Women are not the only subject Dona Ann McAdams has focused her camera lens on during her 35-year career. But she has always looked for, and found, women and girls to photograph.
“I’ve always shot women because I am one, and I’m interested in how we are perceived in the world,” she said.
A survey of McAdams’ work will be on display through Dec. 11 at the Opalka Gallery at The Sage Colleges. The theme of women unifies the exhibition, “Dona Ann McAdams: ‘Some Women,’” which draws from 10 of her portfolios from 1974 to the present.
Squirrels running, digging and raiding bird feeders today in Schenectady’s Elmer Avenue neighborhood owe Richard Kaczmarek and his friends a debt of gratitude.
That’s because the boys saved the squirrels’ ancestors during the late summer of 1948.
Seven boys adopted seven orphaned squirrels in early September. Richard and his pals — Bruce Keith, John Pauley, Donald Moss, Peter Putnam, Donald Gachowski and James Czaban — answered the call from nature and cared for the month-old babies.
One of the delights of the season is having the house fill with the aromas of homemade treats. When the treats are made from long-treasured family recipes, they stir memories of those who cooked before us.
I asked readers to send along recipes that have been passed down in their family for three generations or more, from cook to cook, and that they look forward to making — and eating — every year.
A jet carried the casket of Staff Sgt. Amy Seyboth Tirador, 29, who was killed Nov. 4 in Iraq in a non-combat incident, home to Colonie today to a hero’s welcome. Greeting it were an Army honor guard, an Army color guard, Colonie Police, members of the Patriot Guard Riders, friends, family and airport personnel.
It all started with messing around on a light box.
From there, Walter Wick went on to create the collage-like, illusionary photographs in the popular “I Spy” books that children have grown to love.
Visitors to the Arkell Museum in Canajoharie on Nov. 15 will be able to spy Wicks himself, on hand to open the museum’s exhibition “Walter Wick: Games, Gizmos and Toys in the Attic.”
Shenendehowa tripped Saratoga, 2-0, in the finals of the Section II Class AA boys' soccer tournament Tuesday at Colonie, giving the school its 16th Section II boys’ soccer championship.
The Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake girls soccer team defeated Jamesville-DeWitt, 4-3, on penalty kicks after playing to a 1-1 draw in the Class A regional semifinal Tuesday at Stillwater High School.
A man with a shotgun held a building principal hostage today for two hours before surrendering without firing a shot at Stissing Mountain Middle School and High School in Pine Plains.
Antoinette Severino could never quite pronounce the name of her third-oldest child, Orlando. “Everybody called him Lundy,” said Orlando’s daughter, Cathy Severino of Schenectady. “His mother spoke Italian. Instead of saying ‘Orlando,’ she said ‘Orlundy, Orlundy.’ That's how he got the ‘Lundy.’ That's how everybody knew him.” Family and friends also knew Lundy and four of his brothers as veterans of World War II. Joseph, Frank, William and Armand “Ed” Severino joined Orlando in uniform during the 1940s. A sixth Severino son, Tony, spent time on war work projects at the General Electric Co. With Veterans Day approaching, the extended Severino family remembers.
Well over a thousand runners completed Sunday's 34th annual Gazette Stockade-athon 15-kilometer (9.3 miles) road race through the streets of Schenectady under bright blue skies Sunday. Gazette photographers Barry Sloan and Marc Schultz captured these images before, during and after the race.
More than 15,000 birders across the U.S. and Canada will begin taking their hobby a little more seriously than usual this month as Project FeederWatch, a collaboration between the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology and Bird Studies Canada, begins its 23rd year.
Niskayuna's Lindsay Mayo scored a pair of goals in the Silver Warriors’ 2-1 triumph over Bethlehem Wednesday in the Section II Class A field hockey semifinals.
Some politicians seal Election Day victories with handshakes.
Others mark wins with smiles and hugs, maybe a brandy toast at party headquarters.
James P. Houlihan celebrated success in style on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 1961. He sealed it with a kiss.
It actually looked like Mrs. Houlihan’s idea. She grabbed her grinning husband by the neck on Election Night and gave the new Schenectady Police Justice an affectionate peck. The smooch made the front page of the next day’s Schenectady Gazette.
Five young women in powder blue gowns stood next to five young men in powder blue suits.
All had perfect smiles, perfect hair and perfect harmony. They also had accordion player Myron Floren, who provided musical support for the small choir’s breezy television version of “Hot Diggity,” Perry Como’s hit song from 1956.
Most importantly, the group had Connie Remscheid watching the performance at her home in Scotia.
Action from a boxing card Friday night at the McDonough sports complex on the campus of Hudson Valley Community College in Troy. All are through the lens of Carl Strock.
A majestic witch, dressed in dark cloak and pointed hat, flashed a wicked smile. The night — Monday, Oct. 31, 1966 — was a treasure hunt. The lady in black shared her good fortune with other children of the night. Kids celebrated Halloween as Popeye the sailor, the Frankenstein monster, the Beatles, skeletons, bums and other oddities as they made traditional nocturnal visits to the Capital Region.
The Pruyn House on Old Niskayuna Road in Colonie never faced a bulldozer, but it was unquestionably heading for a confrontation of that sort.
“Fred Field called this house a leap of faith when he convinced the board to buy it for $120,000 in 1983,” said Pruyn House curator Diane Morgan, referring to Colonie’s longtime town supervisor, the driving force behind the purchase. “Now, 26 years later, we have this wonderful house on this wonderful piece of property. I think it turned out to be a great idea.”
The house, once home to Casparus F. Pruyn and his large family, was built around 1830. The white, two-story home is characterized by a late Federal/early Greek Revival style, and is five bays wide and rectangular in plan. It has a flat roof, and the only real significant structural change to the home is a two-story, one-bay-wide addition over the back entrance.</p>
Turning the musicians who participated in the video project Playing For Change into a working band seems like an impossible task. After all, the more than 100 street musicians featured in the popular YouTube videos (Playing For Change’s “Stand By Me” video has more than 14 million views alone) and on the album “Songs Around the World” literally come from around the world — from New Orleans to Africa to the Himalayas. About two years ago, Mark Johnson and Whitney Kroenke Burditt, the project’s founders, formed the Playing For Change Foundation, a separate nonprofit entity that works to build music schools around the world, and launched it with a benefit in the Denver area featuring the first incarnation of the Playing For Change Band.“We always thought that it would be pretty incredible to have these people together on one stage,” Burditt said. The show plays The Egg in Albany on Saturday.
A ski-equipped LC-130 aircraft from Stratton Air National Guard Base in Scotia departs for Antarctica in support of Operation Deep Freeze, the United States military's support to the U.S. Antarctic Program.
Researchers at GE Global Research in Niskayuna and drug maker Eli Lilly have developed tissue-based biomarker technology that for the first time can simultaneously map more than 25 proteins in tumors at the sub-cellular level.
The announcement came today at GE's Healthmagination Showcase in New York.
Action from Monday's Section II Class A-B-C-D New York State Qualifier at Orchard Creek Golf Course in Altamont. Albany Academy's Tim DiStefano posted the low score.
