All Over Albany

For your yeti needs, try Troy

This made us smile: Kristofer snapped this pic of a yeti for sale in a storefront on River Street near Monument Square in Troy this past weekend.

No doubt this has been a difficult winter for local yeti, what with the lack of snow and all that. We can only hope this guy finds a good new home.

Is this your yeti? We'd love to hear the backstory.

They yeti is by Amy Pollicino. She writes in the comments:

That is right, this sweet, cuddly, well behaved Yeti is looking for a new home. Even with the mild weather and lack of snow he has remained well tempered and optimistic that he may find a good forever home somewhere in the Capital Region :) He was originally created for the Winter Wonderland window display contest run by the Troy BID. Now that the contest is over he is hoping to find a more permanent place to reside. Although he appears to be more fitting for a colder climate he enjoys troy and Upstate New York, curious to stick around to possibly meet up with one of his close cousins, the Sasquatch. If you have any interest please contact me vie FB or email PollicinoA@yahoo.com

(Thanks, Kristofer!)

A co-working space for Albany, and an update for Troy

A coworking space called Beahive is scheduled to open in downtown Albany. The company opened its first coworking space in Beacon in 2009, and has another one in Kingston (that's a pic of the Beacon space on the right). From its page for the Albany space:

Our third hive should be open in the Capital Region at 418 Broadway (Downtown Albany) by March 2012.

We'll have a mix of work and lounge areas, meeting space, desks and tables, sofas and armchairs.

We expect to have members not only from Albany but also surrounding towns -- Troy, Rensselaer, Colonie and beyond.

Our space will also be available to rent for events, parties, workshops and group meetings, with flexible rates depending on the use.

There's an open house for the Albany space February 8.

The Biz Review had an article about the space today, and reports it's a partnership with the real estate agent Tracy Metzger.

Collar Collective

There have been a few attempts to get co-working spaces started in the Capital District. The Collar Collective is currently setting up in Troy. Its founder, Brian Corrigan, told us the plan is to start small with about 10 desks. And in order to keep the crowd more or less focused on tech, it will be nerds-only by application. Brian says it's very much open to nerds at-large, so if you're interested, contact him.

photo: Beahive

A good laundromat?

Jeff emails:

I would like to know if somebody can recommend a good, clean laundromat in the Latham- Troy area where we can wash a large, white comforter?

If have a suggestion for Jeff, great, please share. And if you happen to have a favorite laundromat outside the Latham-Troy area, we'd love to hear about that, too.

photo: Flickr user AlishaV

Startup Weekend: Tech Valley

The next big software idea may come out of Troy this March.

Gamers, web developers, entrepreneurs and people who think they have the next big software idea will converge on the Collar City on the first weekend in March for 54 hours of intense brainstorming, education and competition in the first ever Tech Valley Startup Weekend.

Like TED conferences, Startup Weekends have taken place in cities all over the world, but rather than just discussing ideas, entrepreneurs, developers, designers, marketers, product managers and startup enthusiasts form teams, build products and actually launch startups in a weekend long competition. By then end of the weekend teams demo their prototypes, listen to judges' feedback and win prizes.

At the Tech Valley Start Up Weekend there will also be angel investors on-hand, so some of the ideas could get funded.

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Interesting in 2011: Troy Mayor Harry Tutunjian

Outgoing Troy mayor Harry Tutunjian.

All this week we'll be highlighting some of the interesting people we've gotten to know over the past year.

After two terms, Harry Tutunjian steps down as the mayor of Troy this week. In his eight-year tenure as mayor, Tutunjian has overseen a lot of change in the Collar City: new development, the controversial demolition of the former city hall, and the plan for the new Riverfront Park which broke ground this week. Tutunjian's term was also marked by some rather public and acrimonious battles with the Troy city council.

One the things we've found interesting about Tutunjian is that he's made frequent use of Twitter -- to share news, answer questions from constituents, promote local businesses, make contacts, and jab political opponents. And while Twitter might not necessarily have always been the best venue, we think public officials communicating this way is generally a good thing. And we'd love to see more local officials follow Tutunjian's example.

So, as his last term as mayor comes to a close, we talked with @TroyMayor about his time in office, his leadership style, and the appeal of the Collar City.

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Interesting in 2011: Christian Noe

Christian Noe while judging the Troy bracket of this year's Tournament of Pizza. He was probably wondering what he'd gotten himself into.

