Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center

Two Victorian Italianate buildings face each other across Vassar Street, both underwritten in the 1880s by John Guy Vassar Jr. and Matthew Vassar Jr., nephews of the college's founder. Building 9, completed in 1880, opened in 1881 as the Vassar Home for Aged Men and operated as an old-age home until 1975. Building 12, across the street, opened in 1882 as the Vassar Brothers Institute and kept that role until 1977, when the Institute outgrew its space and moved on. Both buildings sat empty and decayed before the Area Fund of Dutchess County acquired them; the Charlotte Cunneen Hackett Charitable Trust put up the seed money for restoration, and the center, which opened here in 1981, took its name from Charlotte Cunneen Hackett and her husband John Mulford Hackett, two Poughkeepsie attorneys.