The brave and the bold were remembered in downtown Schenectady on Friday, Sept. 24, 1948. A couple hundred people gathered in Crescent Park (now Veterans Memorial Park) for the dedication of the new flagpole to honor the city’s war dead. A Marine Corps color guard provided a military presence. A small contingent from the Gold Star Mothers — mothers who had lost sons or daughters in the service of their country — attended in their traditional white outfits. Robert B. McColl provided representation from the American Locomotive Co., which presented the 110-foot-tall monument to the city on behalf of its employees. Mayor Owen M. Begley accepted the gift for Schenectady, and addressed the crowd. Most stood in a cluster near the tall stone base, near the foot of the State Street hill. Some people stood across State Street, near First United Methodist Church, and listened to the words and music.
Photos show a homemade balloon aircraft that is believed to have carried a 6-year-old boy in Colorado. The balloon eventually landed, but there was no sign of the boy.
Later this week, Indians from around the Capital Region will be celebrating Diwali (pronounced di VAHL ee), loosely translated as “Festival of Lights” on Saturday.
“Every part of the country, whether they are Hindus, Jains or Sikhs, every one of them celebrates Diwali,” said Purushotham Bangalore of Rexford.
Patricia Greenwood has countless tales to tell about treasures she’s found that others might consider trash: a vintage step stool and an old cabinet rescued from the curb, a bunch of multicolored netting from the 1950s that nobody wanted.
A collector of midcentury kitchen pieces and other interesting antiques, she haunts not only trash heaps, but auctions, yard sales and secondhand shops. Some of her treasures find their way into her Schenectady home, but most wind up for sale at Patricia’s Room, her space at the Bournebrook Antique Center in Troy, where her keen eye for cool merchandise has earned her some pretty famous customers.
When people greet strangers with torches, it usually means “Get out of town.” Fire and smoke in Schenectady proved the opposite for John Foster Dulles on Oct. 18, 1949. A torchlight parade was part of the welcome for the 61-year-old politician as he campaigned in the city, part of a drive to keep his seat in the U.S. Senate. The newly formed Schenectady County Young Republicans sponsored the event. Members of the group gathered at State Street and Nott Terrace, carrying flames and signs down State as Dulles waved to people on the street and sidewalks from a convertible. All ended up at the Erie Theater on Erie Boulevard near State Street. Dulles had an opening act — Broadway and Hollywood comedians Happy Felton and “Stutterin’ ” Roy Atwell warmed up people who packed the theater. The crowd — inside and out — was estimated at 1,200.
Some beat autumn’s frost with blankets, sweaters and burning maple. Joel Kessler outs the chill in another way. He warms up with chipotle peppers, chili powder and hot paprika — parts of a gastronomic fireplace he calls South of the Border Chili. The 28-year-old student in the culinary arts program at Schenectady County Community College brought a fiery crock pot of his favorite mix to The Daily Gazette on Monday — and scored first place in the newspaper’s October Chili Party. Chili dishes submitted by Richard Herrick of Johnstown, Mary Newton of Glenville and Steve Oathout of Clifton Park also were voted award-winners.
Baseball great Jackie Robinson’s playing days with the Brooklyn Dodgers ended after the 1956 season. Ten years later, as special assistant on community affairs for Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller, the campaign trail brought Robinson to Schenectady. While in town, Robinson watched some of the World Series with a city resident and greeted some high school football players among other stops.
It seems like everything Julianne Boyd touched this year turned to gold.
A season that started out with much foreboding turned into one of the most successful ever at Barrington Stage Company, and it isn’t over yet. While its much-heralded new work, “Freud’s Last Session,” winds up today at BSC’s Stage II in Pittsfield, taking the spotlight Wednesday night and running through Oct. 18 will be the musical “The Fantasticks.”
Public relations veteran Ed Lewi's "Summit" gathering of folks who covered the Lake Placid Olympics in 1980, held at the West Side Stadium Cafe in Saratoga Springs, featured a number of well-known local media personalities.
Schuylerville resident Susie Kane-Kettlewell has established breathtaking gardens around her hillside home. Plantings range from the expected to the exotic, with interesting combinations and appealing layout.
<p>A visit to the New York State Museum’s new exhibit on images of African-Americans in American art offers insight into race, identity and perception in our cultural history.
“It gives us an opportunity to look at how far we’ve come and perhaps think about how far we have to go,” said the exhibition’s curator, Gretchen Sullivan Sorin, director and professor of the Cooperstown Graduate Program.
The exhibit, “Through the Eyes of Others: African Americans and Identity in American Art, is on loan from the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown through Jan. 6.
During the 1940s, people could visit Ballston Spa for spring water, small grocery stores and a clean downtown.
A close neighbor to both Schenectady and Saratoga Springs, Ballston could also offer history.
“For years after its incorporation as a village in 1807, Ballston Spa was one of the most famous of the health resorts and spas in this nation,” the Schenectady Gazette reported in a 1946 story. “After the Civil War, the spotlight shifted gradually to Saratoga Springs, where horse racing and publicity drew the patrons.”
Shenendehowa had no trouble defeating Guilderland, 49-14, in its homecoming game Friday night in Clifton Park. Gazette photographer Barry Sloan captured these images.
Slowly over the past decade, and more earnestly for the past year, Galway resident Patricia Kay has been photographing elders in her community and asking them the insightful question: “Who are you?”
Their answers and a personal item from each elder will be on display Oct. 1 through Nov. 17 at an exhibition of Kay’s black-and-white images at the Galway Town Hall on Sacandaga Road.
Scenes from opening night of the 37th Adirondack Balloon Festival as about a dozen hot-air balloons take to the skies over Glens Falls' Crandall Park on Thursday evening, Sept. 24.
George Washington may have enjoyed some tea at 43-45 Washington Ave. in Schenectady, but you can be sure it wasn’t Robert Sanders doing the serving. The historical marker outside the building tells us that the Robert Sanders House was built in 1750, and that our first president, while he was general of the Colonial army, visited the residence in 1775. The information may or may not be accurate, but one thing is for certain: It’s a building definitely worth seeing, and those taking part in Saturday’s 50th Stockade Walkabout will get that opportunity.
A young male moose meandered through yards in Amsterdam today before being tranquilized and relocated to Lake Desolation by state DEC officials. Earlier this week, a moose was spotted in Charlton.
These items were found on murder victims in New Britain, Conn., and Tolland, Mass., in 1995. Police hope they jog someone's memory and may lead to the victims' killer.
Marilyn Sassi calls herself “an incurable collector,” and whether the piece is an original heirloom or a remarkable reproduction, it’s something lovers of antiquity will find fascinating.
Her most prized and equally fascinating “collectable” however, is her house at 121 Front St. in the Stockade section of Schenectady. “What’s important about this house is that it’s a hybrid of English Georgian design from the 18th century along with several Dutch elements,” said Sassi, whose home will be part of the 50th Stockade Walkabout on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. “What’s unusual is that it’s not like the other houses in the Stockade. It was built for the country, as if it was a little manor house.”
President Barack Obama is welcomed at Hudson Valley Community College today. Dr. Jill Biden, wife of the vice president, introduces the president to the audience.
In Armando Furlani’s day, lunch began shortly after dawn.
He was on the bus and into his Schenectady restaurant — Furlani’s — between 7 and 7:30. Then, it was right to work. Armando prepped and prepared tomato sauce, ziti, meatballs, veal parmigiana and other foods that would be hot and spicy by 11. “He was the typical family patriarch,” said Gordon Furlani of Schenectady, Armando’s grandson. “At work, he was just all work; he was in the back room all the time.” That was Furlani’s, the family spot at 129 N. Broadway. Armando ran the place with his brother Quinto, and both chefs served Italian and American favorites from the late 1930s until selling the business in 1964.