All this week we'll be highlighting some of the interesting people we've gotten to know over the past year.

We got to meet Christian Noe from Nighthawk's Kitchen this year after inviting him to be a judge in the Troy bracket of the Tournament of Pizza. And we're glad we did. He was a great judge -- thoughtful, detail-oriented, and fun to hang out with it (always important in the TOP).

Christian started to make a name for himself on the local food scene when he won first place in the home-cooked category at this year's Mac 'n Cheese Bowl. Then he opened the Nighthawk's Kitchen stand at the Troy Farmers' Market, serving up some delicious -- and deliciously crazy -- comfort food. And then this fall he taught a series of popular cooking classes at the Arts Center.

So, Christian has had an interesting year. And it sounds like even bigger things could be ahead in 2012...

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Sticky Fingers Candy Apples

Donna Harris doesn't even notice the smell anymore -- but you would.

After three years of making gourmet candy, caramel and chocolate apples, the owner of Sticky Fingers Gourmet Apples is used to the delightfully overwhelming scent that wafts through her shops in Cohoes and Troy.

The two-pound apples at Sticky Fingers are covered in more than just jelly or caramel. There's also fluffernutter, praline pecan, dark chocolate and sea salt or cajun spice.

I stopped into their new shop on River Street to check out a few different varieties and find out what exactly goes into a $10 gourmet candy apple.

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Shopping for fresh vegetables in/around downtown Troy?

Hungry for something healthy, Donna emails:

Finding fresh vegetables in downtown Troy is no big deal on a Saturday with the farmer's market, but now that the Pioneer Food Market is closed, I can't think of a single place within walking distance of RPI, other than the Sav-A-Lot on Hoosick Street. Does anyone know of an alternative?

There was a lot of drama around the Troy co-op, but it did provide an outlet for healthy food in area that otherwise doesn't have a lot of options.

Got a suggestion for Donna? Please share!

Winners in Capital Region's non-win: lofts, mushroom packaging, Troy riverfront

The Cuomo administration announced the winners of the Regional Economic Development Council competition today -- and the Capital Region did not win. The "best plan" awards went to Western New York, Central New York, the North Country, and Long Island -- they all got about $100 million in funding.

But the Capital Region wasn't exactly a loser, either. The region scored $62.7 million in grants. So, call it a non-winner.

A total of 88 projects in this region are getting funding. Some of it looks pork-ish (of course, all in the eye of the beholder). There are handful of grants that caught our eye. The full list, with highlights, after the jump.

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Victorian Stroll 2011 photos

Festive.

Sebastien has posted a fun photoset from the Victorian Stroll in Troy on Sunday.

Here's another photoset from the stroll by Vic Christopher.

And one of Paul's photos resulted in a great joke: "Hipster Bichon enjoyed Troy before it was cool."

photo: Sebastien Barre

Jessica Gahring, from NY Ink, at Sage

Could be interesting: tattoo artist Jessica Gahring -- a resident of Troy who appears on the TLC reality show NY Ink -- will be at Sage Thursday for a talk titled "Talking Back, Speaking Out and Being Humble & Making It Big." (Kind of sounds like a lecture on humblebragging.)

Gahring, a 2004 Russell Sage College grad, told the Troy Record earlier this year that she heard about the show via a former Sage classmate in NYC, and got cast after an interview.

Here's her Facebook page -- she lists Wynantskill as her home. And here's her Twitter stream.

Gahring's talk starts at 7 pm in the Schacht Fine Arts Center on the Sage Troy campus. Tickets for the general public are $10, and will be available at the door.

photo via Jessica Gahring Facebook

Duncan Crary, downtown disciple

Duncan holds a piece of the now-demolished Troy City Hall as he looks out of his downtown Troy apartment window.

Duncan Crary has been in love with Troy since he was a child, "hatched," as he puts it, "on a cul-de-sac in the American suburbs" in Delmar.

"Suburbatory."

Maybe it was the defiant brownstones, or the alleys that time forgot, that turned his head. Most likely it was the comic-book shop on Fulton Street. Troy was where he wanted to be.

But it wasn't until his teen years, when he devoured The Geography of Nowhere, James Howard Kunstler's attack on suburban sprawl, that he understood and could articulate why.

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BenKN

Ben Karis-Nix is a master at D.I.Y.

