Moon Over Leonard Place

It's not as famous or grand as the golden fish or the other Half Moon, but this wonderful weather vane at the corner of Delaware Avenue and Leonard Place has a charm all its own.  The folksy moon is perched atop a sprawling old house now divided into apartments.

From Jail To Synagogue

This modest little brick building at the far end of Federal Street off Delaware Avenue was erected in the 1930s as a synagogue for the Sons of Israel (a congregation which would later merge with others to form Temple Israel).  I remember this building being vacant when I first noticed it in the mid-1980s, but it now seems to be occupied by a business.

A fascinating detail about this building is that it was constructed from bricks recycled from the demolition of the Albany Penitentiary.

Faceless Angel

The face of this angel has crumbled away on the facade of St. Francis of Assisi (formerly St. James) Church on Delaware Avenue.

WEIRD

A homemade sign in the window of the Van Rensselaer Apartments.  (The building, at the corner of Madison and Delaware Avenue was built in 1901 and was designed by architect Marcus T. Reynolds).

A Blue Receiver

Another Majestic package receiver. This one is hidden behind a large trash receptacle on a rear wall of the Boys & Girls Club building on Delaware Avenue.

A Little Light

A decorative light hangs loosely from a tree in Dana Park at the corner of Delaware and Madison Avenues.

Summer In Relief

A leaf fell from a tree onto freshly-poured concrete on Elm Street just off of Delaware Avenue and left behind the imprint of a warmer season in the now very cold sidewalk.

Plastic

Where we would be without plastics? I could go on and on for hours about the countless everyday things that rely on plastic...cellphones, laptops, cars, coffee-makers, pens, lip balm tubes.

Poking from the weeds beside a boarded-up former Friendly's restaurant on Delaware Avenue near Whitehall Road, this sign boasts of plastic's early history. The factory that once stood here manufactured ivory billiard balls, but the invention of celluloid here provided them with a less-expensive substitute that became the first industrial plastic. Hyatt went on to found a celluloid company that produced not only billiard balls, but piano keys and false teeth.

Legend says these early celluloid balls were unstable and could explode during vigorous games. There's no word on whether the false teeth or piano keys ever exploded with rough use, though.

Another legend says that this billiard factory would dump its imperfect balls in the Hudson and that a stretch of the River is littered with thousands of rejects.

Street Signs

Two vintage street signs above an old store front at the corner of Delaware Avenue and Beekman Street.

The James Farm

For the past couple of years, I've used a little shortcut that runs parallel to Delaware Avenue between community garden behind the Hackett Middle School and the McDonald's parking lot on Holland Avenue. I've used it more since Walgreens opened next to the McDonald's over the summer.

And whenever I've passed through this quiet "cut," I've always had this feeling that there was something about the place. I wasn't sure exactly why I felt that way...until this past week.

I knew that William "Billy" James, the founder of a very prominent New York family and grandfather of novelist Henry James, owned property in the area of Delaware Avenue.

A young Irishman, James settled in the still predominately Dutch city of Albany in the late 18th-century and eventually owned a farm close by what his literary grandson called "the far-off Beaverkill." His farm stood close to what is now the intersection of Delaware Avenue and Providence Street, just across from the Lincoln Park tennis courts and only a few yards south of the gully which contains the last remnants of the Beavekill.

About a week ago, I was running an errand on Delaware Avenue (and resisting the urge to go explore the gully again). I paused to take a photo of the street sign on Providence Avenue...and that's when I made the connection. The wooded shortcut picture above was once part of the James' farm.

Random Cow Sticker

The Delaware Avenue section of Albany has been quite chaotic in recent months with a massive street reconstruction project tearing up the sidewalk and road. Walking it is a real chore, but driving it seems even worse. So, I'd rather avoid it for now. But, while running errands the other day, I took a break near St. James Church and Key Bank...and spotted this colorful cow sticker on a fire hydrant near the benches.