Category: Albany

Postcard Week has been held over by popular demand! It could turn into Postcard Month, or even Postcard Summer. (Just to be clear, by “popular demand,” I mean “the absolutely minimal amount of free time I have right now.”) This undated postcard, printed for the Hudson River Day Line (one of their vessels can…

A closer view of Albany’s beautiful City Hall, designed by famed architect H.H. Richardson, who also designed part of the new Capitol and a State Street home for stove magnate Grange Sard. City Hall opened in 1883. This postcard was sent in 1916 to Miss Helen H. Hallan (?) of Wappingers Falls, whom we…

This undated postcard depicts Pierce Hall, “Girls’ Dormitory, N.Y. State College for Teachers, Albany, N.Y.” The obverse describes Albany but says not a thing about Pierce Hall, which opened in 1935 as a women’s residence hall and still stands today as part of the SUNY Albany downtown campus. SUNY Albany itself grew out of…

“View from the Steps of the State Capitol, showing City Hall, State Hall and Public High School, Albany, N.Y.” This postcard, mailed in 1909, gives a view that isn’t too much changed a little more than a century later. City Hall is still the same. “State Hall” is now home of the State Court…

So before that other Albany High School, there was this Albany High School, the first one, at the corner of Eagle and Columbia streets. This postcard was sent in 1910 from Mabel to Miss Alice J. Paterson over on Avenue B in Schenectady. Dear Alice Thank you for letting me know about Aunt Libbie.…

It’s postcard week here on Hoxsie. Back in 1916, Delia sent her niece Georgia Tarbell of East Wallingford, Vermont, a postcard depicting the then-new Albany High School. She wrote: Well Dear Georgia Just a card this time as I am not extra well. have been haveing the grip for a week past. have not…

If you want to see the original walls and doors from the Van Rensselaer Manor house, the home of Stephen Van Rensselaer II, the eighth patroon of Rensselaerwyck, circa 1769, you’ll need to take a trip down to New Amsterdam (even old New York was once New Amsterdam) to the Metropolitan Museum of Art,…

Munsell’s fourth volume of the “Annals of Albany” begins with various records from the Courts of Assize, generally a criminal court. In the early days of Beverwijck, when the fur-bearing mammal was the main item of trade, there was a considerable amount of beaver theft, unfair beaver trading, and sundry other beaver-related crimes, as…

Joel Munsell’s “Annals of Albany” was a ten-volume opus published during the 1850s that was a magnificent mixture of history, biography, and just plain copying of things that happened in Albany’s history. It’s the copying that’s of interest this week, as he took it upon himself to set down, verbatim, a number of records…

  English: Francis Lovelace (1621-1675) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) In 1670, Albany’s Schoolmaster Jan Jurians Beecker was having a hard time. Despite the fact that Colonial Governor Richard Nicolls had granted him the right to keep the Dutch school “for ye teaching of youth to read and wryte,” there were some freelance teachers horning in…