You might remember him as the singer/guitarist from the Albany-based power pop band The Orange from the early '00s. Or perhaps you recognize him as the former co-frontman of the rock group Jupiter Sunrise, which hit its stride in 2005 when it became the MySpace house band, touring the nation on the Warped Tour. Or maybe you know him from the music produced under his own name.

I was introduced to him as the "t-shirt guy" with a really adorable baby in Troy, where he's building another creative stage in his life.

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Innovations in pawn shop marketing, part II

Remember that pawn shop on 3rd Street in downtown Troy and its sign about selling your baby daddy's gold?

Apparently the marketing innovation was successful enough to merit a permanent sign -- and an evolution of the message.

Also: free coffee.

Scenes from mac 'n cheese class

Yum.

Check it out: Sebastien went to Christian Noe's macaroni 'n cheese class at the Arts Center last night:

[I] had a really good time, and brought a lot of leftovers. Christian Noe is a genuinely nice, fun guy, he and his sister walked us through 3 pretty yummy Mac&Cheese, including his [Macaroni 'n Cheese Bowl-]winning Buffalo Macaroni and Blue Cheese. ...

He walked us through a good old Mac & Cheese then the 8 of us (7 women and myself) teamed up in pairs and made our own Buffalo Mac and Blue Cheese as well as a new recipe he came up with for the class, Smokey Tex Mex Mac & Cheese with Fire Roasted Green Chilis (hopefully he will start selling it at the Farmer's Market in Troy and enter it in the next Bowl). ...

I hear he is doing the homemade sausage class too, I recommend you give the guy a try, you won't be disappointed.

The sausage classes are November 14 and December 7.

Noe is behind Nighthawk's Kitchen, which you might have seen at the Troy Farmers' Market. He was a judge for the Troy bracket in this year's Tournament of Pizza -- and we very much enjoyed meeting him.

A few more of Sebastien's photos from the class are after the jump. He also has a photoset posted on Flickr.

(Thanks, Sebastien!)

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The Swing Syndicate

Emily McNeight and Orian Breaux at The Swing Syndicate.

When Orian Breaux came to RPI he was a little bit shy. He thought checking out a swing dance club might be a way to meet people and have a little fun.

He liked it. A lot.

Now a senior in RPI's aeronautical engineering program Orian is about to launch into a project that has -- well -- pretty much nothing to do with aeronautical engineering. This Friday during Troy Night Out, he and his girlfriend, Emily McNeight -- a math major at RPI, (they met at swing dancing) -- will host the grand opening of The Swing Syndicate, which they hope will be a hub for swing dance in the Capital Region.

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TOP2011: The Final

DeFazio's from Troy vs. 5th and 50 from Scotia

We have finally reached the end of the long road that is the 2011 Tournament of Pizza, sponsored by Sunmark Federal Credit Union. And we have a prime matchup here in the final (bracket):

DeFazio's (Troy) vs. 5th and 50 (Schenectady)

Both shops are coming off solid wins in the semi-finals, each with a score in the 70s. DeFazio's was the overall tournament runner-up last year. And 5th and 50 has quite a claim -- it knocked off Marino's, last year's overall champ.

As is TOP tradition, the shops were allowed to pick which pizza to enter in the final. And as we've seen in past years, having that choice hasn't always been a good thing. Would this year's competitors choose wisely?

Off to the Hilton Garden Inn Albany Airport to taste some pizza!

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A word for Troy, rhymes with toilet

We wouldn't call you that, Troy.

As you know, we moderate comments here at AOA. And there are a few words -- mostly for people -- that will pretty much always get your comment bounced. We're not going to list them, but you probably don't have to think very hard about most of them.

Anyway, we got a comment recently that used the term "Troylet." Yep, not exactly pushing the frontiers of regional trash talking. But it made us think: how offensive is that? Is just inter-city ribbing -- or something more along the lines of a slur?

So we asked people on Twitter. Here's what we heard...

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Troy food co-op closes

The co-op opened after much anticipation in October 2010, and made it a little more than a year.

The Pioneer Market -- The Troy Community Food Co-op -- closed Saturday. The co-op emailed members the news Saturday night and posted a message on the org's Facebook page. (The email is pasted in full after the jump.)

