Wappingers Falls Historic District
Wappingers Falls Historic District is a conservation area in the center of Wappingers Falls in Dutchess County, New York. The approximately 36 -acre area is located between South Avenue and West Main Street (NY- 9D ) and Wappingers Creek. It includes Mesier park in the center of the vilage and various adjoining residential area. It is roughly bounded by Elm, Park, Walker, Market and McKinley Streets.
A majority of the buildings in the Historic District was created as part of the industrialization of the place Wappingers Falls in the 19th century and the architectural styles represent a cross-section through that century. However, the contributing properties include older buildings, such as the resulting 1740 Mesier - Brewer House or newer buildings such as the Village Hall, the post office was originally and was built under the supervision of then President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
History
1819 a small cotton mill was built in the Hohltal through which flows down the stream of Wappinger Lake to its confluence with the Hudson River. 1856, the original buildings were destroyed by fire, but reconstruction began immediately and the plant was in operation until 1931. The roads on the hillside opposite the mill are lined with houses with timber framework, mostly it is semi-detached houses that were built by the mill for their workers. The two halves of the conservation area and thus also of the town are connected by a 1884 resulting arch bridge made of stone, which took the place of an earlier wooden building.
The business district of the Village along West Main Street north and south of the creek is lined with three storey houses in-line, whose construction dates back to the years just after the Civil War. The roads to the south-west are occupied by larger houses, which have a wide variety of architectural styles of the 19th century, ranging from Neoclassicism and the Gothic Revival to Second Empire and Queen Anne Style.
Two significant contributing properties that are independently added to the National Register of Historic Places, have originated in a different period. The Mesier - Brewer House in the town center is a well-preserved built of stone and wood house from before the American Revolution. Compared to them at the intersection of West Main Street to the South Avenue is the built of field stone Village Hall. This was originally designed as one of five post offices in Dutches County, the construction of which President Roosevelt prevailed, who was born in nearby Hyde Park. End of the 20th century a road blocks further east was built a new post office and in 1995 transferred the management of the Village its offices from the an old bank building. The local police, which had its seat in the previously Mesier House, also moved into the former post office.
1984, the historic center of Wappingers Falls was entered in the National Register of Historic Places, because this composition of different buildings of the 19th century is associated with the development of a major industrial center in the valley of the Hudson River. The local government is trying to make it through traffic calming the commercial parts of the conservation area more attractive to pedestrians