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Kermis Week in Schenectady
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This postcard from the great Tichnor Collection posted by the Boston Public Library on Flickr raises the interesting question: What’s a Kermis? Well, the Altamont Enterprise of June 18, 1948 is very glad you asked: Schenectady, founded by Arent Van Curler and a party of 15 Holland Dutchmen in 1662, is going to be…
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Entering Scotia
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Another view, this time from the topside, of the Western Gateway Bridge and its approach into Scotia. I always loved the concrete lattice details, which on the “new” bridge were replaced by steel guiderails and chain link fence, which I’m sure is lovely to someone (perhaps a junkyard dog), but not to me. (The…
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When Bridges Were Bridges
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Not sure just when this undated postcard of the original Western Gateway Bridge was made, but the bridge itself, a graceful concrete arch structure, opened in December 1925. Previously, Schenectady and Scotia were connected by a trolley bridge between Schonowe Avenue and Washington Avenue. Four men died in an accident during the Western Gateway’s…
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State Street, Schenectady, Then and Then
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Again from the Boston Public Library collection, a wonderful postcard view looking east up State Street from the railroad overpass. Some genius of car-bonnet dating could probably narrow the age down for us, but the trolleys were still running. On the left was Jay Jewelry, and just across Broadway was Woolworth’s. You can’t really…
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Schenectady Rug and Carpet
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From the files of the Boston Public Library come these three postcard views of something less than a landmark, the Schenectady Rug and Carpet Store. It was at 789 State Street in Schenectady, about at the corner of Hulett, in a building that is now gone. Big on slogans, they were. “Home means more…
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The rural school nurse
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In 1916, Schenectady County schools were dissatisfied with the use of physicians to give students medical inspections: “cards were filled out and filed and nothing further was done; no attempt was made to correct defects discovered and no emphasis placed upon healthful habits of living, diet and sanitation.” So they appointed Miss Mildred B.…
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Another view of the Burr Bridge
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Last year the Grems-Doolittle Library of the Schenectady County Historical Society featured the photographs of early Schenectady photographer Henry Tripp. Since yesterday we heard the story of cows falling through the old Burr bridge that connected Schenectady to Scotia, today we’ll take a look at Tripp’s great photo of the Washington Avenue approach to…
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Cows Below!
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Schenectady, Oct. 14, 1857: “The flooring of the old Mohawk bridge gave way this forenoon, precipitating about fifty head of cattle a distance of eighteen feet into the river. Only one of the cows was hurt. This is the first accident that has occurred since the building of the bridge, by Theodore Burr, in…
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Patton & Hall Shoes
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When this ad ran in 1921, Schenectady’s Patton & Hall shoes was a thriving business, with additional stores in Amsterdam and Saratoga. The company occupied a large building on State Street, just a few doors closer to Erie Boulevard than Barney’s, and catered to the same “carriage trade.” I’m not sure just when they…
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Phone on Moving Trolley
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Perhaps the first version of a carphone? In 1921, General Electric successfully used carrier current communication, which transmits a low power AM signal through alternating current lines, to communicate from a moving trolley car “with a point more than three miles distant. Considering radio itself was still in its infancy, that seems a pretty…