Category: Miscellany

Everyone knows (and if you don’t, you should) that the massive, beautiful SUNY Administration building sprawled across the plaza along Broadway at State Street was, when built in 1915 by Marcus Reynolds, the headquarters of the Delaware and Hudson (D&H) railroad. (With a little bit of Evening Journal headquarters thrown in.) But fewer than…

Nothing Albany-related about this, but I couldn’t resist posting this bold advice from “The Horseless Age” magazine.

A brief departure from the Tri-Cities. I lived for several years in Syracuse, the Salt City, the city where your feet are never dry or warm. One of the major industries there was New Process Gear. Just recently the long tradition of auto parts manufacture in Syracuse ended with the closing of its final…

C. Wendell’s printing office over Apothecaries Hall was at the central Albany location, the corner of Pearl and State. Across from the legendary Elm Tree Corner, which I just have to write about some day, the northeast corner was known as Lydius Corner, for old resident Balthazar Lydius, whose residence stood there until replaced…

It may well be that back in Mrs. Dundon’s day, if you wanted to pollute a neighborhood with a commercial message, you needed cash to buy the paste. But spam, unbelievably, is free. At least to the sender. To those of us who manage multiple websites, it eats up a surprising amount of our…

Image via Wikipedia I’m not usually going to be lazy and linky here on Hoxsie, but when ABC News has gone to the effort to put together a nice story about Mechanicville’s Col. Elmer Ellsworth, the first Union officer to be killed in the Civil War, then why reinvent the wheel? So click away.…

Moses Jones was a practical slater, and he knew whereof he spoke. Slate roofing is heavy, expensive, and difficult to work with, but when done right it’s beautiful and bulletproof. And as he pointed out, it’s reusable.   Interesting that in the 1862 Schenectady directory, Moses Jones listed his residence before his business address.…

Well, at least “Haines” didn’t put “photographer” in quotes, so youcould have some assurance as to what he did, even if you were led todoubt whether he was using his real name. There were a number of photographers operating down on Broadway in the years following the Civil War, and while others may have…

Albany’s current Tulip Festival has its origins in Pinkster, which was celebrated by slaves and servant. There is an excellent description of Pinkster at the Knickerbocker Ledger. This definition from an Albany guide book explains Pinkster as: “A negro festival which used to be celebrated on Capitol hill when slavery existed in the State. It…

What did people do for fun on rainy afternoons in 1888 (or, for that matter, 1968)? They played Peter Coddle’s Trip to New York. Now you can, too.