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Trojan Bowling
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In 1935, the bowling and billiard hall that Erve managed was in the Hall-Rand building on the northwest corner of Congress and Third Streets in Troy. This was the former Rand’s Hall, later Rand’s Opera House, expanded in 1872 as a concert room, lecture hall and place of exhibitions. How Rand’s Hall became “Hall-Rand,”…
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How to make Bosoms of Superior Quality in your own home
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The other day we mentioned that Ketchum’s Gentlemen’s Furnishing Store was, in addition to being a purveyor of shirt bosoms of superior quality, an agent for the Wheeler & Wilson sewing machine. It shouldn’t be any surprise that there are numerous advertisements for sewing machines in the Collar City’s directory for 1870 — sewing…
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Your great great grandma’s pottery
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Today Troy’s Pottery District is a combination of history and artisans, and there are a number of people in the area creating distinctive works for sale in the River Street shops. But in 1870, “Troy Pottery” meant something else entirely. We’re talking sewage. But clearly W.J. Seymour’s yard at the corner of Ferry and…
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Ferret Attack!
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What was showing at the Lyceum Theatre in Amsterdam of an October evening in 1918? Why, “Queen of the Sea.” They had me with “Thrilling Escape From Tower of Knives and Swords” — a woman being attacked by ferrets is just gravy. But darn! No vaudeville!
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The Carl Company
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Well of course I couldn’t talk about Wallace’s without mentioning its across-the-street complement, The Carl Company. One of Schenectady’s home-grown department stores, it opened in 1906 and was owned by the Carl family until 1984. Defying the trend of amalgamations and consolidations, it managed to survive into the early ’90s with a number of…
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Where to go for Bosoms of Superior Quality?
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Why, Ketchum’s Gentlemen’s Furnishing Store, of course. In case you thought he was going to up and quit the business at any minute, A.M. Ketchum “would respectfully inform the citizens of Schenectady and vicinity that he will continue the manufacture of shirts, collars, bosoms of superior quality, and keep constantly on hand a general…
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Bosoms of Superior Quality
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Like the origins of Hoxsie itself, I almost don’t want to explain this one. But I will. Tomorrow.
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Wallace Company Department Store
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Wallace Company was a downtown Schenectady mainstay from 1892 until 1973, when all the great downtown department stores (H.S. Barney, W.T. Grant, S.S. Kresge) seemed to collapse within a few years of each other, leaving only Woolworth’s and the venerable Carl Company behind. Wallace’s was owned by Forbes & Wallace of Springfield, Massachusetts, and…
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Steam Planing!
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Steam was all the rage in the 1860s. Like electricity would be in just a few decades, “steam” became a symbol of modern industry, a sign of a business that could produce a lot and quickly. In this time we see ads for steam printing presses (the first in the country was in Albany),…
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Anthracite.com, early 20th century edition
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You can order your coal by telephone! Imagine: no more dispatching orphans down to the coal yards, crying for anthracite and striking a less than advantageous bargain with the local collier. No more waiting to learn of the bargain while the orphan is distracted by games of pitch-penny or roving tobacco gangs. You simply…