It Happened Here -- In a "Cockpit" of History
In Albany in the late 1950's (and for many years before, and one and a half decades afterwards) there was a small park at the base of State Street hill, where it merged into lower Broadway. This park served as a major transportation hub in the city. People would take a Traction Company bus to "The Plaza" and could transfer to one of a dozen or more buses going to different parts of the city, Schenectady, Troy or the suburbs. On nearby side streets were the terminals for the Adirondack Trailways Bus Company and Greyhound. Up until the first years of the 1950's, Union Station, on Broadway a block up from the Plaza provided passenger rail service. Up until a decade before that, travelers could purchase tickets at a ticket house at the end of the Plaza and board the Hudson River Dayline boats--side paddle-wheel steamers that plied the river providing overnight service to New York.
The park itself was a narrow elliptical island with Broadway running south in front of it, and a smaller northbound road running a few feet from the imposing D &H Railroad Headquarters building--a modern office building dressed with Gothic towers, windows and gargoyles to replicate a medieval guildhall in Ypres Belgium. The park had the usual complement of medium size maple trees, park benches, tulip beds, pigeons, squirrels, etc.
-
HENRY HUDSON
EXPLORER, HERE ENDED THE
VOYAGE OF THE HALF MOON
IN QUEST OF THE INDIES
SEPTEMBER, 1609
Location: PLAZA, BROADWAY AT FOOT OF STATE ST.* - FORT ORANGE SITE OF WEST INDIA COMPANY
COLONY 1624. HERE WAS BORN
SARAH RAPELJE, FIRST WHITE
CHILD IN N. Y. STATE, 1625
FORT STOOD S. E. BY THE RIVER
- ALBANY
FORT ORANGE 1624,
BEVERWYCK 1652, ALBANY
1664; CHARTERED 1686
Location: PLAZA, BROADWAY AT FOOT OF STATE ST.
- COLONIAL WARPATH
FIVE WARS. HERE ARMIES
UNDER ABERCROMBIE, LOUDOUN
AND AMHERST MOVED TO THE
CONQUEST OF CANADA 1756-60
Location: PLAZA, BROADWAY AT FOOT OF STATE ST.
- IROQUOIS TREATY
GOV. HOWARD OF VA. AND
FIVE NATIONS AT COURT HOUSE
WHICH STOOD 100 FEET WEST
Location: PLAZA, BROADWAY AT FOOT OF HUDSON AVE
- GENERAL BURGOYNE
ALBANY WITH HIS STAFF AFTER
THE BATTLE OF SARATOGA
GOING TO SCHUYLER MANSION
AS PRISONERS OF WAR - 1777
Location: PLAZA, BROADWAY AT FOOT OF STATE ST.
- CLERMONT
NEAR THE FOOT OF MADISON
AVENUE ROBERT FULTON IN
AUG. 1807, COMPLETED THE
FIRST SUCCESSFUL
STEAMBOAT VOYAGE
Location: PLAZA, BROADWAY AT FOOT OF STATE ST.
- BIRTHPLACE OF
AMERICAN UNION
NEAR THIS SITE, BENJAMIN
FRANKLIN PRESENTED THE 1ST
FORMAL PLAN OF NATIONAL
UNION; CONGRESS OF 1754
Location: PLAZA, BROADWAY AT FOOT OF STATE ST.
For a certain nine or eleven year old boy the prospect of spending time in this park reading the signs and imagining the events that could have been witnessed from here, while he was awaiting the bus home at the conclusion of a successful shopping trip with his mother was almost as exciting as the prospect of tearing into the cellophane wrapping enclosing the latest much-coveted plastic model airplane kit--a bribe for exhibiting patience and good behavior, on the trip. If the bus was late, and immediate interest waned in the historic signs, the history-charged youth could always imagine himself in the cockpit of a World War II fighter, defending his island-aircraft carrier from hoards of red and cream colored** enemy planes, dropping down the State Street Hill or coming in low, roaring down Broadway. Most would circle his island-carrier and return from whence they came, some slowing down to make their torpedo runs, before speeding up to make their escape; others hanging suspended along the curb as their bomb-bay doors, fore and aft, burst open and they disgorged their deadly ordinance in rapid regular succession. Usually, however, it wouldn't be long before a maternal hand would descend on the young aviator's shoulder--a reminder that spinning around and uttering airplane or even machine gun noises wasn't exactly acceptable public behavior.
In 1973 the D&H building was bought by the State University of New York at Albany and given an extensive renovation. The landscape architects determined the building needed a more suitable landscaped setting. No longer would the building's doorways open out onto the bare sidewalk, a dozen feet from the curb. The northbound lane was torn up and landscaped; ornamental trees replaced the native maples; the old park benches and old tulip beds disappeared. And the New York State Historical Markers disappeared as well. To the University planners they probably seemed as quaint and unaesthetic as the rows of Burma Shave*** signs that sprung up along old route 20.
To my way of thinking, Albany is a little poorer for their disappearance.
*This, and the following seven markers are listed in "New York State Historical Markers,
www.nysm.nysed.gov/historicmarkers/hisaction.cfm
**Traction Company buses were painted red and cream colors, not the blue and white of today's CDTA bus fleet.
***Burma Shave was a company that manufactured a brand of brushless shaving cream from 1927 until 1963. They advertised by posting series of roadside signs with a few words on each sign that taken together spelled out a short bit of doggerel that ended with the product name "Burma-Shave." Often, each series promoted the Burma Shave product, or a traffic safety message. "If you think/ she like your bristles/ try walking barefooted/ through some thistles./ Burma-Shave" and "Dim Your Lights/ Behind a Car/Let folks see/ How bright/ YOU are./Burma-Shave" are two of several hundred produced.
No comments:
Post a Comment