Items tagged with 'history'
Miss Albany Diner building sold to Matt Baumgartner and partners
Miss Albany Diner.
Matt Baumgartner posted today that he and business partners Jimmy and Demetra Vann have bought the Miss Albany Diner building. The name "Miss Albany Diner" and its recipes are not part of the deal:
Mrs. [Jane] Brown and her son Bill, are legally keeping the name "Miss Albany Diner" as well as their recipes, and they maintain the right to open another diner in another location, as well as having the right to sell the name Miss Albany Diner and it's recipes to an interested party at another location. As new owners of the property, we legally can not continue to operate the space as Miss Albany Diner or use their menu items. I'm only noting that because it is important to us that it is clear that we are not "closing down Miss Albany Diner". They sold us the property, and we are not legally allowed to re-open Miss Albany Diner in that space.
On a personal note, I would like to thank Jane and Bill Brown, for giving us the opportunity to care for a building that is considered by many to be one of the most iconic buildings in the capital region. I know the Browns hold the diner very dear to their hearts, and I promise we will respect the history, the memory, and the integrity of Miss Albany Diner.
Baumgartner told Steve Barnes they don't have immediate plans to re-open the place as a diner. [Table Hopping]
The diner had been for sale since 2009. Cliff Brown, who owned the diner with his wife Jane, passed away in 2010. [TU] [TU]
The diner was built in 1941 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. It's had at least three names prior to being called the Miss Albany. [National Register] [Wikipedia]
Of course, Baumgartner and his partners own Wolff's, which is just next door to MAD.
photo: UpstateNYer via Wikipedia
The dude abided in Saratoga -- and he wore a dinner jacket
The next time you call someone "dude," you'll remember this.
Apparently one of the earliest uses of the word, back in 1883, did not describe a bro. The word was used as a put down for a man who paid too much attention to clothing and fashion. Yes, the opposite of the Dude.
It turns out that the "King of the Dudes" back then was a guy named Evander Berry Wall, a multi-millionaire who reportedly drank champagne instead of water, wore a walrus mustache, had 5,000 neckties -- and like many wealthy East Coasters of the day, spent a fair amount of time in Saratoga.
What is the oldest business in Albany?
R.B. Wing and Son once had a claim to the title.
Over at Hoxsie I recently unearthed a 1905 ad for Danker Florist, which is still going strong today. And that led to the question: What might be the oldest business still running in Albany?
There are a few contenders.
Yes, Virginia of Valatie, there is a Santa Claus
In 1897, New York Sun editor Francis Pharcellus Church wrote a beautiful, now-famous editorial in answer to a letter from an 8-year-old girl named Virginia O'Hanlon.
As the story goes, O'Hanlon had asked her father, a Manhattan doctor, if Santa Claus was real. Thankfully, her dad passed the buck, suggesting little Virginia put the question to the editor of the Sun. Church took the ball and ran with it. His editorial takes the concept of Santa from the idea of getting to the idea of giving -- making it about the kindnesses we can all do for one another.
So if the whole thing took place in Manhattan, why are we writing about it? Well, we were looking for the letter this weekend and stumbled upon something that surprised us: it turns out the grown up Virgina lived in Valatie. And there's video to prove it.
Awesome Albany architecture
One of Martin's favorite Albany buildings .
One of the first things you notice about a city is its architecture.
The layout of a place and its buildings are a kind of looking glass in which you can see the values of past generations. Architecture helps give a city its character.
Albany has plenty of architectural character. But being so close to New York, we sometimes suffer from what I call "place esteem" issues.
New York has buildings like the Guggenheim, the Chrysler Building, the Flatiron Building, the Statue of Liberty, and Grand Central Station (the interior of which which I consider one of the greatest places in the world). Sure, Albany may not match up in terms of scale or recognition -- but we've got some pretty spectacular stuff. Our city hall was designed by world-renowned architect H.H. Richardson. The plans for the University Club were drawn by Albert Fuller. Perhaps our city's most prolific and celebrated architect, Marcus T. Reynolds, designed so many distinctive and recognizable downtown buildings that his pen may have shaped Albany more than any developer until the South Mall was built.
