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Mrs. Dudley Builds an Observatory
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Most folks in Albany are probably at least familiar with the name of the Dudley Observatory. Those who still remember when it was in Albany remember its second location, on South Lake Avenue, but that was not its premiere location — it was originally set high up in Arbor Hill in a place still…
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Albany’s Public Bath No. 1
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Municipal Journal and Engineer from July 1902 featured a thorough overview of Albany’s first public bath, Public Bath No. 1, located at 665 Broadway (smack in the middle of the east side of the block between Orange and Quackenbush), hailing a public bath as a “step in the interest of public morals, clean living…
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Police Battle Maniac on Smith’s Special
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In his Nov. 4, 1950 column in the Knickerbocker News, Charles L. Mooney recounted days of long ago – Oct. 21, 1928, to be exact, and in doing so gave us a peek into the working of political campaigns, railroads, police work and the press, back in the days when the Knick Press was…
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The Albany Country Club
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The Albany Country Club used to actually be in Albany, for many years, until it was chased out for the purpose of higher education. A Knickerbocker News, November 4, 1950, article noting that the Albany Country Club was celebrating its 60th anniversary says that the Club received its corporate seal in 1890 as the…
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From Albany to China – Stewart Dean
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Howell’s Bi-Centennial History of Albany tells us that in the mid-1700s, there were a number of sloops and schooners trading between Albany, New York and Boston, and sometimes beyond, but that none had ventured to foreign ports. In 1770, Captain Abraham Bloodgood made the first voyage from Albany to the West Indies carrying a…
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A dust-up among bakers
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Just one of those things that catches the eye: an article from the Sept. 14, 1927 Albany Evening News described a fight between bakers: “Mixing fists and a rolling pin, instead of dough, brought John Novak, thirty-two, 26 Bassett street, a baker employed at the Star bakery, into police court today charged with assault,…
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The Mystery of Ivanhoe Bland
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Happened to be looking through the 1920 Albany City Directory, as one does, and looked up an address where I spent a lot of time over the past couple of decades. I knew that the building currently there had not been there that far back, and that there had been a little neighborhood of…
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Albany 1836: One of the greatest thoroughfares in the union
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In 1836, J. Disturnell of New York City published “The Traveller’s Guide through the State of New York, Canada, &c.” The title wound on for a while, as was the fashion at the time. The guide gave a thorough description of travel up the Hudson, which we may touch on another day, and provided…
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Where’s my fire bucket?
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So, yesterday we established that if you were a homeowner or landlord in 1800 Albany, you were expected to supply leather buckets in good working order for use in fighting fires, and that the number of buckets you were to supply was essentially N-1, where N was the number of fireplaces in the dwelling.…
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A Law to Prevent Accidents by Fire
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In 1800, the Charter of the City of Albany and the Laws and Ordinances, Ordained and Established the bye Mayor, Aldermen and Commonality of said City were published. First in the section of laws was “A Law to Prevent Accidents by Fire,” which was an elaborate set of rules aimed at preventing one of…