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Thacher Park Pool
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Since All Over Albany just featured the discussion on the future of Thacher Park, here’s a quick glimpse of the past: its once-great swimming pool. My guess on this postcard would be sometime in the 1950s or perhaps even ’60s.
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The Troy Menands Bridge
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While we’re on the topic of bridges, let’s move up the river to this old view of the Troy-Menands Bridge. What was originally a lift bridge, as shown here, was opened July 17, 1933 after several years of planning and the usual Albany-Troy tussles that had gone along with bridging the Hudson for a…
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Dunn Memorial Bridge
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Always nice to see a view of the old Dunn Memorial Bridge, named in honor of posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Parker F. Dunn, Morton Avenue’s bravest son. But it’s also nice to see the kinds of messages people used to spend a penny to send: “Thats a railroad bridge that I go…
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Trojan Hotel, the Elks, and Alling Rubber
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There’s been a lot of excitement over plans to bring the old Trojan Hotel building back from the brink. Here’s an undated postcard, posted by the Boston Public Library, with a view looking south down Third Street in Troy. On the left, the Trojan Hotel, its iconic sign already in place. To its right,…
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Trolley disaster at Greenbush
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The 1890 railroad sabotage at Greenbush miraculously took no lives. But a 1901 trolley crash outside Greenbush (which is now part of the city of Rensselaer) was much more serious, killing at least seven people. It was May 26, 1901, and the trolleys were at the start of their summer runs. In those days,…
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Trouble on the Tracks
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In the late summer of 1890, the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad fired 78 members of the Knights of Labor “for cause,” the cause primarily being that they were union agitators. This action caused 3000 (or 5000, depending on the source) trainmen to go on strike. The trains, of course, continued to…
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The exciting SPAC lineup, 1976
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The Saratoga Performing Arts Center 1976 summer lineup featured an interesting array of acts. In addition to those fabulous Philadelphians, there was the Third Annual Upstate Jazz Festival, featuring Stan Kenton, Dizzy Gillespie, Count Basie, Maynard Ferguson, Lionel Hampton, Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald all in one weekend. There was the D’oyly Carte Opera…
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Taking the Waters
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So of course the main point to going to Saratoga in the late 1800s was to take the curative waters from its many mineral springs. As Saratoga Illustrated pointed out in 1876, it’s just good science: “The medicinal action of mineral waters differs in almost every respect from that of cathartics and diuretics, or…
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The Springs of Saratoga Springs
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In 1876, people went to Saratoga Springs for the waters. (Unlike Nick in “Casablanca,” they were not misinformed.) “Its mineral waters flow in exhaustless abundance from year to year; and, though given away freely to all who care to ask for them, and, in bottles or barrels, sent to every State, and half over…
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Wandering Saratoga, 1876
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We’ll continue with what “Saratoga Illustrated” had to say about the city of springs in 1876: Saratoga Springs is a village of hotels and dwelling houses. There are few or no manufactories, and its streets seem devoted to elegant leisure or abundant shopping. Its surface is mainly level, except where a shallow valley winds…