• Yeah, that used to be a car dealership, too

    •

    Carl Johnson

    If you stare at it long enough, it becomes clear that a HUGE number of the buildings along the midtown stretch of Central Avenue in Albany started life as car dealerships. Sometimes it’s apparent, the building just has that look: outsized windows or some other odd feature. Other times it’s hard to be sure.…

  • Adirondack Motor Car Company

    •

    Carl Johnson

    Well, it’s been a little while since Central Avenue, at least the midtownish portion of it, was Albany’s auto row, but back when horseless carriages were just starting to take off, pretty much every dealer was somewhere on Central just above Lark. This building at 272-274 Central Ave. started off life around 1912 as…

  • The Old Car Barn

    •

    Carl Johnson

    Some old buildings just have distinctive shapes. I’ve biked past this long brick behemoth at 1201 Broadway for years and thought, “that looks like an old car barn.” Turns out, it’s an old car barn. This was one of three buildings erected by the Albany Railway Company around 1889 to house its brand-new electric…

  • Collar City Crime, 1885

    •

    Carl Johnson

    So, what was crime like in the Collar City in 1885? Well, there was more than a smattering of assault on men, women, mothers and little girls. Harnesses, shawls and watches were being stolen. Peter Farrell dug his way out of the pokey (or perhaps the hoosegow) and remained on the lam. A vicious…

  • The White Tower Picks Up Its Building and Moves

    •

    Carl Johnson

    Updated! Okay, so you know the White Tower on Central, the one that stopped being a burger joint some time in the 1970s? The one that’s better known to my generation as the QE2 nightclub, and to the whippersnappers as The Fuze Box? Well, it wasn’t always there. It moved around. Twice. This is…

  • When Armory Garage was near the Armory

    •

    Carl Johnson

    It doesn’t look like much anymore, but this building at 11 Central Avenue was once Albany’s first auto mart. It was reportedly built in 1916 at a cost of $150,000, had giant showroom windows and automobiles displayed on every floor, and had what was said to be the largest elevator in Albany to lift…

  • Not so distant past

    •

    Carl Johnson

    Sometimes ya gotta reach into the recent past. This postcard of the SUNY Albany fountain was published in 1986. The text reads: “SUNYA students take time out for some fun at the pool on the academic podium. At times a natural rainbow appears, as in this picture.”

  • E.I. McClasky City Hay Scales

    •

    Carl Johnson

    One of the things that may not always be obvious is that in a world that was run on hayburners, someone had to provide the hay, even in the center of the city. E.I. McClasky was one of the feed dealers who kept the horses fed. I’m not at all sure whether “city” hay…

Recent Posts

Social Media