The co-op had reportedly seen a bump in traffic lately because of the opening of the nearby City Station mixed-use development. But it wasn't enough. From the email: "While the co-op has had some good days, our monthly sales still remained well below the level we needed to make the co-op a sustainable business. We lost money every month during our first year, and essentially we have run out of cash."

By many accounts the market got off to a rough start when it opened in October 2010, and it made appeals to members on multiple occasions to help keep it afloat. In July it warned that closure could come soon.

The idea for the co-op was a good one -- downtown Troy lacked a supermarket, and the co-op held the promise of a consistent source of healthy food for the area. But the execution seems to have been uneven. As Mike Avent -- who joined the co-op's board this past summer -- explained in a Soapbox piece here on AOA in July:

The reality is that the co-op has never been on firm footing. In some ways, every day we've been open has been a minor miracle. I believe we opened the co-op with the minimum amount of capital needed to get the doors open. We have been in a slow moving crisis ever since. Undoubtedly, board and owners patted themselves on the back for a job well done when we should have scrambled as if the fate of the co-op depended on it.

There's a meeting for owners planned for November 1 at the Christ Church United Methodist at 7 pm to discuss the closure.

More coverage:
+ The co-op still owes $1.8 million to banks, government agencies, and the Community Loan Fund -- plus what members loaned it. [TU]
+ Of the co-op's cash situation: "The numbers were very stark," said the board president. [Troy Record]
+ The co-op's lenders are trying to find someone to re-open the market. [TU]

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TOP 2011: Round 2: Troy

The Collar City is the next stop for Round 2 of the 2011 Tournament of Pizza, sponsored by Sunmark Federal Credit Union. The pizzerias facing off in this round of pepperoni pizzas:

Giuseppe's (Watervliet) vs. DeFazio's (Troy)

How we got here: DeFazio's posted one the highest ever first round scores, a 77. Giuseppe's grabbed a spot in Round 2 by outstretching Joe's Tavern and Red Front.

So, DeFazio's is the favorite here. Can Giuseppe's pull the monster upset?

We're back at EMPAC for tasting...

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TOP 2011: Round 1: Troy

The Tournament of Pizza -- sponsored by Sunmark Federal Credit Union -- rolls along to the Troy bracket.

The pizzerias in this opening round pool competition of cheese pizzas:

Returning champ: DeFazio's - Troy
Crowd pick: Giuseppe's - Watervliet
Renee's pick: Joe's Tavern - Cohoes
Committee pick: Red Front - Troy

The judges -- plus our guest judge -- gathered at EMPAC on the RPI campus...

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Sowing oats (and wheat and rye) in urban Troy

Howard Stoner sows his oats, wheat and rye on a plot of land in Troy.

Howard Stoner is ready for winter. One look at his basement and you can tell. The place is stocked with 75 pounds of potatoes and other root vegetables from his community garden and 16 pounds of rye he grew on a small plot of land in downtown Troy.

Yep. Stoner is growing his own wheat, oats and rye on a 350 square foot plot near the RPI football field.

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The Sanctuary for Independent Media

Sanctuary for Independent Media founders Branda Miller and Steve Pierce sit on the stoop of the sanctuary with their family.

You probably remember the 2008 brouhaha over Iraqi artist Wafaa Bilal and the "Virtual Jihadi" video game that was booted from RPI. And you also may remember that Bilal's exhibit ended up at a little space in Troy called the Sanctuary for Independent Media -- which then got temporarily shutdown for code violations.

In the years since, the Sanctuary has continued to soldier on, providing a meeting space for seasoned and novice activists to train, listen, plan and party. Now, as protest culture blooms both here in the United States and around the world, the Sanctuary's fall season is focused on "cultures of resistance."

I talked with Sanctuary executive director Steve Pierce and art and education coordinator Branda Miller recently about emboldened protesters, media reform, the necessity of being for something, and allegedly humorless militants.

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The Paper Battery Company

An interesting Troy company announced today it's gotten a $1 million grant from NYSERDA, the state's renewable energy agency. [Paper Battery]

The Paper Battery Company says it's getting the money to build a pilot production line for its "fully printed energy-storage device that is as thin as a piece of paper."

Yep, the company is developing batteries that can be printed onto a paper-like surface.

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Innovations in pawn shop marketing

You know, the price of gold is really high right now...

Rhea noticed this sign in a pawn shop on 3rd Street in downtown Troy today.

That's one way to get back at him.

(Thanks, Rhea!)