An unknown Civil War soldier from New York state whose remains were discovered last year at the site of the Battle of Antietam was buried Thursday with full military honors at Gerald B.H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery in the town of Saratoga.
Mary Travers of the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary lost her battle with leukemia on Wednesday in Connecticut. She was 72. This gallery looks at her younger years with the popular group and more recent photos.
A colorful new sign is installed on the side of the More Perreca's bakery-cafe building on North Jay Street in Schenectady. More Perreca's will serve breakfast and lunch and coal-fired pizza. The restaurant will be open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and will employ three people.
It was Daniel David Schermerhorn, who added Campbell to his name to inherit all of his aunt’s money, who built the three houses we now call Campbell Row at 19, 21 and 23 Washington Ave. in the Stockade section of Schenectady. The house at 19 Washington Ave., currently owned by Greg and Barbara Sauer, will be part of the Stockade Walkabout on Sept. 26, and the Sauers suspect that visitors to their home will find the Campbell story as intriguing as they did. “There’s a big S carved into our front door, so maybe that was his way of paying homage to his birth name,” said Greg Sauer, who moved into the home 15 years ago. “He had to be thinking of the Schermerhorn name when he did that. We don’t know for sure, but we surmise that’s why it’s there.”
Life’s a ball for many high school kids. During September, October and November, they throw, kick and paddle all over crowded fields. The weather might be rainy, windy or hot — footballs, soccer balls and field hockey balls remain in play. The Capital Region’s autumn athletes showed off their skills and acquitted themselves with honor during the mid-1980s in this week's "Capital Region Scrapbook."
Frank Sinatra used to sing that way down among Brazilians, coffee beans grew by the billions. Peter Lee didn’t have a “Coffee Song.” But he had the same numbers for different beans during the summer of 1948. He was picking cranberry beans with other teenagers at Andrew Baan’s farm on River Road in Rotterdam. Their work was appreciated by Mr. Baan, who paid 35 cents for each full bushel basket. Much of the crop was headed to New York City — Italian gourmets considered the cranberry beans a delicacy.
Late summer has always meant bonnets and bagpipes in the Capital Region: The Scottish Games have long been a Labor Day weekend tradition.
The fancy steps, pipes and cabers have always drawn crowds. During the 1950s, fans of the clans gathered at the former American Locomotive Club at the end of Van Vranken Avenue. These days, Scotland is in session at the Altamont Fairgrounds each September — this year’s Games will be held Saturday and Sunday.
Few people could draw a crowd like Daniel Webster.
On a hot afternoon in July 1840, the great orator and U.S. senator attracted more than 15,000 people to the Whig Party’s Vermont state nominating convention. Even Elton John last summer couldn’t match that; his sold-out concert drew 10,500 fans to the Champlain Valley Expo in Essex Junction. Webster’s venue: an open field at 2,400 feet in the Green Mountains.
Built on a ridge overlooking the Battenkill River in 1849,the West Mountain Inn in Arlington, Vt. has undergone two major renovations that have transformed it from a small and humble farmhouse into a spacious and extravagant country retreat.
Trick rider Janie Baxter showed her skills during the summer of 1955 at Painted Pony Ranch in Lake Luzerne in this week's "Capital Region Scrapbook" feature.
For many, busking is about more than just the money or the joy of performing. Mark, a guitarist who has been busking in Saratoga since 1975, enjoys being a part of the street music tradition.
“Before they had recorded music about 1900, if you wanted some music, this was it — you played it yourself or you heard somebody play it,” Mark said, sitting a few benches down from Myrie with his acoustic guitar. “Especially, there’s some traditional music and now you don’t hear a lot of it. I could sing, for example, ‘Camptown Ladies,’ in relation to this racetrack here — you know how old that song is, it’s by Stephen Foster. And you’re never gonna hear that song anywhere, but it’s really such an important song in the history of American music.”
Any chef will tell you that the secret to a great dish is using the freshest ingredients. The bounty of fresh produce available at local markets makes this a perfect time of year to test that tip, but it means leaving the shopping list at home.
“Go with a blank slate in mind,” said Sarah Pechar, assistant director of Cornell Cooperative Extension of Schenectady County. Take a look at what the farmers are offering on a given day, and what looks fresh and good.
Late blight is a disease caused by the pathogen Phytophthora infestans. It is the same fungus-like micro-organism that was responsible for the Irish potato famine, which began in 1845 and caused potato crops to blacken and rot in the fields.
In order for the disease to become a major problem, conditions have to be just right. Unfortunately, this year our conditions were ideal. The weather was wet and cool, we were growing the host plants and the late blight pathogen was here.
Man oh man. Phish is back. Sunday night at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center they closed their summer tour and played like they were never going to play again.
Action from Thursday's first round of The Gazette Senior County Amateur golf tournament at the Schenectady Municipal Golf Course. Jim Gardy leads the two-day event with a five-under-par 67.
A parade was held on Main Street in Johnstown on Tuesday in support of teacher Daniel Jones, who was removed from his positions as high school marching band director, winter color guard director and jazz band director.
The Control Tower restaurant and ice cream shop on Route 7 in Latham provides a feast for the senses. Of course there's the food and ice cream to please the taste buds and the nose. Then there are the planes taking off and landing at Albany International airport catching the eye and demanding to be heard.
Lois Gillie was proud of her peaches and pears.
Elizabeth Elder and Agnes McKinlay showed off their clothing creation. And the Rask kids — Niels, Norman and Karen — put their favorite calves in the limelight.
Young stars of local 4-H clubs were among the principal performers at the 1946 Tri-County Fair at Altamont.
The biggest porcine name was Miss Kiwanis, a shoat of generous proportion raised by Jimmy Van Vorst of Glenville. For fun, as always, there were plenty of rides, including the "Dive Bomber."
The five-theater complex at the University at Albany will once again be filled with music, dance and drama during the 2009-10 academic year. The College of Arts and Sciences is sponsoring a schedule of performing arts events including four professional touring companies, three productions by the university’s drama department and a special appearance by alumnus Harold Gould for a total of 29 performances. In addition, the university will offer 34 concerts and three music festivals.
Edgar Degas’s absorption in soirees, operas and cabaret concerts is the basis of a new exhibition at The Hyde Collection. Curated by Kendall and Jill DeVonyar, “Degas & Music” is a rich array of 30 works — paintings, drawings and sculpture — that explores Degas’ early musical influences and how they were expressed through his art. It’s a dream exhibition for Kendall and DeVonyar who, for years, have wanted to probe deeper into his musical life.
Travers Stakes hopefuls Mine That Bird and Summer Bird shipped back to Saratoga Race Course after running in weekend stakes races in West Virginia and New Jersey, respectively.
This has been quite the season. I’ve heard from you that you are having troubles in the garden from insect pests to fungal diseases. Once you identify some of the problems, you can get to work on remedying the situation. There are a number of beetle pests on ornamental plants this year. Bottom end rot and powdery mildew are other problems cropping up this year.
