The Art of Chowder

Hudson Armstrong sat drinking a cup of coffee inside Gaffney’s, where he
often spends the early part of his afternoon. Above his head hangs a
large mural. Four feet high, eight feet across, it is colored with old
parties and familiar faces of the restaurant during a different time.

“I think it captures the period,” says Armstrong, looking up at his
creation while simultaneously ripping through three packets of sugar and
dropping the granules into his steamy cup. The mural took hundreds of
hours to paint says Armstrong, who everyone affectionately calls “Hud.”

He has spent thousands of hours and five decades working both sides of
the bar in the city’s restaurants and watering holes, either serving
customers or painting them, creating a timeline in city life of everyday people.

“The purpose is to give a feeling of the era and some of the characters
that lived here,” he says of another large mural that was painted on the wall
at The Hub on Church Street.
“I finished that one back in ‘76 and there are about 200 people in it,” he says.

“It was the people that lived here 365 days a year — not the ones that
came up a few weeks a year for the racing season. That offended some
people I think, but I was drawing the characters that were here at that
time,” he says.
The Hub was demolished a few years ago, but the mural part of the wall was saved and today is stored away in about 30 different pieces in a location on northern Broadway.

There are other establishments that bear Hud’s handiwork. They hang at Siro’s and the Old Bryan Inn, at 9 Maple Ave., the Tin & Lint and in City Hall.

“I was born in ‘45. My family lived in South Glens Fall,” he says. Hud took up drawing at the age of 4. It was the age of radio and he says he began drawing because he wanted to see what things looked like.

“I remember when I was a kid, we would drive down Route 9 and into Saratoga. You’d take a left on North Broadway where the arterial is, come right into town and you’d see the mansions and the fire department and the theater,” he says.

“Back then you would see all the fire escapes and the signs hanging outside in front of the stores all along Broadway and then we would drive by the Grand Union Hotel and that was just the largest thing that I had ever seen,” he remembers. “Saratoga just floored me.”

He served in the military and got out of Vietnam just before the Tet Offensive in 1968. Hud returned home a young man in his early 20s to begin making a life for himself in Saratoga Springs.

“I was one of the first bartenders at the Tin & Lint,” he said.
“This was in 1970, and it was an exciting place to work because you had such
a strata of different people — from the Skidmore professors to the jockeys and stable mates — the mix was intriguing.”

He remembers being awed by Jimmy Breslin on a night when the great writer held court among his followers at one of the tables at the Tin & Lint, and recalls the now legendary evening in Spa City folklore when singer Don McLean furiously scribbled away writing lyrics inside his notebook.
Today, a plaque hangs at the table that marks it as the spot where the songwriter penned his song “American Pie.”

Hud has seen the city change a great deal since that time, changed for the better. He points to things like the clock tower that rises in the sky across from Congress Park that greets people coming into the city, instead of the strip mall and the parking lot that used to define the city corner. It may not be the Grand Union Hotel that he remembers from his youth, but a modern nod to classic style.

This weekend, a thousand people will wear Hud’s drawings across their
chests.

“I’ve been doing the Chowderfest sweatshirts five or six years now,” he
says, recalling the 2002 version as a personal favorite. Coming a few months after Sept. 11, 2001, he feels the shirt that depicted the Spirit of Life was an important statement.

This year’s Chowderfest shirt features a pair of youngsters accompanied by a duck, a squirrel and piping hot cups of drink. They are bundled up for the winter celebration, yet also looking forward to warm weather follies like horse racing and outdoor concerts.

It’s a fitting design by the city man who knows well the past, yet isn’t given to living there. “This year,” he says examining his sweatshirt design, “we decided
to go with the kids.”

by Thomas Dimopoulos
The Saratogian