Question of the Day: Is Peekskill a 'Dead' River Town?

Patrick Radden Keefe’s New York magazine article, “Newburgh: Murder Capital of New York,” recently quoted the city of Newburgh’s mayor, Nicholas Valentine, calling Peekskill a dead city along the Hudson.

Valentine was telling the writer that Newburgh is not the only once-booming industrial area where mansions have been turned into low-income housing, storefronts have been boarded up and serious crime is prevalent.

The article states:

“It feels almost spooky to walk today among the Gilded Age mansions of long-dead industrialists on Montgomery Street (in Newburgh), some of them boarded up, others carved into low-income apartments," Valentine told the magazine. "Abandoned buildings abound, many of them gone to rot..."

“...It’s happened to many communities up and down the Hudson. Poughkeepsie. Peekskill. Things die.”

The article goes on to describe Newburgh as a city with no grocery store, no public transportation, and few recreational activities for kids, but plenty of gang activity.

The main topic of the lengthy article was Newburgh’s gang problems and the tactics of FBI agent James Gagliano, the head of the Hudson Valley Safe Streets Task Force. Gagliano used federal RICO (racketeering) charges to get about 100 alleged gang members off the streets last year, which the article said helped to return some safety to parts of the city.

Read the entire article.

Question of the Day: What do you think about Mayor Valentine's comment about Peekskill?

Do you think Peekskill is one of those "things" that "die," as Valentine said, or is it a place that is alive and growing?