"Watch out, Jim! He’s coming!” So exclaimed a young boy, as he jumped out of his seat to warn Jim Hawkins of the approach of Long John Silver, the villain, in a performance of “Treasure Island” at the New York State Theatre Institute. It’s that kind of moment that lets NYSTI’s founding producing artistic director, Patricia Di Benedetto Snyder, know that she has done her job well. This month, the institute and Snyder will receive national recognition for their accomplishments. On Aug. 11 in New York City, the Children’s Theatre Foundation of America will recognize NYSTI’s and Snyder’s contributions to the field of children’s theater. The presentation of two medallions comes 35 years after the state Legislature passed legislation that establishing the institute. Snyder is, without question, the driving force behind the institute and its success, but she won’t take all of the credit. “Yes, I had the passion, the idea, but what idea ever belongs to any one person, particularly in the theater? The success is a collaboration,” she said.
Bob Castle didn’t think Whistling Kettle could miss.
The big thoroughbred was 2-1 on the morning line for the sixth race at Saratoga Race Course. Only Casque, at 3-1, and Gallant Lad, at 5-1, seemed to have a chance against the favorite on Monday, Aug. 3, 1964. “Whistling Kettle from wire to wire,” predicted Castle, who advised racing fans in the sports pages of the Schenectady Gazette.
Castle overlooked Beaupy. So did a lot of other people in the stands and on the rail for the start of Saratoga’s 101st racing meet. The horse, 34-1 when the starting gate opened, beat Whistling Kettle and the rest of the field to pay $70.40. That generated plenty of excitement on a glorious day. “The weather was perfect, clear, cool and sunny,” Castle wrote. “The old stands and lawns were jam-packed.”
When horse racing fans go looking for a great dining experience away from downtown Saratoga Springs, more likely than not they’ll choose the Wishing Well Restaurant.
Just north of the city on Route 9 in the town of Wilton, the Wishing Well has been drawing the racing crowd for just under 75 years and continues to be a huge part of the Saratoga summer season.
Originally built as a Colonial-style farmhouse in 1823, it has been a restaurant since 1936 and has undergone two substantial additions, the first in 1940 and another in 1976.
For gardeners with a lot of shade, the Middle Grove garden of Jim and Meg Dalton is inspiring.
There are more than 2,000 hostas — 1,700 different cultivars, including a few noteworthy hostas the Daltons have hybridized themselves.
And though in the shade and dominated by hostas, this garden is strikingly beautiful and surprisingly colorful. “There are many shades of green,” Meg said. True, but here there are also blues, bright and soft yellows, pinks, whites and purples.
Through Oct. 19, the Adirondack Museum takes a look at the region via quilts — both historic and modern — in “Common Threads: 150 Years of Adirondack Quilts & Comforters.”
The exhibit is a feast for the eyes, with its color combinations, diverse artistic techniques, old and new patterns and intricate embroidery. For the soul, there are the stories behind each quilt — some sad and touching and others entertaining, even whimsical.
On the day Apollo 11 left Earth for the moon, Steven Russo opened his personal mission control.
A blazing Saturn V rocket had launched three American astronauts into outer space, and the 14-year-old Russo began to manage a 3-foot-tall model rocket in his family’s Brooklyn living room. As the Apollo rocket burned through stages and discarded parts of the booster, Russo separated components on his smaller Saturn.
“How geeky can you get?” he said with a smile. “But that’s the way I was.”
<p>“I nailed Maddy like five times,” said a happy Jack, 8, as he stepped off the fenced-in cement square reserved for crazy drivers at the Glenville Sportplex off Freemans Bridge Road.
Maddy Trombley, 9, paid her brother little attention. She had “nailed” Jack a couple of times herself during a few minutes in the bumper cars.
Talk about blasts from the past: Everyone bounces off the walls, and each other, when they rev and ram in the odd-looking rides. The four-wheeled cars, mounted atop a giant inflatable black rubber doughnut, are a new take on an old automotive amusement.</p>
When Melinda Roy was asked to teach ballet, she balked. She was an accomplished dancer — a former principal with New York City Ballet — and a Tony-nominated choreographer who was currently working on Broadway. But a dance teacher?
”At first, I didn’t really have faith in myself,” she said. “But I felt that I should give something back because I had fantastic teachers like George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins. I felt it was my duty to teach.”
Benjamin Millepied says there is no better mentor than George Balanchine. Even though he never worked with the master, just dancing and watching his ballets has given this star dancer what he calls “an incredible education.”<
Millepied is now applying those lessons to ballets of his own creation. His works have been commissioned by the Paris Opera Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Pacific Northwest Ballet and the Dutch National Ballet. This past spring, he created his first piece for New York City Ballet, “Quasi Una Fantasia,” which premiered at the company’s gala. Described by the New York Times as Millepied’s most accomplished work, this mysterious ballet will slide into the Saratoga Performing Arts Center this week.
Vice President Joe Biden spoke to an enthusiastic crowd and posed for photos Thursday at Shenendehowa High School after flying into Albany from Cincinnati.
As a ballerina selected by George Balanchine, Darci Kistler is among the chosen few. But she holds a distinction that no other Balanchine ballerina can claim — she is his last protégée. So at her retirement next year, an era that saw the fruition of some of the world’s greatest ballets will come to a definitive end.
During the mid-1800s , if Doc Landon walked into a farmhouse with medicine for shivering children, or traveled to the blacksmith’s shop for a hammer-smashed thumb, he always carried his black case. Thin vials of pills and powders were stored inside the travelling apothecary. So were tools of the doctor’s trade. Landon’s good work has ended, but more than 100 years later, part of the medical man remains alive with Jack Spring. The retired Capital Region orthopedic doctor keeps the Landon “buggy bag” on prominent display inside his study, a home medical museum.
It was only Megan Fairchild’s first year in the corps de ballet. But Peter Martins, ballet master in chief at New York City Ballet, could see her spark.
So when principal dancers Alexandra Ansanelli and Jenifer Ringer were sent home with injuries, he tapped the fledgling Fairchild for the lead role in “Coppelia.” With only a few rehearsals with ballet mistress Merrill Ashley and a stack of notes, Fairchild danced all of the performances of “Coppelia” at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center that summer — including two in one day.
The knees of his blue jeans are caked in dirt and his hands are permanently dirty, but Michael DiCrescenzo would rather wear jeans and a dirty T-shirt to work than a suit jacket and tie.
At 31, DiCrescenzo, who has a degree in business management from SUNY Plattsburgh, has rejected a life behind a desk and hopes to make a life as a vintner.
DiCrescenzo’s father, Louis Franco DiCrescenzo, bought the vineyard for his retirement. As an Italian immigrant who came to America when he was 23, DiCrescenzo, is no stranger to making wine and growing grapes. In Italy, his family had a vineyard and grew other types of fruit. The elder DiCrescenzo taught his son the art of wine making when he was a child.
Early July means picnics, parks and plans for the long, hot summer. Young people in the Schenectady area have always used the Fourth of July holiday to finally celebrate independence from homework, tests, school buses and early mornings. They have always found things to do -- as these photos from the '60s and '70s show.
Silver Bay YMCA of the Adirondacks is nestled on the western shore of Lake George a few miles above Bolton Landing and just north of Tongue Mountain. It has been attracting visitors for more than a century with its wonderful location, beautiful view, friendly staff and volunteers like Devenger and Halm, and its century-old, 1,100-seat convention center, simply called the Auditorium. The original one had been built 1906-07, but on July 1, 1908, a fire of “suspicious nature” reduced it to ruins.
Rocket bombs, Corsair airplanes, stars of aviation and speeches — they were all part of the General Electric Co’s Air Research Show on June 21 and 22, 1946.
