homes
as the Steel home, the Sager, Tams,
/ Woolcot, Bennett, Darby, co h n,
Schall, the present Lester Burdett
home, formerly the Baily Millard
house, the Jackson, Anderson, the
George Clark (formerly Dwiggins),
the Giles (now Beans), the Baer or
Frey the Shannon formerly Foep-
/ peD, the Lennon (now Lenly) and
! many other houses not necessary to
name here.
The First Four Homes
The first four homes built in Pali-
| sade were put up under contract
with Douglas & Waldron. They were
/ the present Bull! Lamasina, st. John
and Brady homes. These were put up
as a basis on which to float the stock
of the company. They were four fine,
| costly Colonial houses and today
would cost from 100000 to 100000. |
I doubt if the Brady home could be du
plicated for $4,000, with its sixteen
rooms, hardwood floors and hand-se-
| lected quartered oak trim.
/ Then six more houses were built by
Douglas and Waldron. These were the
present Kemm, Frew (then Douglass,
Logan, Nazeley (formerly w. w. Por-
teri, Frew and Carson homes. These
six additional homes made ten built
by Douglas & Waldron. 1t is said that
these houses were built on a commits
sion basis, and certainly no cost was
spared to make them attractive, really
fine homes.
The Grasman Houses