Faded art
Once, every sign was a handpainted sign. For a while in the ’80s, I worked in an office next to...
Swooning over science
Image via Wikipedia My old hometown is chasing its tail like a puppy because it has been blessed by a...
Hoxsie!
For reasons that mostly have to do with how much I love this 1862 advertisement, bits of local history will...
Swimming is forbidden
From the 1884 “Albany Hand-Book, A Stranger’s Guide and Residents’ Manual”: “Swimming in the river near the shores or wharves,...
Letter from home
The Smithsonian National Museum of American History’s blog has an interesting article on a little piece of correspondence from George...
The highway that isn’t there
Sometimes, the most beautiful highway is the one that isn’t there. Over at All Over Albany, I write about the...
Crossing the Hudson (bridges edition)
The Livingston Avenue Bridge, the graceful and anachronistic swing bridge that carries trains across the Hudson River at Albany and...
Shocked, shocked!
…to find that gambling is going on in here! From Whish’s 1917 “Albany Guide Book”: Athletic sports always have been...
Flavorland
Ran across this ad for Flavorland in a Schenectady Gazette from 1977. Flavorland was pretty much the same as Friendly’s,...
Dissected Maps
Homer Merriam was a brother of the Merriam brothers of Springfield, Massachusetts. Before joining his brothers in their little venture...