“Timed to the lightning-like arrival of three jet-powered P-80 Shooting Stars, firing of the bombs at the signal of General Electric’s President Charles E. Wilson will officially begin dedication ceremonies of the company’s new flight test center,” read the Schenectady Gazette.
Norton Owen arrived at Jacob’s Pillow in the summer of 1976 as a student of dance. He left as a student of history.
“Jess Meeker was playing for our ballet class,” recalled Owen, the Pillow’s director of preservation. “I sat around with Jess and he told stories about playing for [Ted Shawn’s] Men Dancers. I was fascinated, especially by the thought that the stories took place right here. That is what sparked it for me. I was never really interested in dance history, but when you hear the personal stories and have direct personal contact with the storyteller. It was like a lightning bolt. I made the connection.”
The Photography Center of the Capital District’s latest exhibit, “The Unknowns: Images from a Bygone Era,” which runs through July 26, captures one of the main reasons that executive director Nicholas Argyros opened the venue two years ago.
Quite simply, he wants to preserve not only the technological history of photography, but the images of the people who went to the trouble and expense of having their portraits taken in an era when it wasn’t just a matter of whipping out a cellphone and snapping a digital image in a matter of seconds.
Taking an old run-down house and turning it into a spanking new home is what Allan Barber loves to do. Still, the structure at 12 Morris Ave. in Schenectady was quite a daunting challenge.
Barber has shared the home with Craig Taylor since they bought it together in 2005. The two men had been living in a home on Campbell Avenue they had renovated back in 2000, and very likely would have remained there if not for a phone call from another Morris Avenue resident, Bernard McEvoy. McEvoy, who spearheaded the effort to get Morris Avenue designated as a historic district back in 1992, was looking for new owners to move into the vacant home just across the street.
“We were already living in a beautiful house when Dr. McEvoy called. So I told him, ‘no thank you,’ ” said Barber. “But then I talked to Craig and we decided to take a look at it. The house had been empty for a year and was in foreclosure. It was a total mess. But, here we are.”
The two men purchased the home in April of 2005, started work on it right away, and by August it was ready to move in.
A female moose that wandered the streets of Saratoga Springs is corralled and tranquilized on Monday by officers from the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Saratoga Springs and Lake George have always been popular with the vacation set. During the summer of 1953, the Schenectady Gazette decided to bring the two resorts to newspaper readers. Photographer Charles B. Sellers Jr. and reporter Kathy McGarry hit the road for words and pictures on the two communities, part of a seasonal series. The reports on the resorts were glowing.
Today we’ve got the Internet flashing images to us from around the globe, but less than a century ago, it was artist Rockwell Kent who opened Americans’ eyes to scenery they could only dream about.
Relishing stark wilderness vistas of mountains, ice, ocean and forest, Kent lived in Alaska, Greenland, Newfoundland and Tierra del Fuego, the frigid islands at the foot of South America. He painted in and wrote adventure memoirs about these places, and made stops in Vermont, Ireland and Maine, before settling at Asgaard, his farm in the northern Adirondacks.
And yet there is so much more to tell about the complex Kent, who was also a notorious philanderer (three wives and many lovers); and a political activist who embraced socialism as a young man.
White and blue flags that display images of FDR and his wife, Eleanor, flutter from utility poles in the small Dutchess County town on the Hudson River, reminders that the nation’s 32nd president was born in Hyde Park in 1882. Signs that welcome travelers feature Roosevelt in well-known profile, reading glasses at a slight downward angle, clenched cigarette holder jutting into the air.
For nearly two decades, tourists at the Vanderbilt Mansion have been asking park ranger Allen Dailey for directions to Hyde Park. His retort remains the same.
“I tell them, ‘You’re here,’ ” said Dailey, who earlier this month celebrated his 17th anniversary as a park ranger at the Vanderbilt Mansion National Historic Site in the town of Hyde Park in the lower Hudson Valley. “Yeah, I know, it can get a little confusing. They want to go see FDR’s home. They think that’s Hyde Park.”
These photos show a large-scale investigation involving local and federal authorities taking place this afternoon at an auction house off Congress Street in Schenectady.
As the Dutch replica ship the Onrust, built in Rotterdam Junction, sailed back up the Hudson River, Gazette photographer Peter R. Barber was aboard Wednesday to capture these images.
In attempt to raise awareness for the rare Canadian Horse breed, Rick Blackburn of Morin Heights, Quebec, is riding his Canadians Hannah and Galopin from Quebec to Texas, along the original French trade route. His wife, Louise, is following in a camper. They stopped in Rotterdam Junction on Wednesday.
For people living in Schenectady during the 1950s, the “great escape” meant Central Park.
When spring and summer turned up the heat, adults and children found spots inside the 250-acre park off Central Parkway. Kids could always find diversions in the water of Iroquois Lake, on supervised playground swings and motorized rides. Older kids sunbathed and socialized. Adults fished and relaxed with cards and conversation at picnic tables.
“There’s hardly a thing you can’t do at the park,” William F. Eddy, Schenectady’s director of parks and recreation during the summer of 1955, said to Schenectady Gazette reporter Kathy Muller.
Artist Georgia O’Keeffe is an icon of America’s 20th century, known for paintings of voluptuous flowers and sun-bleached animal bones. A pioneer of American Modernism, she was a fiercely independent woman who blazed the trail for female artists. But most Americans don’t know much about the soft-spoken Arthur Dove, an artist who energized the enigmatic O’Keeffe during her early career. Another important figure in American Modernism, Dove was one of our country’s first abstract painters. “Dove/O’Keeffe: Circles of Influence,” this summer’s big show at the Clark Art Institute, is the first exhibit to deeply explore the lifelong bond of inspiration and admiration between the two artists.
The first time Andy Chestnut saw the big house at 1286 Wendell Ave., it was in a blinding snowstorm. Still, he immediately felt there was something special about the place. The house, originally the home of Judge Alexander M. Vedder, now belongs to Chestnut and his wife, Heather, who both grew up in Schenectady. This weekend, they and a few of the neighbors will open their homes to the public for the GE Realty Plot’s House and Garden Tour.
Air France Airbus A330 carrying 228 people was reported missing between Rio de Janeiro and Paris, officials said today. The plane hit strong turbulence and lost contact with air traffic controllers over the Atlantic Ocean.
A guy always had a place to go — and something to do — when the Schenectady Boys’ Club was open.
Paul S. Young was running the show in 1951. He was around when kids wanted to develop photos in the small darkroom, fire up the electric kiln for ceramics, play a little basketball. Or checkers and Ping-Pong.
The Boys’ Club in Schenectady and ones across the nation offered kids more than just diversions during the early 1950s.
Jazz is often heavily concerned with tradition. And it's not as if pianist Arturo O'Farrill or vocalist Rachael Price are disconnected from the tradition. But talk to either of them today, and, despite different paths within the jazz genre, both seem to be more concerned with the new, rather than the old.
The home of Beth Hartle-Fecteau and Marc Fecteau looks almost stern from the outside. Three stories high, aging brick, it sits commandingly on a busy block in downtown Saratoga. But inside, it’s a completely different story. There’s light and there’s laughter and there’s a gourmet kitchen. There are glowing wood floors and sweeping ceilings and plenty of room to pirouette. It’s the ideal home for the Fecteaus — she, the director of Nacre Dance, and he, a CPA and weekend gourmet cook.
What’s amazing is they found the place by accident.
