Author: Carl Johnson

After a long hiatus (in part brought on by life in general, in part brought on by a major hack of our websites that needed cleaning up), we’re back to our histories of the tablets placed around Albany in celebration of the city’s charter bicentennial in 1886. This one marks the Lydius Corner, perhaps…

Continuing our series on the tablet placed in honor of Albany’s charter bicentennial in 1886, we come to a marker that was intended to celebrate the Vanderheyden “palace.” Unfortunately, the tablet has been missing for more than 130 years – the building it commemorates has since been succeeded by three other buildings, and now…

Hoxsie had to take an extended break for a whole bunch of reasons. Now we’re continuing our series on the tablets placed in honor of the bicentennial of Albany’s charter as a city in 1886. One of those was placed at perhaps Albany’s second most prominent intersection, State and Pearl, to mark the historic…

Continuing our series on the tablet placed in honor of Albany’s charter bicentennial in 1886. This one marked one of Albany’s most historic houses. It is fortunate that the house still stands and provides interpretation of events that occurred there. It is unfortunate that as far as we can tell, this historical marker has…

Continuing our series on the tablets placed around Albany in honor of the bicentennial of the city’s charter, celebrated in 1886, we have a replacement marker on a site that has seen a lot, and has been occupied almost as long as Albany has been here. The original marker placed by the Bicentennial Committee…

Continuing our series on the tablets placed in honor of the bicentennial of Albany’s charter as a city, tablet number 14 marks the location of “the old Lansing house,” or Pemberton Corner. Tablet No. 14 — The Old Lansing House Bronze tablet, 11×23, inserted in a granite block, similar to No. 7, in walk…

Continuing our series on the tablets placed in honor of the bicentennial of Albany’s charter as a city, we have the only tablet honoring a woman. Tablet No. 13 – Anneke Janse Bogardus Bronze tablet, 16×22 inches, placed on front door pier of State Street side Farmers and Mechanics’ Bank. Inscription :“Upon this Corner…

Continuing our series on the tablets placed around the city in commemoration of the bicentennial of Albany’s charter as a city, we have another one that has gone completely missing. Fortunately, it was replaced, in a way, but there seems to be no record of what happened to the original. This one marked the…

Continuing our series on the stories behind the 1886 bicentennial tablets commemorating important places in Albany, we have our first marker laid in a sidewalk, telling us of the nearby location of Fort Frederick. Tablet No. 11 – Fort Frederick Located head of State street, in sidewalk, near the curb on lower edge of Capitol…

As we’re tracking the histories associated with the tablets that were installed in 1886 to commemorate the bicentennial of Albany’s charter as a city, we’ve been lucky so far in that nearly all of the tablets we’ve written about have survived. The first lost tablet marked the site of the first Lutheran Church. Now…