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Mohawk National Bank of Schenectady
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Last time, we talked about the remarkable wig giveaway of 1970 at the Mohawk National Bank of Schenectady – and that led me to dig a little bit into the history of the bank that was once an anchor of lower State Street and is now, like nearly all local banks, long gone. According…
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Open an account, get a . . . free wig?
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Way back when, it was quite usual for banks to offer some kind of incentive for opening a new account. Premiums like toasters, golf umbrellas, pen and pencil sets were frequently offered. That’s less common now, as the incentives are more likely to be straight up cash or gift cards, but our little local…
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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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Albany Bicentennial Tablet No. 26 – Crailo
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Once again, one of Albany’s Bicentennial markers is missing – and this one wasn’t even in Albany. The Bicentennial Committee listed the following text on Tablet No. 26: Tablet No. 26 —Johannes Van RensselaerIn bronze, 7×16 inches, set in the wall of the original mansion on the Greenbush banks. Inscription: “This Manor House, Built…
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Albany Bicentennial Tablet No. 1: Fort Orange
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Our last entry talked about the Albany Bicentennial celebration and the fate of a marker meant to commemorate the Black citizens of Albany that may never have gotten to its intended location in Washington Park. Now let’s talk about the bicentennial markers that did make it to their intended locations (mostly). We know what…
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O’Neill, the Schenectady Swindler
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For a while now we’ve been interested in the story of Emmett O’Neill, the Schenectady Swindler. We hadn’t heard of him before he popped up along with some other research we were doing, but he was quite well-known and his crimes were widely reported across the state. (Various sources spelled his name O’Neill and…
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Beaver Oil, Root Beer, and Orphans
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Looking up these old local stories is nearly always a venture down a rabbit hole, and it’s usually a question of where to stop. One little detail catches the eye, and I start to find out more about that, and it leads to another detail, which leads to a huge revelation, which leads to…
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A.L. Stevens, Schenectady’s Rooming House Keeper and Armless Driver
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Paging through an old Schenectady Directory, an oddly worded series of advertisements led us to an interesting story – the story of the armless man who owned a group of rooming houses in Schenectady and once, quite famously, drove across country. Looking through the 1920 directory, searching for some other bit of history, we…