Joseph A. Battaglia rests far from home. The Army private from Schenectady died in Belgium during World War II. He was wounded in action on Dec. 30, 1944 and passed away on Jan. 7, 1945. He was 20 years old.
Battaglia is buried in Belgium’s Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery and Memorial. In all, 7,992 servicemen are buried at Henri-Chapelle.
Frank Battaglia can speak of the past. Memories of his younger brother are never far away. “He was a good guy, a smart kid, good fellow,” said Frank, 86, a World War II veteran who lives in Rotterdam.
Dennis and Gerda Hermsen of Brunssum, a town in the southeastern Netherlands, speak of the present. They have “adopted” Joseph’s grave and visit three or four times a year. They bring flowers; they thank Joe and his brother soldiers for their courage and sacrifice.
Race car driver Jessica Zemken, 23, of Sprakers is shown at home Friday in her garage, at a Fonda diner on Saturday and at Fonda Speedway in action on Saturday night. Gazette photos by Peter R. Barber.
Hundreds turned out Wednesday at the Mabee Farm Historic Site in Rotterdam Junction to see the ship Onrust, built with 17th century techniques, moved from its construction site to the Mohawk River. Gazette photographer Marc Schultz was on hand.
A large crowd turned out for the parade and other activities Saturday at the 28th annual Niska-Day celebration, which also marked the town's bicentennial. Gazette photographer Peter Barber captured these scenes along Nott Street and other locations.
General Electric unveiled plans today for a new battery manufacturing plant in the Capital Region that will produce sodium-based batteries for hybrid trains and other vehicles. GE Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Immelt, Gov. David Paterson and other officials were on hand at GE Global Research in Niskayuna.
Before there was Niskayuna, at least the way it looks today, there was the Schoppmier farm.
Now the home of David and Bridget Denofio, the house on Regent Street is reputedly the oldest house in the town of Niskayuna. Just off Grand Boulevard where the long downhill stretch of Story Avenue comes to its terminus at Regent Street, the structure was built in 1835. While several people have lived there, including the Carpenter family before the Schoppmiers and General Electric research physicist Guy Suits afterward, it’s the Schoppmier name that endures, and that’s regardless of how you spell it.
Mr. Zilly and Mr. Shaw had three things in common.
Both had the same first name — Fred — both
were the same age and
both loved airplanes. Make that four things: Both loved to fly airplanes. Fred J. Zilly Jr., 34, was commanding officer of the Air National Guard’s 139th Fighter Squadron in 1954. Fred Shaw, 34, was a longtime commercial pilot who flew American Airlines’ planes to and from Albany.
Have gauze, will travel — Shirley Stevens Whitbeck lived by those words in 1955.
The 24-year-old woman worked for Schenectady County’s public health nursing unit. She brought her little black bag to agencies and private homes around the county, bathing babies, checking on the elderly and treating sick people.
Most things do not change at Angelo Menagias’ diner. The light clatter of coffee cups and dinner plates means that breakfast, lunch or dinner is heading for booth, table or counter. Fruit-topped cheesecakes and frosted chocolate cakes fill a glass cooler, silent advertising for another helping of calories. Omelettes and home fries remain favorites for the Sunday morning crowd.
Hustle and bustle is part of April in Paris. In 1948, the same was true for April in Schenectady. The city hosted an exiled European leader and an early television star. During the month, large crowds showed up for support of the new Jewish homeland in Palestine, and for support of a new furniture store in downtown.
Hundreds of students from 12 middle schools offered suggestions for The Daily Gazette’s 2009 Capital Region Earth Day Project. The newspaper’s Life and Arts department asked kids to come up with innovative, creative ways to reduce garbage, prevent pollution and encourage recycling — save the world in a paragraph or two. Thirty of the best suggestions appear today, in the newspaper’s print and online editions.
The creative energy spills like sunlight from the house at 7 Hills Road in Loudonville. And early-spring anticipation is budding in every room. Designers bustle here and there, paintbrushes in hand, coaxing possibility to fruition, their laughter bouncing off the freshly painted walls.
The metamorphosis unfolding at this home is all in preparation for Vanguard-Albany Symphony’s annual Designer Showhouse fundraiser, to benefit the Albany Symphony Orchestra.
Each year for the past 29 years, the volunteer organization has sought out a home to redecorate and has invited the area’s most talented designers and decorative painters to join them in the effort. Those chosen have a little less than eight weeks to completely transform the space assigned to them. Once the home is picture-perfect, the public is invited in for tours.
This year’s Showhouse began as a 2000-square-foot, 1950s ranch. The home’s original owner lived there until about two years ago.
Beginning Saturday, the Schenectady County Historical Society will present “The Most Beautiful Land: Schenectady County’s History.” Photos and artifacts from Schenectady County’s first 200 years will be on display at the society’s headquarters, 32 Washington Ave. The colorful exhibit is designed to inform. Stories, paintings and photos of the Mohawk Indians, the Erie Canal, city industry, county towns and people from the past are all part of the show. So is a restored wooden sign that once helped people find “Jacob Mabee’s Inn.”
The Schenectady High School community searches for answers following the suicides of four girls -- Kuanna, Jalissa, Mary and Cherelle -- over the past four months.
The grand hall in the Arts Center on the Hudson was silent. But the people, rimming the edges of this large sanctuary, communicated. With slow, sustained motion, they rocked back and forth on their feet and floated their arms toward the center. And in doing so, they created a vibrant, invisible stream of energy among them.
These movers, actors, singers and gymnasts have come from as far as Germany, France and Mexico to take this course in Spacial Dynamics — the practice of commanding a room and communicating without words.
These photos provided by News 10 Now in Syracuse show the envelope that contained a letter purported to be written by gunman Jiverly Wong, photos of Wong and his gun permit.
A large crowd turned out under mostly sunny skies Sunday to watch the action in the annual Tenandeho Creek White Water Derby race and "Anything that Floats" competition.
Scenes from Tuesday's special election for the open 20th Congressional District seat between Scott Murphy (D-Glens Falls) and James Tedisco (R-Glenville).
Wilson W. Wyatt knew something about Schenectady’s past. He was thinking more toward the city’s future on Monday, March 29, 1948. Wyatt, the former federal housing expediter and mayor of Louisville, Ky., served as main speaker during Schenectady’s Sesquicentennial celebration, which observed the 150th anniversary of the city charter and saluted Dutch heritage. Wyatt was famous for his organizational skills in Louisville during World War II. The 42-year-old attorney and politician knew urban planning, and offered tips for Schenectady’s next 150 years. Some were simple. He urged a “no parking” policy on key city streets and a high-quality transportation system.
During and shortly after World War II, when storekeepers received shipments of precious bubble gum -- precious because it was scarce -- for their shelves, word spread fast. In June 1946, Schenectady kids learned their favorite masticatory delight was in stock at Saul Stern’s grocery store at 132 N. College St. and at John Nelarico’s Piggly Wiggly store at 2627 Broadway. Nelarico and Stern didn’t need juvenile riots, so they planned ahead, setting up a system for orderly distribution.
Latin ballroom dancing owes a lot to the Palladium. Back in the 1950s, this New York City dance hall sharpened Latino sounds and its steps. Driven by the music of the Big Three, Tito Rodriguez, Tito Puente and Machito, the Palladium gave birth to mambo mania and the cha-cha craze — spells that were cast upon anyone paying two bucks at the door.
Those days are long gone. But the dance and music still resonate — one reason why Ballet Hispanico pays a nostalgic, loving tribute to the dance hall’s heyday in “Palladium Nights.”
