Happy Thanksgiving!

Pumpkin muffins and buttermilk biscuits...just waiting for the turkey to be set on the table!

More Vault Lights

Last year, I was excited to discovered vault lights in sidewalk along Lancaster Street. Since then, I've been looking to find more of them. Over the weekend, I finally noticed this pair of old cellar doors on Washington Avenue. As with the smaller vault lights, glass prisms are embedded in these metal panels to illuminate whatever dark basement lies below.

Groovy State Symbols

When I was little, I spent a lot of time exploring the then very new Empire State Plaza, inside and out. But it wasn't until I was in my teens that I realized what the point of these rainbow-hued panels near the Plaza's north end represented. Previously, I'd just never noticed the little symbols amid the waves of color...the State flower (rose), the State animal (beaver), the State bird (bluebird), and the State tree (maple).

The almost psychedelic colors have faded a great deal and the symbols are becoming harder to see. And the panels, which are directly behind the Legislative Office Building, look rather dated now. Very 70s, but still rather groovy in their own way.

Out of Season

Confused, perhaps, by weather that fluctuates between blissfully mild and just plain cold, yellow flowers struggle to bloom on a blustery day near the old Alfred E. Smith Building.

Vintage Sign

A fading tin sign on a weathered old carriage house in a cul-de-sac off of Dove Street. The sign announces the availability of General Electric tubes, along with repair services. I wonder if the tubes inside my old Philco radio came from here....

Urban Scarecrow

This odd little figure caught my eye...or rather, slightly startled me...while walking over Dove Street a few days ago. I didn't have my camera with me, but I just had to come back for a photo.

Made of children's clothing stuffed with leaves, it sits on a doorstep not far from the house where gangster Legs Diamond was shot to death.

I doubt the little fellow would be very effective against the hundreds of crows that have been invading the neighborhood each evening. It's wearing a Giants hoodie; perhaps it's meant to frighten away fans of opposing teams instead.

Sinister Grafitti

During the summer of 1998, the arrest of antiques thief and serial killer Gary Evans was big news. His escape from a moving police car and death leap from the Troy Menands Bridge was even bigger news.

The Albany Rural Cemetery figured in the sinister story of Evans and his many crimes. He famously stole a massive marble bench from one grave and hid the guns used to commit some of his murders in along the secluded streams (one of which is, rather appropriately named Moordenaerskill or Murderer's Creek).

A year or two after Evans' arrest and suicide, I came across his name scratched into the back of a 1936 monument not too far from one of the streams. This summer, I found it again.

For more on Gary Evans, take a look at his story on Wikipedia.