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New Use for Old Papers
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From the Albany Morning Express of Jan. 23, 1892, a house ad for old papers: Old Papers (All Sizes) Suitable for Shelves, Putting Under Carpets, Packing Furniture, Etc. 10 Cents per Hundred, At this office. Probably used for insulation in a lot of old Albany homes, too.
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Unclaimed Letters and Merging Papers
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It used to be that undeliverable mail was held by the Post Office, and every week the local postmaster was required to advertise all such unclaimed letters. According to the United States Official Postal Guide for 1896, “The names should be arranged alphabetically and the names of ladies and gentlemen in separate lists .…
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The Little Village That Could
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Hoxsie is nothing but rail talk these days, and combine that with news about the old hometown and it’s not possible to skip this one. What is now the Village of Scotia is actually one of the oldest places in the area, with Alexander Lindsay building a home there in 1658, three years before…
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Not A Good Time To Be Named “Union Station”
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While there was a great hue and cry over the loss of Albany’s Union Station, the demise and demolition of Schenectady’s Union Station, happening at the same time for the same reasons, seems to have been met with more of a sense of resignation. On the eve of the old station’s closure, on Friday,…
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What to do with Union Station?
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Of course, as soon as Penn Central was allowed/required to abandon Albany’s Union Station, there had to be plans, debates, and schemes about what to do with the venerable, but run-down, facility. Designed by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, it had opened in 1900 but had seen better days by the time it closed in…
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Now Is The Rail Station of Our Discontent
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We outlined how the original thought to move Albany’s railroad station to Rensselaer turned into a part of the overall plan to run the interstate along the river. Since the train station moved, the complaining about it has rarely stopped. Even now that the new facility is considerably better appointed than the old box…
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New York Central: We Gotta Get Out Of This Place
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Okay, admittedly, our headline from yesterday was a bit of hyperbole. Of course, the Penn Central Railroad didn’t ruin everything, although it didn’t help many things either. But a commenter noted that they were really just finishing the work the New York Central had started, in the face of the fairly catastrophic decline in…
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How Penn Central Ruined Everything, Railwise
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Those who remember Albany’s Union Station as a glorious destination in the ’50s and ’60s most likely benefit from the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia. A 1969 column in the Knickerbocker News acknowledged that “In its dying days, Albany’s Union Station was an odiferous and dingy cavern, but still, if you looked hard, you could…
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The Volunteer Life Saving Corps
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In river towns, people would occasionally fall into the river and drown. So it only makes sense that in 1902, the newly consolidated city of Rensselaer proposed to have three life-saving stations along the riverfront, as outlined in the Albany Evening Journal of July 15: Rensselaer is soon to have three life saving stations.…
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Long Distance, Get Me Schenectady
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Yesterday we listed a number of public places, businesses, and private citizens in 1895 Albany who had telephones on the American Telephone & Telegraph long distance service. Even though the national directory of such subscribers only ran to about 480 pages, Albany was well-represented, as one of the larger cities in the country (about…