Healthy Hearts On The Hill

These signs - and smaller ones with arrows - have been appearing around Albany in recent weeks.  This particular sign is just outside the main branch of the Public Library on Washington Avenue.  They're part of a project called Healthy Hearts On The Hill, a program which is meant to promote heart-friendly lifestyles in the West Hill area of the city.  Here's their Facebook page.

Forgotten Doughnuts

Someone left a box of glazed doughnuts outside the main branch of the Albany Public Library this afternoon. I saw a number of people pause for the tiniest fraction of a second and glance discreetly at the abandoned sweets, eyeing them as if they were wondering if the doughnuts were fresh and safe or stale or laced with something more sinister than refined sugars and artificial flavors.

A Quick History Lesson

Albany is dotted with plaques and signs and markers which, if passers-by actually notice and stop to read them, give brief lessons about the City's long history.

This plaque is fixed to the exterior wall of City Hall, just inches from the sundial I previously blogged about. Dedicated in 1924 as part of a commemoration of the tricentennial of the first permanent Dutch settlements in Albany, it gives a short summary of the City's earliest days as a remote trading outpost on the shores on the Hudson River and lists some of Albany's earliest names...Fort Nassau, Fort Orange, Rensselaerwyck, The Fuyck, Beverwyck, and Williamstadt.

The family names of the citizens who sponsored this plaque also read like a local history lesson...Van Rensselaer, Vrooman, Pruyn, Lansing.

One of them was Harriet Langdon Pruyn Rice and I highly recommend her sister's memoir, An Albany Girlhood by Huybertie Lansing Pruyn Hamlin. It lacks literary polish, but it is an enthusiastic and detailed account of upper-class Albany life during the late 1800s and Alice P. Kenney's end-notes are full of historic information to flesh out Huybertie's recollections.

Library Lilies

Outside the main branch of the Albany Public Library on Washington Avenue is a small garden. Just two little plots on either side of the front entrance.

Most people just walk by without a second glance on their way in and out of the building. And, this being a public library in an urban setting, there are often some rather unsavory loiters in their usual spots on the concrete benches edging the garden.

But this little garden is worth noticing, particularly the hibiscus with huge wine-colored flowers.

Yesterday, on the way out of the library with some novels for late summer reading, I spotted one of my favorite flowers - these elegant white lilies - in full bloom.