The Half Moon

A replica of Henry Hudson's ship unfurled its sails near the Corning Preserve yesterday as part of "Early Albany - A Hudson River Festival."  It was an excellent event featuring Dutch Colonial and Native American culture, including blacksmiths, a drum circle, dancing, and other exhibits.  Attendance was very good and it proves that local history and heritage can indeed be an attraction.

Under Clark's Corner

Not too long after writing about the demolition of the Paul Clark Tavern at the corner of Madison Avenue and Lark Street, the site was excavated further and I noticed this brick structure.  This week, I finally got a chance to poke my camera through the fence surrounding the construction area.

Don Rittner has some suggestions as to what it might have been in his excellent post, What Happened To Paul Clark's Corner?

The brick building in the background is the former Metroland office, now being converted to condos.

Also:  Paul Clark's gravestone

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.

Capitol Park Plaque

This plaque - one of the Bicentennial Tablets - is easy to miss as it's set low to the ground. Located in the park on the east side of the State Capitol, it gives a short, but significant history of the previous Capitol building on the site.

Happy Halloween

In honor of one of my favorite holidays, I've shared some ghostly stories at my other blog:

A Handful of Hauntings @ Albany (NY) History

The photo above is a casket-like monument (completely with sculpted floral arrangements) in the Albany Rural Cemetery.

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.