I'm by no means an art historian, or an architecture buff. I can hardly tell the style of a building, but I know what I like. So after the jump, seven reasons why I think Albany can be proud of its architecture. Granted not all of these buildings are architectural wonders, but to me, well, I can't help but swoon over them.
Bye, bye, Miss American Pie...
The Post-Star's Tom Dimopoulos had a fun article over the weekend about Saratoga-area legends, including the famous one about how Don McLean supposedly wrote "American Pie" at the Tin 'n' Lint on Caroline Street in Saratoga Springs, and then first performed it at Caffe Lena:
In most re-tellings, McLean was in town for a performance at Caffe Lena and had wandered into the Tin & Lint, where he spent the night alternately drinking and scribbling phrases like "American Pie" and "drove my Chevy to a levy" on a series of bar napkins, which were forgotten about and abandoned during the course of the evening, but rescued by one of the workers at the Tin & Lint that night.
So, is it true? Dimopoulos actually talked with Don McLean about the story -- and the musician had a definitive answer about whether it's correct.
(Thanks, spiritoflife!)
image via Wikipedia
John Crispin's Willard suitcase project
This is remarkable: photographer John Crispin is documenting suitcases -- and their contents -- from a long-closed state mental facility that have been preserved at the State Museum. He explains on his Kickstarter page:
In 1995, the New York State Museum was moving items out of the Willard Psychiatric Center in Willard, NY which was being closed by the State Office of Mental Health. It would eventually become a state-run drug rehabilitation center. Craig Williams and his staff became aware of an attic full of suitcases in the pathology lab building. The cases were put into storage when their owners were admitted to Willard sometime between 1910 and the 1960s. And since the facility was set up to help people with chronic mental illness, these folks never left. An exhibit of a small selection of the cases was produced by the Museum and was on display in Albany in 2003. It was very moving to read the stories of these people, and to see objects from their lives before they became residents of Willard.
I have been given the incredible opportunity to photograph these cases and their contents. To me, they open a small window into the lives of some of the people who lived at the facility.
He explains more in the video embedded above. His Kickstarter project has already reached its funding goal -- and then some.
Crispin has been posting some of the images from this project on a blog. The collections of items are beautiful in a way.
Crispin says on Kickstarter the State Museum has more than 400 suitcases in its collection. A handful of them were on display at the museum in 2004, and later became a traveling exhibit (exhibit website). There was also a book that came out of the exhibit, The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic . [Village Voice] [USA Today]
(Thanks, Jess!)
The Rotterdam Square Mall cemetery
Rotterdam Square Mall -- where you can pay your respects on the way to Macy's.
Sure, some shopping malls can be compared to graveyards (insert Latham Circle Mall joke here), but one local mall actually contains a graveyard. Brings new meaning to "shop 'til you drop."
Not only is Rotterdam Square Mall the home of Macy's and T.J.Maxx, it's also the final resting place for several members of the Vedder family, Dutch pioneers who had inhabited Schenectady County since the late 1600s.
So how does a mall get built around a graveyard? The story behind the cemetery in the Rotterdam Square mall structure is a gripping tale of drinking water, business interests, human remains, and a 10-year struggle with ticked-off citizens.
William Kennedy's Prohibition Story
A scene from William Kennedy's Prohibition Story -- location: Ryan's Wake
Next week PBS premieres the new Ken Burns documentary, Prohibition.
There's quite a bit of prohibition era history wrapped up here in the Capital Region, and a whole bunch of talented local actors and filmmakers are working on a local companion piece that will air alongside the Burns documentary on PBS stations around New York State.
Here's a preview:
Watch the full episode. See more WMHT Specials.
More on the project, plus some great location photos, after the jump.
The Half Moon in Albany
Our educational experiences clearly did not include enough canon fire.
Today's anachronistic maritime moment: the Half Moon arriving in Albany today.
