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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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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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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…