Before and After: 39 Lutheran

From Newburgh Free Library

39 Lutheran Street started off like looking like this in this photo circa 1895. A cute front porch, dainty shutters, a newly planted tree, and a post for horses make this home desirable. It’s listed as being the residence of Caleb Woodruff. And, it was designed by renowned Newburgh architecht Frank E. Estabrook. One hundred and sixteen years later this home looks totally different.

An extension to the roof has been made, a new house was built next door, the cornice was covered or removed, as well as the shutters, and it looks like they took out one of the bay windows and made it into a door to access the porch roof. It’s amazing to see that the original porch is still in tact and that the original doors are there. However, this is an old photo taken by the city. Some things might be different. This home is up for auction on April 14th. In fact, a lot of homes on Lutheran Street are up for auction. Hopefully in the future, this will be a different before and after.

10 Comment

  • Is that neighborhood OK?

  • It’s a block where you’d want to be careful.

  • Is that a nice neighborhood or at least in transition?

  • Notice in the historic photo the “strange” addition of the rear…same as the earlier home featured on the blog a few days ago. Not sure if they are additions or part of the original designs. Unless these newer style homes were built as add-ons to older structures?

    (http://newburghrestoration.com/2011/03/rescue-me-14/)

  • I think they are additions, but they are strange because it seems it’s only half a floor higher. I guess you’d have to go inside to see what it’s really like. Nice catch on the previous posts addition as well! I thought the same thing!

  • Michael and Cher, are you wondering about the 1/2 floor additions on the tops of these houses? If so, that’s to turn the attic into living space. My house is essentially the same design as the one pictured here, but without the addition on top. Our attic is only about 5′ tall at its highest point, and slopes slightly to 4′ at the front and rear. As such, the space is really unusable for anything other than storage. Adding 3-4′ to the top of the house would give us an entire third floor!

  • That solves it then!

  • I recently visited Newburgh on July 2nd and 3rd, 2011, all the way from Miami, FL with the idea of probably buying one of these old houses and restoring it. I spent about 3hours driving around the city streets Downtown, and near the Mount Saint Mary college area. Honestly the only good thing going for Newburgh right now is the East Parmenter project and the Waterfront restaurants. An old timer at Gullys was telling me a friend of his bought a house in the Heights for $1 put new windows, doors, restored, etc, when he came back from work, the windows were smashed doors destroyed, house broken into, etc, honestly if someone did that to me, half of the Newburgh hoodlums would disappear, the old timer told me also to get ready to pay about $8,000 in property taxes as well. I would love to see Newburgh revitalized, but there are just too many obstacles to face for a low middle class working man like myself, also Broadway had a lot of traffic, a lot of latinos moving in. I love the big Puerto Rican flag hanging near Washington Headquarters by the heights, but we as individuals need to give change a chance, cant live in the gutter all your lives, lets get together and take pride in Newburgh.

  • Newburgh will be ok, don’t worry

  • I worked in Newburgh in the 1990s and really grew to love the city. A major perk of my job as a home care social worker was getting to go inside of many of the beautiful homes and old hotels. It’s exciting to see the homes being revitalized, but friends say that the crime in Newburgh is worse now than it was then. So sad;;;;I’d love to think that things could get better there, but the bad element seems to be getting stronger? What do others think?