Category: Albany

In 1850, one Ignatius Jones published the second edition of his “Random Recollections of Albany, from 1800 to 1808.” It’s interesting how many of his opinions of Albany would still find some supporters today. Jones first visited the city “just before the election of Mr. Jefferson, or the Great Apostle as he is sometimes…

From 1858, an ad for Joel Munsell’s steam printing house. I’ve mentioned Munsell a few hundred times before, and even visited his grave. His Annals of Albany, mentioned here, is an indispensable resource for local history to this day. Some of the books advertised here can be found on Google Books, and others are…

John Wesley Hyatt was born in Starkey, New York, on the west side of Seneca Lake on November 28, 1837. When he was sixteen, he went to Illinois and became a journeyman printer. He (and later, his brother Isaiah) came to Albany and worked in printing. His interest in invention is shown by his…

English: Black-and-white bust portrait of Thurlow Weed, Republican political boss (Photo credit: Wikipedia) He should be remembered just for his name: Thurlow Weed. He should be remembered just for the politicians he advised, backed, or helped get elected:  DeWitt Clinton, John Quincy Adams, William H. Seward,  William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Winfield Scott, and…

I suppose that Albany residents could be forgiven for not knowing that the man who figured out how to create an electromagnet, by winding wire around a magnet and running a current through it, figured this all out in Albany. I guess it could have escaped our attention that the man who created this…

President Arthur’s Grave (Photo credit: carljohnson) Last week Marc McGuire at the Times-Union posted an article titled “Our Rich and Famous,” which included a poll for voting on the biggest “celebrity” to come from the Capital District. While the very word “celebrity” steers my mind toward vapid denizens of the entertainment world, his initial…

He may have written one of the most famous novels in history (if a novel much more talked about than read, at this moment). Okay, Herman Melville was born in New York City, but after a series of business reverses, his father brought the family to Albany and entered the fur trade just in…

Seriously? Hoxsie has never featured the Wellington Hotel? Allow me to correct that with this kinda amazing postcard of Albany’s only “garage-in” hotel. Not sure exactly when it was published, though it seems to be pre-1927, since the building on the corner of State and South Pearl is the predecessor to the lovely National…

I’ve written about Keeler’s Hotel before, but I don’t think I ever posted this postcard. (“Post” is an interesting word that keeps adapting to the times, isn’t it?) It stood on the west side of Broadway, at Maiden Lane, until its spectacular fire in 1919. The site is currently the under-used Arcade Building.

Surely you didn’t think we were going to get through all these old Albany postcards without a view of the State Capitol. As is commonly the case, there’s no indication of when this postcard was published, but it was mailed in 1909. The landscaping on this side of Washington Avenue is looking pretty rough,…