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Today’s Hottest Hits – At Hudson Valley Asbestos
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We’ll admit we were confused when, searching for something else, we found this business brief from the Knickerbocker News in 1941 announcing that four area appliance distributors were switching the lines they sold. Initially, our confusion was over Albany Garage dropping the DuMont TV line. This was confusing because Albany Garage was a parking…
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No Journey to the Center of the Earth
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From Munsell’s “Annals of Albany,” under Notes from the Newspapers we find this brief item from 1828: Oct. 7. Reynolds, who advocated the theory of the interior of the earth being hollow, delivered a lecture at the Atheneum, on the utility of a voyage into the interior of the globe by an entrance at…
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Don’t Leave Your Car Doors Unlocked
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Ahh, for the simpler times, back when we could all leave our doors unlocked and never had to fear crime. Turns out that was just fine, as long as it wasn’t your car doors you were leaving unlocked, because the early days of automobiling saw a surprising amount of theft. An article from “Motordom”…
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A Boal of Grog for Thomas Sager
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We confess: we don’t really know what this is about. In Joel Munsell’s “Annals of Albany, Vol. 6,” among the many scattered “city documents,” we find this item titled “A Corporation Bill For Punch.” “On the 3d of Sept. 1782, Hugh Denniston, who kept a noted tavern in Green street, furnished certain persons for…
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Died Long Ago, Yet Liveth
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From the Schenectady Cabinet in 1855, this odd little advertisement that we suspect was meant to turn a particular phrase but which lost something in a spelling error: “Died Long Ago, Yet Liveth!” In reference to the dyeing and scouring establishment of Mr. A. Giffen at Albany’s old City Mill on Water Street, we…
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The Old Capitol Power House
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For 105 years, the Sheridan Avenue steam plant has provided steam (and, once, electricity) to the Capitol, the State Education Building and, later on, the rest of the Capitol complex. But that’s the “new” plant, hidden down in the hollow. The original powerhouse for the Capitol was right down Hawk Street. It was tucked…
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The Barnet Family: Far From Shoddy
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While we were digging around the “Personal Pages” from a 1919 edition of Textile World, our curiosity was piqued by this note on the generosity of William Barnet, perhaps Rensselaer’s leading shoddy manufacturer. (Hoxsie will always find “shoddy manufacturer” funny, but if you don’t know, shoddy was a cheap fabric made of short-fibered reclaimed…
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True crime, 1914: Armed robbery, carjacking, murder
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While digging up info on Schenectady’s Hygienic Lunch, we ran across this charming tale of armed robbery, carjacking, and the death of a dentist. Here’s the story from the Schenectady Gazette of August 18, 1914: Cashier Swears Conway Robbed Electric Lunch George Volk and Hygienic Lunch Man, However, Say Prisoner Is Not the Man…
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Albany: The Ampersand City
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Hoxsie has often referred to Albany as “The City Without a Nickname.” Other than “The Capital City,” other nicknames that it may have deserved – “The Piano City,” “The Celluloid City,” “Drainage Basin of the Erie Canal” – never quite stuck. But one of its ephemeral nicknames should have stuck, because without its contributions,…
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The Albany Eagle Air Furnace
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From an 1839 edition of the Albany Argus, an advertisement from the Albany Eagle Air Furnace and Machine Shop, where William V. Many (formerly of Corning, Norton & Co.) manufactured just about everything that could be made of iron. We won’t try to replicate their emphatic use of capital letters in telling you that…