Scotia Plans Insane Fourth
From 1912, we ran across this article impugning the sanity of our original hometown and have just been waiting for it to be seasonal and/or timely again. So here we […]
Schenectady
William H. Johnson Talks Emancipation
In honor of the sudden interest in Juneteenth, commemorating the day the belated word of emancipation reached slaves in Texas, I went off in search of whether there had been […]
O’Neill, the Schenectady Swindler
For a while now we’ve been interested in the story of Emmett O’Neill, the Schenectady Swindler. We hadn’t heard of him before he popped up along with some other research […]
From canal to boulevard
Imagine giving a weeklong exposition, with parade and fireworks, to celebrate the opening and lighting of a new street.
“All Who Attended Were Well Pleased.”
More for amusement than for historical edification, we present this clipping from an 1867 edition of the Schenectady Evening Star. We haven’t dug in to exactly who Prof. Shepard was […]
Crossing State (And Building a New Union Station)
When Schenectady was a sleepy backwater, having numerous trains go across the main business street, just feet from the Erie Canal, was probably not much more than a nuisance. But […]
How Well Do You Know Schenectady?
On Dec. 30, 1911, the Schenectady Gazette asked on its front page, “Do You Know Your Own City?” It then posed questions about Schenectady that “will be answered by the […]
The Hotel Vendome (and any number of other names)
For those of us who grew up around Schenectady in the 1950s or 1960s, the northeast corner of State and Broadway seemed long settled as the home of the Woolworth’s […]
A.L. Stevens, Schenectady’s Rooming House Keeper and Armless Driver
Paging through an old Schenectady Directory, an oddly worded series of advertisements led us to an interesting story – the story of the armless man who owned a group of […]
Man, Beast or Devil?
Okay, this one isn’t really history, and it’s barely Schenectady-related . . . but it’s fun. Readers who opened their copy of the Schenectady Gazette on January 31, 1921, were […]