New York Now's Matt Ryan was nice enough to share these photos of the Half Moon, a full-scale replica of Henry Hudson's ship of the same name, landing in Albany. The ship/museum is crewed in part by students -- both from the Capital District and the Netherlands. The trip today was part of a re-creation of Hudson's trip up the River That Would Eventually Be Named The Hudson in 1609.
photo: Matt Ryan
Wandering through Yaddo
On Sunday, for only the 5th time in its 111 year history, the mansion and private grounds at Yaddo were open to the public. About 1,400 people wandered the rooms where people such as Langston Hughes, Leonard Bernstein, Truman Capote, Eudora Welty, John Cheever and thousands of other artists gathered, ate, slept, held court and of course, created.
The house is gorgeous and filled with impressive antiques, but what we loved was being able to wander through a place where so many amazing and creative people have lived and worked. If there was ever a place we wished that walls could talk, this was it. We walked through the rooms imagining moments of inspiration, unguarded conversations and wondering what kinds of things might have happened in rooms full of so many creative people.
If you weren't one of the 1,400 who took the tour, here's the quick version...
People like shopping... whenever they want
While perusing Progressive Grocer recently*, we came across this interview with Neil Golub, the CEO of the company that owns Price Chopper.
A few bits that were interesting:
+ Ben and Bill Golub, who had been in the wholesale food business in Schenectady, set up their first retail store after checking out a market on Long Island in 1931.
+ The market they set up -- "The Public Service Market" -- opened in Green Island in 1932. (The first Central Market, which would become the name for their chain, opened in Schenectady in 1935.)
+ The company changed the markets' name to Price Chopper in 1973. It also made the switch to being open 24/7. Golub says sales went up 30 percent after making the switch to being always open.
The interviewed is embedded above. And here's more on Price Chopper's history from its website.
(Video of the interview is embedded after the jump. Caution: it auto-plays.)
* What, you're not reading Progressive Grocer?
The Pondshiners
Recently over at The Morning News, Albany resident Tobias Seamon writes about the "lost Pondshiners" -- a reclusive clan of people who once lived in Columbia County:
New York's Hudson Valley abounds in spooks, from the wailing Maid of Kaaterskill Falls, to the dreaded Horseman of Leeds, to ongoing rumors of a poltergeist in the Education Building in Albany. These, along with more familiar specters like Rip Van Winkle and the Headless Horseman, prompted historian Maud Wilder Goodwin to write in 1919 that the Hudson River was "endowed [with] more of the supernatural...than haunts any other waterway in America." ...
But when it comes to aboriginal mysteries, the Hudson Valley has almost as many flesh-and-blood frights as it does phantoms. Strange backwoods clans have been found in hollows throughout the region, from the ornery so-called Jackson Whites in the Ramapo Mountains, to the Eagle Nesters--supposedly descended from Indians and escaped slaves--perched above Kingston, to the exceptionally blond-haired Van Guilders around Glens Falls. But maybe the most peculiar of these communities was the wild Pondshiners of the Taconic Hills in southern Columbia County.
The backstory is wild (in a few different ways). And highlights what a radically different place this area -- and the nation -- not even a century ago. (Here's the chapter about "The Frightened People" referenced from Grey Riders.)
Tobias Seamon will be at St. Rose October 27 as part of the Frequency North series. His latest book is The Emperor's Toy Chest, which "explores history, mythology, fantasy, and the magical borderlands between."
photo: Leif Zurmuhlen
The Burden Letter Project
Art meets history in The Burden Letter Project
In the hustle of day-to-day living, the historic buildings you pass along the way can become just part of the landscape, and the people who inhabited them, just names on street signs, monuments and parks.
Sometimes it takes an outsider to point out remarkable things about the history that surrounds us every day.
When video artist Lea Donnan came to Troy a few years ago for a residency with CAC Woodside she didn't plan to steep herself in the industrial history of the Collar City. But a few questions about the CAC building -- formerly a church commissioned by industrialist Henry Burden to memorialize his wife, Helen -- led to more questions. And those led to even more questions.
And all of those questions led to a wealth of long forgotten stories -- and a packet of steamy 19th century love letters.
