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O’Neill, the Schenectady Swindler
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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 we were doing, but he was quite well-known and his crimes were widely reported across the state. (Various sources spelled his name O’Neill and…
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From canal to boulevard
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Imagine giving a weeklong exposition, with parade and fireworks, to celebrate the opening and lighting of a new street.
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“All Who Attended Were Well Pleased.”
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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 or why he was giving demonstrations in the use of laughing gas. Nor do we know which very interesting experiments the second night’s audience…
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Crossing State (And Building a New Union Station)
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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 with the growth of the American Locomotive Works, and the opening of the Edison Works in 1886, a serious boom began. Schenectady’s population went…
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How Well Do You Know Schenectady?
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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 committee on social service in the Men and Religion Forward Movement while making the general survey of the city.” Even in a time of…
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The Hotel Vendome (and any number of other names)
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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 — indeed, the F.W. Woolworth store, which opened on that site in 1939, was there until 1994, and the rehabbed building remains. But for…
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A.L. Stevens, Schenectady’s Rooming House Keeper and Armless Driver
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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 rooming houses in Schenectady and once, quite famously, drove across country. Looking through the 1920 directory, searching for some other bit of history, we…
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Man, Beast or Devil?
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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 faced with the question of “What Is It? Man, Beast or Devil?” “What Would Happen in Schenectady If a Powerful Ape With the Brain…
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Van Curler Opera House
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Last time, we wrote about The Miles Theatre, a flash in the burlesque/vaudeville pan that existed pretty much within the confines of 1920 in Schenectady. Before that, it was a much grander house known as the Van Curler Opera House. It opened in 1893 at the corner of Jay and Franklin, and lasted in…
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The Miles Theatre Apologizes
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It’s not often that a theater takes out an ad apologizing for a show it has booked. But apparently Arthur Ungar, manager of The Miles Theater in Schenectady, felt the need to do so at the end of 1920. “‘Oh Girlie Girlie,’ the musical Revue with Harry Jolson playing the stellar role, which had…