The Writing Is (Not) On The Wall

Albany is dotted with ghost signs, the fading relics of old ads painted on the walls. Previously, I've posted about a Times Union sign on Pearl Street, a 7-Up sign along lower Madison Avenue, and an electrical goods dealer on Liberty Street.

And All Over Albany had a feature on local ghost signs earlier this year.

This is a tiny one on a 19th-century brick building where Central and Washington Avenues converge in a point. The building has several very faint ghost signs on its western wall...what appear to be ads for Pilsbury products and an "Albany Diner" (not to be confused with the current Miss Albany Diner on Broadway). This one, on the south wall, is barely legible and one that escaped my notice until this weekend. Maybe the light was just right or I was looking from just the right angle, but the words Albany, N.Y. seemed to just leap out at me and, thankfully, I'd just put new batteries in my camera.

Deposit Box

This box for after-hours bank deposits is mounted in the wall of an old bank building at the southwest corner of Madison Avenue and South Pearl Streets. The most recent business to occupy this site was a Key Bank, but it has been closed for several years and was often the target of hold-ups.

This drop-box was made by the Mosler Safe Company. Mosler was founded in Cincinnati in 1867 and, until closing in bankruptcy in 2001, manufactured a variety of safes and vaults for the banking industry. Its products were so durable that several exported Mosler vaults survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima at the end of World War II. They also manufactured the vaults housing the originals of the Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution.

One Elk Street

Before New York acquired the ornate Italianate building on Eagle Street in 1877 to serve as its Executive Mansion, the State's Governor's resided in private homes throughout Albany. One such place that housed four Governors between 1830 and 1854 stood at the corner of Elk and Eagle Streets. The house is long gone and the neighboring facades incorporated into the New York State Bar Association building, but a plaque marks the site at One Elk Street.

Every Electrical Need

Overlooking Albany's oldest park and forming the rear of Broadway's Plaza Row, a number of the historic buildings along Liberty Street still bear the ghost signs of long-gone businesses such as this one, McGinnis Electric, Inc..

High Water

Fountains on the Empire State Plaza with the Corning Tower and State Education Building in the background.

Herman Melville

This plaque stands in Clinton Square, a tiny plaza on North Pearl Street just to the north of the Old Dutch Church and a short distance from two downtown theatres, Capitol Rep and the Palace. Nearby is the appropriately named cafe, Melville's Mug.

Madison and Grand

This plaque is mounted on the wall of the former St. Anthony's Roman Catholic Church at the corner of Madison Avenue and Grand Street. The church was once the center of Albany's Italian-American neighborhood. Closed for decades, the building is now home to Grand Street Community Arts. The painted clown at the left is part of their BoardedUp program.

Be sure to check them out on Facebook, too.