Gareth Griffiths’ garden in Scotia is the sort of garden that gardeners dream about. It is a visual delight created in the past nine years by an adventurous woman who is passionate about plants, has an eye for the unusual — especially concerning conifers — and whose spirit is ready, willing and able in all things horticultural.
The “31st Annual Photography Regional” is just too tame a name for this year’s show, curated by Elizabeth Dubben, an artist and College of Saint Rose art grad who runs Albany’s well-regarded Amrose Sable Gallery.
How about “Beyond the Photo Regional” or “Adventures in Contemporary Photography?”
Even the words “image” or “photographer” don’t quite fit. Among the 54 works by 13 artists, you’ll see video, sculpture, painting and mixed media. Without checking the rules, I’d guess that some of these pieces would never make it into the juried show.
While most flamenco dance companies tout their stars, Flamenco Vivo! touts the dance. Carlota Santana, its co-founder and artistic director, always believed the art, not the performers, should take center stage. Stars may come and go, but Flamenco Vivo! lives on.
The oldest flamenco dance company in the United States, it is also a favorite in area theaters, including The Egg, where it returns Friday with a program that surveys the soul of flamenco. From upbeat Alegrias to the sorrowful Seguiriya, Flamenco Vivo! will express the art form’s emotional range. And as the dancers and musicians divulge their pride and passion, Santana encourages the audience to respond in kind
The Schenectady County chapter of the American Red Cross was full of helping hands in 1948.
During the late winter, members of the longtime goodwill and good deed organization needed a little help themselves. The Red Cross was hoping for $119,100 from the community, money raised during the group’s annual fund campaign.
The Schenectady County Bicentennial Commission held its “Bicentennial Gala Celebration” Saturday night at the Glen Sanders Mansion in Scotia, marking the start of a yearlong series of events.
hen the church that Mary Pidgeon has been attending for more than 60 years closes this spring, the only thing she’ll take away will be a host of wonderful memories. Sean Bryant, meanwhile, is looking for something he can actually put his hands on.
St. Mary’s and St. John the Baptist, two churches and two historic Schenectady landmarks, are among the 33 parishes designated by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany to close this year — St. John the Baptist on June 1 and St. Mary’s on June 30. To many parishioners, their absence will be a deep, heartfelt loss, and for some, taking away something from the building, some tangible kind of relic, will help ease the pain.
Gazette columnist Carl Strock recently journeyed to the holy city of Varanasi, India. No place in the world is so beautiful, so foul and so otherworldly, he reports, and offers these photographs.
Gazette columnist Carl Strock recently journeyed to the holy city of Varanasi, India. No place in the world is so beautiful, so foul and so otherworldly, he reports, and offers these photographs.
Take a look around your workspace, be it cubicle, office, garage, etc. Imagine taking a snapshot of yourself working there. Decades later, someone unearths the snapshot. What could they learn about you and about how you worked?
Liza Kirwin, curator of manuscripts at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, made a study of photographs of some of the most prominent artists of the past two centuries for her book “Artists in Their Studios” (Collins Design, 2007), co-authored by Joan Lord. The book was the impetus for an exhibition on the same subject, “Artists in Their Studios,” which is now on view at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass.
Emily Mombourquette stood on top of a log suspended a few inches off the ground Tuesday and methodically swung downwards with a broad-bladed ax.
Wedges of wood flew into the air until half of the log was cut out. Then she turned around and repeated the process until a final blow split the 9-inch-thick log in half.
Mombourquette, 20, is one of several members of SUNY Cobleskill’s Woodsmen’s Club practicing their skills in anticipation of the college’s first intercollegiate Woodsmen’s Competition, slated for this Saturday.
For Schenectady, it was the big broadcast of 1949. Horace Heidt and his Musical Knights, stars of the radio dial, were in town for a show at the state Armory on Washington Avenue.
If Paul Stewart is right, the house at 194 Livingston Ave. in Albany experienced just as much revelry as it did unrest.
“When you say Underground Railroad, you think of a lot of secrecy and people hiding in corners,” said Stewart, who along with his wife, Mary Liz, started the Underground Railroad History Project of the Capital Region almost 10 years ago.
“But the closer you look at things, the more you learn. They entertained people at their dinner table. They probably had them sleeping in the upstairs bedroom. It’s not like they were hiding them in the basement.”
“They” were Stephen and Harriet Myers, a black couple who lived in the house on Livingston Avenue for somewhere between 30 and 40 years. In the three decades leading up to the Civil War, the home was a major stop on the Underground Railroad, an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by slaves seeking freedom in the North and Canada.
Life is funny sometimes. Or, in local comedian Greg Aidala’s case, life is funny all the time.
“I get inspiration out of life,” Aidala said during a recent interview at a diner in Albany. “Everything is like a comedy sense. Plus, if not, I’d be crying all the time, know what I mean?”
Children were given their Saturday bath in a sense, when they went to Ballston Spa's Bath St. which had been transformed, with a little help from snow dumped by trucks and payloaders, into a giant sledding hill as part of the annual Ballston Spa Winter Fun Festival.
At the bottom of the hill, visitors were treated to refreshments provided by the Eagle Matt Lee Fire Co.
Weather was nearly perfect- warm enough to enjoy, while also cold enough to keep the snow in place
After 11 years in New York City, choreographer Vanessa Paige Swanson has come to the conclusion that the more abstract your art, the better.
“There is a lot of pressure to be weird,” said Swanson. “I thought I was weird already, but it is never enough in New York.”
That’s why it was so refreshing, these past few months, for her to flee the city and return to her old dancing grounds in Albany. As the first guest choreographer of Nacre Dance Company, Swanson was able to create a pure dance — one in which technique is not something a dancer needs to hide, but something to be used and celebrated.
When journalists tell us about the world, it’s “just the facts, ma’am” — quick observations that are tightly focused. When artists look at human affairs, there are no limits. And then there’s the viewer, who introduces yet another dimension, as the art is absorbed and interpreted in a process that is unfathomable and deeply personal. So it is with “The Oatman-Lail NewsHour,” a potent and penetrating commentary by Michael Oatman and Thomas Lail at Hudson Valley Community College’s impressive 2,000-square-foot art gallery.
People concerned with saving face will not visit Eric Zenner this week.
Folks interested in hiding face might: Mardi Gras will be celebrated Tuesday, and partiers will put their eyes and noses behind both simple and sensational masks.
“Every year it grows and catches on more and more,” said Zenner, director of purchasing for The Costumer costume store, of the final day before Ash Wednesday. “It’s a holiday second to Halloween for masks.”
Given the popularity of baseball in upstate New York and the proximity to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, it seems only natural that a major manufacturer of baseball bats would relocate to the region.
Kevin Lane, co-owner of Carolina Clubs, which competes with Louisville and Rawlings in the number of bats manufactured, moved the business from Wilmington, Fla., to the Charleston Industrial Park in November.
Carolina is the fourth largest manufacturer of baseball bats in the country. It manufacturers about 12,000 maple and ash baseball bats a year for Major League Baseball players including Paul McAnulty of the Boston Red Sox and Casey Blake of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
It was “All Aboard!” for history in Schenectady on Thursday, Jan. 27, 1949.
The New York State Freedom Train had pulled into the railroad yards off Edison Avenue, and classrooms full of kids got the chance to travel into the past. Eighty-nine documents from days and decades past were packed into six blue and gold cars, and offered the public details about old New York.
