Shells

This photo of the Wellington Row on State Street was taken in the spring, shortly after I began this blog. In the nine or ten months since it was taken, the scene has changed as workers spent the summer, fall, and winter dismantling these deteriorating, but historically and architecturally significant buildings from the inside out.

Of the two buildings shown above, only the facade of the lower floors remains on the Wellington Hotel (left) and the stabilized facade of the Elks Lodge (right). The building to the right of the Elks with its distinctive metal bay windows is also now just a stabilized facade.

For previous posts about the demolition along Wellington Row, see Down To The Bones and Almost Gone.

The Missing Viaduct

A few months ago, I blogged about the flights of stairs leading up from Sheridan Hollow. Pictured above is the unused flight leading up to a weed-covered gate near the Erastus Palmer house on Columbia Place.

Very near this set of crumbling steps was the old Hawk Street viaduct. This pedestrian bridge, considered an engineering marvel when it was completed around 1890, spanned a thousand feet over Sheridan Hollow to connect the neighborhoods around the Capitol to the northern part of the City.

The viaduct is long gone. I've only seen it in photos on old postcards. As of the early 90s, a small remnant of the south abutment was supposedly visible near these stairs. Even that seems to have vanished, apparently beneath the parking garage.

City Hall Lion

When I was little, security in public buildings was not as rigorous as it is now. I remember when we could enter City Hall from any door, including this one on what is now Corning Place (I think it was part of Maiden Lane before it was renamed to honor the late Mayor Erastus Corning).

I was a fairly observant child - I've been told that, as a toddler, I brought a court room to an abrupt pause when I suddenly noticed the ornament atop a flag pole, and said, "Eagle!" Everyone, including the judge, stopped to see what I was pointing at.

But, as observant as I was, I never noticed this heavy carved lion's head guarding the Corning Place doors of City Hall...until now.

Philip Livingston

The recent news about the planned sale of the old Philip Livingston school building reminded me that I photographed this plaque not too long ago.

The plaque commemorates the birthplace - Livingston Manor, long since gone - of Philip Livingston, a New York delegate to the Continental Congress and Signer of the Declaration of Independence.

The plaque is affixed to the wall of a building at the corner of State and Pearl Streets, once known as Elm Tree Corner. Now, it's home to a bank and one of my favorite places...a Starbucks coffee shop.

Old Industrial Buildings

Sometimes, I don't really have anything to say about a particular photo. There's no relevant history, just a view that catches my attention.

That's the case with today's picture, an old industrial building along Broadway just north of the Port of Albany. It's just an aging brick structure with multi-paned windows that caught my eye during an unintended detour a few years ago (as in, the person driving took a wrong turn). There's nothing very distinctive about it, except perhaps the rusty old loading doors with a tangle of wires hanging from a pipe above. A building nearby has a small rail trestle running into similar doors and that may have been the case here, too.

A Bit of Random Junk

Tucked along the Normanskill Creek under the Delaware Avenue bridge that connects Albany with Delmar, there is a delightful walking trail.

This area, at Albany's southern edge, has a history dating back to pre-colonial times; evidence of Native American encampments has been found along this part of the Normanskill. In the 17th-century, water rights along the creek were leased to a Dutch settler and the rushing waters provided power for small mills.

The walking trail passes landmarks such as the ruins of an ice house and sawmill from the early 19th-century, the Whipple Bridge (the oldest steel bridge in the country), the well-preserved 19th-century Normanskill Farm, a community garden, a real yellow brick road (see my Albany NY History blog about the road)...and this random piece of old farm machinery, slowly rusting in the underbrush along the stream.

The Castle

There is a castle tucked in a corner of Washington Park near the lake. I can still remember my first sight of it, too, late on a November evening.

While I grew up very close to the park and spend many afternoons on its playground, I rarely ventured west of the lake's pretty iron bridge and had never seen this castle before. In the cold November twilight, it looked fascinatingly frightful...like a local pied-a-terre for Count Dracula.

Designed by Ernest Hoffman (who also designed the former firehouse which is now home to the Steamer 10 Theatre where Madison and Western Avenues meet) in the early 1890s, the house of granite was built for an inventor named Charles La Dow. Unfortunately, tragedy struck La Dow's family not too long after they moved into the Thurlow Terrace "castle." His son died of asphyxiation, possibly from a problem gas fixture in his bedroom. Less than ten years after the house was finished, La Dow himself died suddenly on Central Avenue. The house was acquired by the Hunt family in 1910.

The castle has a ghost, too, though I've yet to read the details. A recent article in the Times Union referred to the haunting in the upper tower as having been verified by a local spiritualist. I don't doubt that the place has a ghost or two.

The building housed a law firm in recent years, but currently stands empty. And it's for sale. Despite tragedy in its early history, I love the place with its hidden passages, imposing stone, and gorgeous woodwork inside. But the price is just a bit too high for me!