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Troy Airport
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Last time around we talked about aviator Ruth Nichols’s devastating crash at Troy Airport. While nearly everyone in the area would be familiar with Albany’s airport and even Schenectady’s, the airport in Troy seems nearly forgotten about. It had a long history – and despite decades of dreams, it never really grew into anything of…
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Ruth Nichols and A Tragic Plane Crash in Troy
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Back in the early days of aviation, our area saw its fair share of famous flyers. After all, Glenn Curtiss launched a record-setting flight from the island that is now home to the Port of Albany; Amelia Earhart gave a lecture tour here and flew for Canajoharie’s Beech-Nut Gum; Lindbergh visited, as did A.F.…
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Schenectady’s Prize-Winning Student Photographer
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Having devoted so much energy over the last few years to presenting something like History with a capital H, we’re getting back to presenting whatever catches my fancy. And after giving so much attention to Albany, it’s time to feature a wider swath of the Capital District. While browsing old comic books on the…
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Peloubet’s Balloon
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While researching the Albany Bicentennial tablets, we tripped on the most curious little snippet in Joel Munsell’s Annals of Albany, in an article dated April 26, 1819: “A Mr. Peloubet gave notice that he would ascend in a balloon from the Capitol. The expenses he would attempt to raise by collection from the audience…
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Summing Up The Albany Bicentennial Tablets
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Well, that’s it. A project that I expected to complete within a few months ended up dragging out over the course of just about three years. In that time, I’ve written about little else here on Hoxsie – it’s been Albany in 1886 for quite some time. When information was sparse, when the stories…
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Albany Bicentennial Tablet No. 47 – Old Capitol
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Here is the last of the several bicentennial tablets that were not recorded by the official Bicentennial Committee in 1886. Placed on the grounds of the new east Capitol Park not many years after the building it celebrates was demolished in 1883, our final tablet somehow survived all these years. No. 47, “Old Capitol”…
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Albany Bicentennial Tablet No. 46 – Jewish Congregations
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We’re glad that the Bi-centennial Committee saw fit to recognize several Jewish congregations, having given considerable attention to various individual Christian churches, but we’re sorry to say that the marker failed to note that Albany was, for a critical time, the home of one of the most important figures in American Judaism, Rabbi Isaac…
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Albany Bicentennial Tablet No. 45 – Bicentennial Loan Exhibition
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Another tablet not listed in the official publication of the Albany Bi-Centennial Committee, and another one we’re not sure survives. In 1914, the Albany Argus said this had been placed on the east wall of the Albany Academy – it doesn’t appear to be there today. If anyone knows of its whereabouts, we’d be happy…
