When I was growing up in Scotia, there was an odd little gift shop operating out of a very nice old home at the corner of Glen Avenue and South Reynolds Street called Pinkham’s. I can only recall ever going in there once or twice, with my great great aunt, and it was the kind of place that catered to great great aunts, filled with precious knickknacks and gimcracks and chintz doilies and things like that. I passed by it on the way to school for a number of years and always wondered if it was really a business or just an old lady with a houseful of stuff, but it turns out that Pinkham’s was really a going concern. This ad from the Schenectady Gazette from 1945 shows what a full line of oddities it sold, from table lamps to stemware to stationery. Plus also: “Figurines & Miniatures for What-Not Collectors.” There was a time when every town had some odd little shop like this, the kind whose survival was inexplicable. Now, the main home for what-not collectors is eBay.
Not only was there plenty of parking, you could get there by either bus.
Sometimes I miss the society we used to be.