-
19th Century Railroads: Unsafe at Any Speed
•
In 1865, every railroad in the state made a report to the railroad commissioners of the State of New York. There are lots of facts and figures about capital stock, funded debt, length of road laid, numbers of passenger cars and snow plows, etc. They even give the average rate of speed and the…
-
What Lord Kelvin Saw in Schenectady
•
Yesterday we tried to identify the many, many scientific, engineering and industrial luminaries pictured in this photograph, taken at the Schenectady General Electric Works. So, what were they all up to? In September of 1897, Lord and Lady Kelvin were the guests of Mr. and Mrs. Spencer Trask “at their country seat on Union…
-
A Meeting of the Minds in Schenectady
•
This picture of Schenectady’s industrial past, taken in 1897, pops up from time to time, usually vaguely captioned as “Lord Kelvin visits the General Electric works.” That Spencer Trask is in the picture is sometimes mentioned. (The New York Public Library has one decent source for the photograph.) That the captions rarely identify the…
-
It’s NOT 40 Miles from Schenectady to Troy
•
Among the greatest songs of Gustave Kerker (No. 14 on the Honor Roll of Popular Songwriters, according to Billboard magazine, back in 1949) was a tune he wrote, with lyrics by Hugh Morton, for an 1896 show called “In Gay New York” that was featured at the Casino Theater in New York City. Even…
-
The Great Western Gateway Exposition
•
The grand opening of the Great Western Gateway Bridge, a decade in the planning, was a very big deal indeed. The bridge itself opened in December of 1925, but of course December in Schenectady is not a propitious time for celebrating, so it was some months before the great Gateway Exposition took place. In…
-
Construction of the Great Western Gateway Bridge
•
“Successful Methods,” a civil engineering magazine from around about a century ago, took the time in November 1920 to detail how work on the Great Western Gateway Bridge was progressing: A FOUR CONTRACT JOB Work on Great Western Gateway at Schenectady, N.Y., is Divided Into Four Units Work is well under way on the…
-
Plans for the Great Western Gateway Bridge
•
All week we’ve been recounting the hearing of 1915 that laid the groundwork for the Great Western Gateway Bridge between Schenectady and Scotia . It didn’t actually open until 1925 (just barely — it was in December). But the plans for the bridge were approved long, long before, back in September of 1916, according…
-
The Bridge that Preceded It
•
In its 1915 report, the Great Western Gateway Commission gave a little bit of history of the various bridges that had connected Schenectady to Scotia across the Mohawk River. Despite having been settled in 1661, the first permanent bridge to be built didn’t come about until 1808. It was authorized in 1800 in the…
-
The Great Western Gateway Bridge: The Life of the Citizen is at Stake
•
At the 1915 hearing on the need to build the Great Western Gateway Bridge between Schenectady and Scotia (and beyond), the Honorable Fred W. Cameron, Chairman of the Saratoga Reservation Commission (various commissions were forerunners of the State Parks system) came down to Schenectady to argue for the need for the bridge. First, he…
-
The Great Western Gateway: There Will Be Speechifying
•
As Schenectady grew into an industrial powerhouse and State Street grew into a thriving commercial district, and as automobiles began to become an important form of transportation, it became clear that the old bridge across the Mohawk, an iron trestle affair that carried trolleys across between Washington Avenue and the end of the dike…