Donnan has turned all of that into The Burden Letter Project, a video installation that examines the history of South Troy through love letters from a giant of industry to his wife.
Yaddo opens for tours
The main mansion at Yaddo
The Saratoga artists retreat Yaddo has only opened to the public five times in the mansion's 100-plus year history. Founded by Spencer and Katrina Trask, the retreat has been a temporary home to 6,000 artists -- John Cheever, Sylvia Plath, Aaron Copland, Langston Hughes, Alice Walker and Susan Orlean, just to name a few.
More than 200 artists a year come to live and create at the mansion and in the cottages throughout the 400-acre grounds -- which is why they keep it so private.
But on September 18 Yaddo will be open for three public tours at 8:30 am, 11 am and 4 pm. Tours are two hours long and take you through the first and second floor of the mansion, the first floor of West House -- the residence where Katrina Trask lived after her husband died -- the Pigeon Barn Studios, and the gravesite of the first owner of the property, Jacob Barhyte. You'll be able to see, the collection of Tiffany stained glass windows in the main house and one in West House. There's an indoor fountain in the main house and a grand stairway that John Cheever is rumored to have slid down in an antique sleigh -- a gift to Katrina Trask from the Queen of The Netherlands.
Leslie Leduc, Yaddo's public affairs co-ordinator says you'll also be able to see a lot of the original furniture. "Most of the furniture in the main house and West House dates back to the period of the Trasks and it's used everyday. You might be walking by the chair that John Cheever sat in, or Leonard Bernstein."
The two-hour tours will cost $40 per person. Want more? Fifty people will be able to purchase tickets for the $200 deluxe tour on September 17, from 4-7 pm which includes a cocktail party at West House, where you'll get a glimpse at the second floor.
You can make reservations online. If you want to see it, we suggest getting your tickets ASAP. When tours were offered for the 100th anniversary of the main house back in 1993 they gave tours from 10 am until after dark and still had to turn away about 1,000 people. We checked with Yaddo today and they've sold more than half of the 1,400 available tour spaces already.
(Thanks, Jessica R!)
staircase photo: courtesy of Yaddo
Historic floods in Troy
The 1913 flood in Troy.
Flooding from Irene was bad in parts of the Capital Region. Really bad. But in Troy and Albany, the flooding has been worse -- though not by a lot.
The Hudson River reached crested at 27.05 feet at Troy this past Monday afternoon, which ranks as the fourth highest flood on record in the Collar City.
Here's the story behind the worst.
Albany, academic fashion trendsetter
Bright.
Albany didn't really have a full-fledged university until the 1960s -- it missed its chance when the Albany Rural Cemetery board miffed Leland Stanford.
But by that time, the city had already left a lasting mark on American academia: the standardized cap and gown.
The Wizard of Schenectady
Steinmetz -- with Einstein, Tesla, Langmuir and others -- in New Jersey in 1921.
The Smithsonian's "Past Imperfect" blog has a post about Charles Steinmetz -- the "Wizard of Schenectady" -- this week is that is completely jammed full of awesome. A clip:
He stood just four feet tall, his body contorted by a hump in his back and a crooked gait, and his stunted torso gave the illusion that his head, hands and feet were too big. But he was a giant among scientific thinkers, counting Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison as friends, and his contributions to mathematics and electrical engineering made him one of the most beloved and instantly recognizable men of his time.
In the early 20th century, Charles Steinmetz could be seen peddling his bicycle down the streets of Schenectady, New York, in a suit and top hat, or floating down the Mohawk River in a canoe, kneeling over a makeshift desktop, where he passed hours scribbling notes and equations on papers that sometimes blew into the water. With a Blackstone panatela cigar seemingly glued to his lips, Steinmetz cringed as children scurried away upon seeing him--frightened, he believed, by the "queer, gnome-like figure" with the German accent. Such occurrences were all the more painful for Steinmetz, as it was a family and children that he longed for most in his life. But knowing that his deformity was congenital (both his father and grandfather were afflicted with kyphosis, an abnormal curvature of the upper spine), Steinmetz chose not to marry, fearful of passing on his deformity.
