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The Ornamental Hair Store
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Hey, Schenectady! Need ornamental hair? You’re in luck. In 1840, John Xavier opened a new ornamental hair store at 92 State Street, three doors west of the post office. Everlasting curls, plain and curled frizetts, puffs, everlasting and curled ringlets . . . he had it all, kept constantly on hand or supplied at…
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Time to Build the Highway, Citizen
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Remember how residents of the city of Albany in 1800 were required to pave not only their sidewalks, but half their streets? That’s nothing compared to their obligations with regard to the city’s highways. The laws of 1800 don’t make it clear exactly what was considered a public highway – it was likely at…
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A Remarkable Winter
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From Joel Munsell’s Annals of Albany, a reminder that another winter was pretty mild, a mere 214 years ago: A meteorological table was kept for the month of January, 1802, and published in the Gazette, by which it appears that the lowest range of the thermometer was 10°, and the highest 55½° above zero.…
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Streets and Lanes, Gutters and Kennels
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Paving of city streets is a big deal these days. Or lack of paving. Or, in poor Troy’s case, paving and then having the fresh pavement collapse into a sinkhole. But it has always been a big deal. Going back to the laws of Albany from 1800, we find an entire law “to regulate…
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Leather Bags and Gunpowder
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An important note from the laws of Albany as they were set forth in 1800, and proof that city officials were as safety-conscious as they are today: the law set some very strict standards for the transport of gunpowder through the city. Well, perhaps “strict” is an overstatement: And be it further Ordained, That…
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Who will carry our filth from the streets? Albany’s cartmen
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In early 19th century Albany, there were no garbage cans – household garbage, food waste, chamberpots, and animal dung were tossed out into the nearest street or alley. Albany’s Laws and Ordinances of 1800 prescribed a law for cleaning the streets of the city, and regulated the cartmen who carried such waste and everything…
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Death by Railroad, 1858
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From the 1858 New York State Engineer and Surveyor’s report on the many railroads operating in the state, we find this interesting tabulation of the human cost of running the rails in that year. The number of passengers killed for the year was 20; 142 were injured. Railroad employees: 29 killed, 24 injured. Others…
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Tragedies on the Trolleys
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The Albany and Hudson Railway, which provided trolley service from Hudson to Rensselaer and into Albany, only lasted under that name from 1899 to 1903. In addition to running the trolleys, the company ran a resort called “Electric Park” at Kinderhook Lake. A round-trip ticket from Albany to Electric Park cost forty cents. Extra…
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The Albany & Hudson & Kinderhook & Greenbush Railway Gas Electric Bridge Company
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Remember when street railways also owned hydropower dams and provided electricity and gas service? Yeah, we never heard of that before, either. But turns out it happened, at least with one local streetcar company. To get to the formation of the Albany and Hudson Railway and Power Company, which was incorporated in 1899 under…
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Tolls Across the Hudson
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For the longest time, it’s been said that the Dunn Memorial Bridge is the southernmost toll-free crossing of the Hudson River (which is saying something, being that it’s 145 miles from Albany to the Battery). But that wasn’t always the case. Its predecessor, the Greenbush Bridge, was constructed as a private project in 1882…