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Tolls Across the Hudson
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For the longest time, it’s been said that the Dunn Memorial Bridge is the southernmost toll-free crossing of the Hudson River (which is saying something, being that it’s 145 miles from Albany to the Battery). But that wasn’t always the case. Its predecessor, the Greenbush Bridge, was constructed as a private project in 1882…
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And he shall be deemed the ferry-man
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We’ve been talking lately about the bridges, but they weren’t always there. A city by the river, in the days before bridges, very much relied on ferries for transportation. From the earliest days, Greenbush was an important adjunct to what became Albany, and the vast farmlands beyond Greenbush relied on ferries to access the…
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The Albany-Greenbush Tunnel
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Yesterday, in talking about plans to replace the old Greenbush Bridge, we noted the somewhat odd comments of Holland Tunnel designer Fred Williams, who had come to Albany to talk about how you should always think about a tunnel, but lamented that “This isn’t tunnel day.” Well, that wasn’t as random as it sounded…
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Time for a new bridge to Greenbush – or maybe not.
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Is anything ever simple around here? No, it is not. So, while it took years to get agreement to build the first bridge between Albany and Greenbush, the only bridge that carried automobiles across the river below Troy, you would think that when it came time to replace it, it would be relatively simple.…
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From Hearses to Ambulances: Albany Motor Renting Corp.
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In case you were wondering when funerals by automobile became possible in the “Capitol” District – it would appear that the answer is 1920, which is when the Albany Motor Renting Corporation was formed (president: Spero Loscaris) and this ad appeared in the Albany City Directory. Its 56 South Ferry Street location, where they…
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Albany’s Lancaster School
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Recently we wrote about Schenectady’s Lancaster School, which pretty much controlled the shape of what would be thought of as public education in that city in the early 19th century. Schenectady wasn’t the only area city that signed on to the Lancasterian fad, which applied some definite ideas about how students were to be…
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The Colonial Governors of New York: The Good, the Bad, the Seditious
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Last time around we discussed George Rogers Howell’s comprehensive and descriptive list of the English colonial governors of New York, from his Bi-Centennial History of the County of Albany, 1886. He elaborated on some of his brief tabular descriptions with some more detailed evaluations of the shortcomings of several of the governors, whom Howell…
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English Colonial Governors of New York: A Rogue’s Gallery
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Howell, in his “Bi-Centennial History of the County of Albany,” gave us an excruciatingly detailed listing of the English colonial governors of New York, running from Richard Nicolls in 1664 to the final military governor, Andrew Elliott, in 1783. We’re sure there are some stories to look at here (for instance, how many times…
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The Peculiar Institution
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The Duke de la Rochefoucauld, an exile from revolutionary France who seemed to have a genuine appreciation for the post-revolutionary United States, was, as a foreign visitor, sometimes blunt in his assessments of what was going on. He found the inhabitants of Albany “extremely dull and melancholy,” and despite praising the hospitality of his…
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Albany, 1795: “They live retired in their houses with their wives”
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As we were discussing yesterday, in 1800, François Alexandre Frédéric de La Rochefoucauld, under the title of Duke de La Rochefoucauld Liancourt, published his Travels through the United States of North America, the Country of the Iroquois, and Upper Canada, In the Years 1795, 1796, and 1797. Albany came up a few times. After…