The post was written by Gilbert King and it's a good, quick read of Steinmetz's story. It includes a bunch of great little stories, including one of our favorites, about Steinmetz and Henry Ford (as the story goes, Steinmentz sent Ford what may be the greatest invoice in the history of consulting (or perhaps it was GE, the story has a lot of variations)).
The term genius gets thrown around a lot -- but Steinmetz really was one. And a total character.
Tangent: There needs to be a comic/graphic novel/TV series/something in which Steinmetz's genius scientist/engineer identity is a cover for being some sort of superhero.
(Thanks, Brandon!)
photo from the Franklin Township Public Library collection via Wikipedia
Caffè Lena: folk history into recorded history
Jocelyn Arem meeting with Pete Seeger earlier this year. The Caffè Lena History Project includes photos of Seeger's first performance at the venue, in 1962.
"She was the first and last person I ever knew who would pay me more money than we agreed upon. One show I did in 1967, she gave me 300 bucks. My jaw dropped. She said, 'We did very well, so I wanted to share it with you."
-- Don McLean on Lena Spencer, founder of Caffè Lena
Lena Spencer loved musicians as much as she loved music.
Her cafe on Phila Street in Saratoga has been the stomping grounds for generations of folk musicians. Some, like McLean and Bob Dylan, became big stars and others spent a lifetime creating songs in relative obscurity. But they all found a home at Caffè Lena. Eventually Lena's commitment to musicians made the venue the oldest continuously running coffee house in the country.
Spencer died in 1989, on her way to a Spaudling Grey show. Since then a not-for-profit has kept the cafe going, continuing her legacy. Caffè Lena still puts on hundreds of events each year, and continues to work to capture the experimental nature of contemporary folk music.
These days the board at Caffè Lena is looking to its past as well as its future -- documenting the history of the historic cafe to preserve the moments that made it an institution.
The Caffè Lena History Project has gathered hundreds of hours of audio, video and oral history recordings. And they're still scouring the music community looking for more.
Musician Jocelyn Arem is the founder of the Caffè Lena History Project. We talked with her about a what the project has unearthed -- and where Saratoga's little caffè -- with two fs -- fits into music history.
From Schenectady to Antarctica
The USS Bear, the ship on which Anthony Wayne sailed to Antarctica.
This is great: a 95-year-old Schenectady man now has a landmark in Antarctica named after him. "Wayne Head" -- a rock headland on Horseshoe Island just off the Antarctic Peninsula -- has been named for Anthony Wayne. [Daily Gazette] [USGS]
Wayne was honored for his service during the United States Antarctic Service Expedition in 1939, Richard Byrd's third Antarctic expedition. Aboard two ships 125 men sailed to Antarctica to take surveys and build bases. Wayne served on the USS Bear, a steamship that had been built in 1874 to sail icy waters. The Bear is, according to a Coast Guard site, "probably the most famous ship in the history of the Coast Guard."
From a 2010 story by the Gazette's Sara Foss about Wayne and his trip to the Antarctic:
Wayne said he decided to go to Antarctica because it sounded like an exciting adventure.
"I thought, 'Who the hell goes there?' " he said. "It was something new. I was never sorry I went, but I was glad I came back. ... I thought I'd never survive. It was all frozen ice. There was snow 20 feet high and icebergs all over." The scariest part of the trip occurred when the ship got stuck on the ice and the men had to wait several days for the ice to separate and a channel to open. ...
Wayne said Byrd selected him for his crew because he was in excellent physical shape and, as a native of upstate New York, accustomed to cold weather.
Wayne showed Foss film he shot during the trip -- and it's awesome. Seriously, go watch it on the Gazette site (it looks like it's not behind the paywall). It shows Byrd, the ship, icebergs, penguins, seals, whales, sled dog teams, and this huge vehicle that looks like something you might drive on the moon.
Anthony Wayne is now the last surviving member of the expedition. [Daily Gazette]
A map showing Wayne Head is embedded after the jump. It's a short 7646 miles from Schenectady.
Washington Park in Troy is historic. There's a sign now and everything.
