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Christmas Cards of Yore
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This is not local to any of our localities of interest, but looking for something else, we ran across this wonderful nugget from the Catalog of Copyright Entries of 1930. The Pyramid Card Co. of Chicago registered four greeting cards. Surely, the 1930s were a simpler, less cynical time, which would explain why one…
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Merry Christmas, Albany!
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From “Albany Chronicles,” in 1815: Common Council, in view of past experiences, finds it necessary to pass an ordinance to double watch the streets during Christmas and New Year’s celebration, enforcing the law prohibiting firing of guns days or nights of Dec. 24th, 25th and 26th or from Dec. 31st to Jan. 2d.
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The Paste Fortune
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Yesterday we had a look at the lovely home of Albert Van Voast Bensen, a prominent local figure in banking, insurance, and paste. Listen, there was a time when you could make a pretty penny in paste, and The Diamond Paste Company of Albany was a prominent supplier. Located at 66 Hamilton Street (now…
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The Albert V. Bensen Residence
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Hoxsie’s taking it easy for the holidays, and mostly presenting you with pretty pictures. Here’s another from the Ryerson & Burnham Archives of the Art Institute of Chicago, a view from between 1880 (when this was built) and 1890 of the Albert V. Bensen Residence that stands at 439 State Street in Albany, across…
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Phoenixville Phriday: The Public Market Places
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As we’ve said before, this blog devoted to random snippets of history from Albany, Schenectady, and Troy will certainly not be stooping so low as to have a feature called “Phoenixville Phriday” just because we’ve moved to a new town far from our roots. Just because it’s Friday, and just because this one’s about…
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Not Surprising, Says Architect
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Within a story on the 1905 collapse of the John G. Myers department store on North Pearl Street in Albany were some comments from Marcus T. Reynolds, without a doubt Albany’s most prominent architect of the day, one of a small handful of men who shaped what the city looks like to this day.…
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The Myers Store Collapse
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Hoxsie recently found that the Art Institute of Chicago’s Ryerson & Burnham Archives include a number of images of Albany architecture. It has a wonderful view we hadn’t seen before of John G. Myers’ dry goods store, 39-41 North Pearl Street. This photograph by Albert Levy is from somewhere between 1885 and 1895; the…
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Skinner and Arnold: Boilers and Elevators
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Last week we looked at this picture and talked about the Brainerd, Tanner Company, which notably made transom lifters. But a bit closer to the water was another company I hadn’t heard of, The Skinner & Arnold Steam Engine and Boiler Works. It turns out they didn’t only manufacture steam engines and boilers; they…
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Albany’s Transom Lifters
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Over on the “Albany…The Way It Was” Facebook page, a participant posted a picture of a waterfront park I’d never seen before, from Herkimer to South Lansing. On the site of a former coal yard and cement plant, tucked in by the boiler works. I was curious about the surrounding industries, since the names…
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The Great Western Gateway Exposition
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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…