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Dr. Dodge, Albany’s Harbinger of Spring
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Does Albany still have characters? The old Dutch town used to be awash in them. One such character, way back when, was Dr. Dodge, a pitchman familiar to thousands who walked State Street hill. The Times-Union on Sept. 6, 1934, warned on its front page that “Dr. Dodge, Famed for Hat Collection, Seriously Ill.”…
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Philip Schuyler High School – It’s Temporary
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Last time we talked about how Albany developed its first “cosmopolitan” high school, Philip Schuyler, which opened in 1934. But we hadn’t gotten to the bottom of how it came to be in the old Public School 14, instead of in a new high school building. Confusing, because in all the years leading up…
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Albany’s Cosmopolitan High School
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We will admit, before working on this story, we’d never before heard of the term “cosmopolitan high school.” But in Albany in the ‘30s, it was a term everyone would have been familiar with, as the future of schools was being debated and the city tried to deal with an ever-growing young population. A…
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We Just Want To Weave and Fold Some Asbestos
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Well, weren’t we surprised to learn that there was once a company that began with the bold and (eventually) regrettable name of The Asbestos Spinning & Weaving Corporation. We were even more surprised to find out that, in some way, it still existed when we first posted this. The Asbestos Spinning and Weaving Corporation…
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Mr. Ford Builds His Dream Hydro Plant
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Way back when, Green Island was an island, separated from the rest of what is now Colonie by the Mohawk River (a separation reiterated by the Erie Canal), and separated from Troy, as it is today, by the Hudson River. In the late 19th century, it had a bit of industry in the form…
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Albany’s 15 Most Dangerous Intersections, 1955
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Last time around (yeah, it’s been a while – Hoxsie vacations where there is no wifi) we talked about the proposed innovation of the boulevard stop. Not surprisingly, years later, traffic was still a concern in Albany, and in 1955 the commissioner of public safety, William V. Cooke, “sounded a warning to motorists to…
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The Boulevard Stop
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While the automobile was already reshaping our society in the 1930s, it was still a time when even adding some stop signs would make the news. Essentially, the boulevard stop system would remove red light signals, create longer uninterrupted straight-aways and require those entering them or crossing them from side streets to come to…
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PSC Investigates Type Size
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A couple of weeks back, a colleague complimented our typing skills, and we said that we had started life as a typesetter. “What’s that?” he asked. “Exactly,” we replied. Even in the time when typesetting was a valued skill, type rarely made the news. So an article from the Albany Evening News from 1937…
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Dropping Pamphlets for Diphtheria
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It’s 1927, and you need to get the word out about vaccination for diphtheria. There’s no social media to speak of, so you have limited options. Newspapers, of course. Direct mail, though mass mailings are expensive and computerized mailing lists don’t exist. Radio, but although radio has exploded in just a few years, it’s…
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A Matter of Decorum
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Ah, the glorious days of yesteryear, when all the men were gentlemen, all the ladies ladies, and society knew how to behave. The lowliest laborer wore a suit, f’cryin’ out loud. Not like today! That must be why, in 1898, the Albany city board of health was most perplexed at the failure of the…