Troy's fenced-off Washington Park is one of the state's only two privately owned and maintained residential parks (Gramercy Park in Manhattan is the other). And it was founded in 1840. So, it's all very historic. And now there's one of those markers pointing that out.
The Washington Park Association will be unveiling the sign Wednesday afternoon at 1:30 pm -- and, here's the good part, it will also be opening up the park to the public during the reception that afternoon. So if you're nearby, you can check it out (you know, from inside the cast iron fence).
Bonus bit: Most of those official yellow and blue New York State historical markers all over the place are pretty old -- in fact, the program's more or less ended during the middle of the last century ("concerns for the risk of trying to read small roadside markers in the emerging age of high speed automobile travel caused the State to focus only on large signs"). New signs are actually commissioned and financed by private entities. There's a foundry in the Catskills that makes them.
Earlier on AOA: A lamp post near Washington Park was recently graced with a somewhat different marker -- a yarnbomb.
photo: Neil Grabowsky
A stamp for Owney, Albany's famous postal dog
The New York Times described Owney as "[not] a handsome dog, but he has excellent qualities, and is kindly and intelligent." We should all be so lucky to be described that way.
One of our all-time favorite Albany stories is that of Owney the Postal Dog.
The short story: in the 1890s, Albany was known all around the world because of Owney and his travels on the rail cars that carried mail. He even ended up going around the world, a feat that landed him on the front page of the New York Times. He's now on display at the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum (yep, the actual Owney -- they had him stuffed).
It's a fun story. So we're happy to see that the US Postal Service will be issuing an Owney stamp (above). The first class "forever" stamps will be available July 27. In addition to a ceremony and events at the National Postal Museum, there will also be an unveiling at the Albany Visitors Center. [TU]
Earlier on AOA:
+ Owney, postal dog and Albany ambassador
+ Standing before the post office boxes in Schenectady
image: Bill Bond/USPS
From dust to dust
Follow up on Chuck's photo of the historic, and now-crumbling, Trinity Church in Albany: Chuck's gathering a photoset of the building's gradual demolition.
It's interesting -- and good -- to see the effort involved in saving elements such as the stained glass windows (speculated to be Tiffany windows). But in some ways the almost brick-by-brick demolition of the historic building seems sadder than one big boom and a cloud of dust.
photo: Chuck Miller
What's left of Trinity Church
You can see more detail in the large-format version of the photo.
This photo of the crumbling Trinity Church in Albany is from Chuck, who stopped by the site this morning. The building partially collapsed Monday night, and yesterday the Albany Fire Department decided the building had to be completely demolished. [Fox23] [TU]
Trinity Church was built in 1848. It was designed by James Renwick Jr., a prominent 19th century architect who would later design St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City (and many other buildings). In 2005, the Historic Albany Foundation added the church on its endangered list. Trinity was one of the oldest remaining Gothic-style buildings in Albany. [Wikipedia] [Wikipedia] [HAF] [Architects in Albany] [Albany History]
Paula has pulled together a bunch of links about Trinity.
Update: The church's stained glass windows have been saved. [TU]
(Thanks, Chuck)
Later on AOA: Chuck is gathering a photoset of the building's gradual demolition.
Earlier on AOA:
+ A short tour of Albany's historic stained glass
+ Saints vs. The State for Washington Avenue
photo: Chuck Miller
Very Important (scientific) People
GE has posted images from the guest book for the company's original research center in Schenectady (GE Global Research is now in Niskayuna):
While its beginnings were humble, it didn't take long for scientists and inventors from around the world to flock to the Research Lab to see what GE was working on. And each famous mind that visited would stop at Willis Whitney's desk to sign the VIP guest book. The book sat at Whitney's desk from 1914 to 1935, and the signatures are a veritable Who's Who of inventors, physicists, chemists, physiologists, and businessmen -- including 9 Nobel Laureates.
The collection of people who stopped by the place during its first years is remarkable. Among the names signed in the book: Bohr, Marconi, Pavlov.
photo: GE Reports
... said Wendy Voelker about The organic milk shortage