There’s been a lot of press lately about the closing of the last of Albany’s public baths (which by now is truly just a swimming pool). Once, the baths were so much more. In 1870, you could have walked just one block (or “square”) north up Broadway from Delevan House, one of Albany’s biggest…

In the old days, cities took their reputations as manufacturing centers very seriously, and so did the companies. When inter-company (and intra-family) rivalry broke out in the burgeoning bell industry, one company took pains to point out that only their bells were actually made in Troy; that other pack of scoundrels (who dominated the…

In the 1850s and 1860s, Robert McFarlane was the editor of Scientific American. “A genuine Scot, from Rutherglen, near Glasgow,” he was instrumental in promoting the benefits of Gail Borden’s invention of condensed milk, and wrote an important treatise on dyeing and calico printing. By 1870, he had left the big city life and…

Daniel Weaver of 49 Green Street was not only a manufacturer and dealer in umbrellas and parasols, he also re-covered and repaired them. An Albanian from 1870 was likely hard pressed to imagine why you would throw away an umbrella when it could be repaired; today we can hardly imagine how you could repair…

In fact, to say there’s not enough galvanized iron cornice these days is a sad understatement. While I’ve seen some lovely, graceful buildings with nice decorative elements put up in other cities (look at all the handsome new construction in Washington, D.C. over the past decade and change), here we settle for the quickest,…

No doubt that H.R. Watson used the finest curled hair, husk &c. (and if you have already covered hair and husk, just what could that “&c.” be?) in their mattresses, and no doubt that “spring under” was a major innovation, even though today it seems logical that you wouldn’t want the springs on top…

In 1870, John Humphrey, perhaps feeling he had an insufficient number of J’s in his name for the changing times, sold out his entire stock of drugs, medicines, paints, oils, glass, druggists’ sundries and fancy goods to one John J. St. John. The establishment continued at 39 Washington Avenue, which I presume was across…

McEntee, Dunham & Co. imported both French and American paper hangings, and manufactured and dealt in window shades, shade fixtures, and picture cords and tassels. If you know anything about Victorian decorating, you know that someone who could corner the tassel market would live like a king. in 1870, McEntee’s shop was on Green…