1854 Cornerstone

White marble cornerstone at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church on Hamilton Street. 

Intended Pun

Graffiti on a vacant building on Philip Street between Hamilton and Van Zandt Streets.

The Underground Railroad

This sign in the parking lot of the Israel AME Church on Hamilton Street between Lark and Dove Streets always brings me back to my grade school days when we learned about the Underground Railroad. Or were supposed to learn about it. As with too many subjects, it was a name or a date skimmed over quickly and we were on to the next lessons. Certainly there was no mention of our very own local ties to the network that helped Southern slaves escape to the free North in the years prior to the Civil War.

The Underground Railroad Workshop web site which works to recognize local sites affiliated with the Railroad gives a brief history of this church...click here.

Clang Went The Trolley

This metal pole on Hamilton Street just below Lark Street is one of the last visible relics of Albany's trolley system. A plaque attached to the pole dates it to the 1890s when the electric trolleys replaced the horsecars. The new trolley system gave Albany residents greater mobility and encouraged the city's expansion.

In 1901, a strike crippled the trolley system in a number of cities, including Albany. The United Traction strike was serious enough to result in martial law with soldiers riding every streetcar to protect riders and the replacement workers. During the course of the strike, there were at least two fatalities. Click here for an old New York Times article on the negotiations to settle the strike.

The Albany trolley system ran until 1946. The other surviving pole can be found on Quail Street near Western Avenue and a stretch of intact tracks runs downhill along Hamilton Street just east of the Empire State Plaza. And, from time to time...when pot holes or road crews tear up sections of pavement along other streets, sections of tracks appear.