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Troy-built Starbucks
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I suspect that, armed with a little bit of information, one could find bits of Troy’s manufacturing history in every state of the union. Here from the Library of Congress is a view of the base of a cast iron tower on the Bidwell Bar Suspension Bridge & Stone Toll House, near Lake Oroville…
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Gnadendorff. Again with the Gnadendorff.
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Remember Hermann Gnadendorff, whose Schenectady apothecary was mentioned back in September? Well, sometime after he took an ad in the 1862 Schenectady directory, he removed to 14 Second Street in Troy, where he made an impression on the city that remains to this day, if you know to look for it. The handsome facade…
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Home of the secret handshake
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Troy’s Masonic Temple, dedicated April 2, 1871. It was on the west side of Third Street, between Broadway and River Street. Given the age of the other buildings there, I’d guess its site is now taken by the Rensselaer Center of Applied Geology building. (Update: guess again. Having looked at the street, I’d guess…
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What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
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Bells, that is. Those words are Poe’s, these are Arthur Weise’s in 1886, describing Troy’s then world-famous bell industry: The fame of having tens of thousands of church bells ringing round the earth made in her foundries is realized by Troy. In the distant missionary fields in Africa, along the fertile borders of the…
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The other Troy Armory, and the undetected corpse
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If you think of the old State Armory in Troy, you probably think of the one on the RPI campus, which is now known as the Alumni Sports & Recreation Center. It’s a big old brick pile in a fortress style, somewhat less decorative than some other armories of its day. But it had…
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Knowlson’s Butter of Cocoa Suppositories
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In 1886, Arthur Weise proclaimed that Troy was home to about 37 places where drugs and medicines were sold. Among them, he gushed about the establishment of Alexander M. Knowlson at 350 Broadway. “He possesses one of the most attractive drug, medicine and prescription stores in the city. Spacious, well-lighted, tastefully furnished, it presents…
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Albia seems like it should be in a palindrome
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View Larger MapAble was I ere I saw Albia? Albia is a neighborhood of Troy that is a vital little urban fragment, the right mix of homes and shops, a neighborhood that seems to get by. Weise’s 1886 “The City of Troy and its Vicinity” has a listing for Albia: “Albia, in the fifth…
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Yes, Virginia, there was a City Hall
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Troy seems to be an anomaly these days, a city without a permanent city hall. For years it was in an atrocious ’70s style concrete abomination, now torn down to make way for riverfront redevelopment. For now it’s in a different atrocious ’70s style concrete abomination, with plans to move it back to Monument…
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Frear’s Troy Cash Bazaar
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William H. Frear, at Cannon Place, has the personal distinction of possessing and conducting a larger retail dry-goods business than any merchant in a city of the United States of the same population as that of Troy. The patronage of “Frear’s Troy Bazaar” is not wholly local, for its fame attracts customers from all…