It’s been said that the wedding day is the most important day in a woman’s life. But a bride can’t enjoy her day of love in the limelight if she does not feel comfortable in her gown.
That is unlikely to happen if the bride is dressed by Kim Vanyo. The couturier creates dresses to fit to any bride’s frame. And not only that, her dresses reflect the bride’s personality. And, perhaps most importantly, her gowns help the bride feel gorgeous.
In her petit atelier in Saratoga Springs and in her home studio in Schuylerville, the Fashion Institute of Technology graduate is known for her artistry and ability to design and sew distinctive frocks. For the past 23 years, she has clothed dancers, prom-goers as well as brides, mother of the brides and the bridal entourages. And on Sunday, Feb. 22, Vanyo will unveil her latest creation at the Enchanted Wedding Bridal Expo in the Saratoga Springs City Center.</p>
The man in black jacket and pants stepped cautiously up the snow at Maple Ski Ridge in Rotterdam. He was on skis, on the “bunny slope” — the gentle incline used by rookie sliders at the ski center off Mariaville Road.
Frederica “Freddie” Anderson didn’t like the man’s slow, sideways steps. A second later, he lost his balance and slipped backwards toward the bottom of the bunny. “Oh boy, he’s in trouble,” said Anderson, as the man grabbed a railing near a rope tow and crouched to his knees. His limbs remained intact; his dignity suffered a few bruises. The novice should have talked to Freddie. The Niskayuna woman has been teaching children and adults to ski since the 1940s. She and members of her Schenectady Ski School are on the job weekdays and weekends, helping people keep their balance and speed in check. With schools closed for the Presidents’ Week break, ski instructors will have their hands and feet full Monday through Friday.
Saratoga Springs might be the August place to be, but it is also the February place to get off the couch and on your feet as people participated over Valentine's Day weekend in the 22nd annual Dance Flurry Festival.
The downtown was converted to an entertainment area as restaurants, halls and storefronts hosted the event. Performers sang, participants danced, and food was consumed.
Practically any dancing style or technique was on display somewhere in the city.
The best feet were put forward, and they'll no doubt return again next year to repeat the process.
Wesley Baxter never lacked companionship during the 1950s — there were always young people around his parents’ West Charlton home.
As foster parents, Eleanor and Edson Baxter ensured that dozens of young boys and girls had shelter and supper every night.
To celebrate the hundredth anniversary of Robert Peary’s 1909 expedition to the North Pole, the Berkshire Museum presents “Race to the Top: Arctic Inspirations 1909 & Today” through May 17. Berkshire Museum founder Zenas Crane funded Peary's trip. When Peary returned from his successful expedition, he gave the museum one of the sledges he used, as well as a fur suit worn by his companion and fellow explorer, the largely overlooked Matthew Henson, an African American.
Crandall Public Library officials expected an increase in traffic once the library reopened in December after an $18 million expansion. But they were still floored by the public’s reaction.
“We knew it would increase and be popular but we are just thrilled by the interest the community has given us,” said Kathleen Naftaly, assistant library director.
Getting together 400 years of information and putting it on display is quite a project; about the biggest the Albany Institute of History & Art has ever taken on.
“Hudson River Panorama: 400 Years of History, Art and Culture” opens Saturday at the institute and will run through Jan. 4, 2010. As the title suggests, it’s an all-encompassing subject that could include just about anything and everything in the institute’s collection.
Cabin fever is not alive and well in Saratoga Springs. The city held an annual Winterfest event throughout the city, climaxing with a Chowderfest which brought crowds to area restaurants to sample and judge offerings. The event was sponsored by the Saratoga Convention and Tourism Bureau.
By all accounts, George Westinghouse Jr. had a healthy amount of love and respect for his parents, George Sr. and Emmeline. They, no doubt, loved him in return, even if they didn’t always encourage some of his best ideas.
For example, George Sr. felt his son’s experimentation with an air brake would be a complete and dismal failure. The son proved father wrong on that count, but when it came to his mother and their biggest issue — her residence — she never yielded. If he wanted to build a nice house on a hill just south of the city, he could go right ahead. She, however, wasn’t going to live there.
The Bond Funeral Home, situated at 1614 Guilderland Ave. just off of Broadway, was built in 1887 by George Westinghouse Jr. for his mother just three years following the death of George Sr.
The coming four months promise snowflakes and spring flowers. But for culture buffs, the coming weeks also offer plenty in the way of art and entertainment.
hen you hear the word “horses” and Saratoga County, you probably immediately think about the race course. Jean Hatalsky of Mechanicville, an avid and accomplished horsewoman, would like to change that. In addition to those top-rated thoroughbreds, Hatalsky would like the world to know about the quality show horses bred in New York state.
In the show horse world, they call her “the New York girl.” Her horses compete with world-class entrants from big horse states such as Oklahoma, Texas and Florida. “My goal right now is being able to show the quality that New York can have and can offer in horses,” she said.
Hundreds of people - including Daily Gazette columnist Carl Strock - gathered along the shores of Lake George on New Year's Day for the annual Polar Plunge. While most took the plunge into the frigid lake, Carl was content to just take photos.
The weather gave snow, followed by arctic temperatures, but First Night revelers came to Saratoga Springs anyway on Wednesday night to hear bands and solo performers, greet each other and help bring in a new year. The event concluded with a fireworks demonstration from Congress Park.
Brothers Brian and William Hart have an unusual way of training for the annual Polar Bear plunge at Shepard Park Beach, Lake George, on New Year’s Day. “We train year-round for this event,” said William, 57, who weighs about 300 pounds. “We consume as much alcohol as possible. We eat as much fatty food as possible, and we smoke as many cigars as possible. After all, this is our sport.”
The Northeast Ballet gave its annual performances of "The Nutcracker" Dec. 13-15 at Proctors and Gazette writer - and cast member - Jeff Wilkin shared some backstage photos.
Schenectady’s Stockade neighborhood, the city’s first settlement, is dotted with magnificent wooden doors, some carved, some accented by leaded glass, some framed with wrought-iron fencing. This time of year, the doors mark the season with wreaths, plain or decorated with pine cones, ribbons and fruit.
Magic & Melodies is an annual event sponsored by the Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corp. and tied to Proctors’ annual “Melodies of Christmas” concert.
An ice storm blitzed the Capital Region Thursday and Friday, leaving many communities without power and forcing hardships on people for several more days to come.
Each year after Thanksgiving, the Lyon St. area in Amsterdam comes alive at night with the Kristy Pollak Memorial Childrens Park. An elaborate Christmas display greets visitors as they drive through the lights. Visitors are encouraged, but not required, to leave donations, all which go to the aid of severely ill children and their families. The display is now in its ninth year.
Northeast Ballet is preparing for ts annual performance of "The Nutcracker," which features Gazette Life & Arts writer Jeff Wilkin in the role of Mother Ginger.
The Fage USA plant in Johnstown began yogurt production in April. The facility is the newest and most state-of-art owned by the subsidiaries' Greek parent company.
Several varieties of Christmas trees are available at Ellm's Family Tree Farm in Ballston Spa, which is a traditional spot for many holiday tree shoppers.
Crowds, not cars, filled Broadway Thursday night as Saratoga Springs held its 22nd annual Victorian Streetwalk event. Participants were treated to cider, cookies and entertainment which ranged from saxophone-toting Santas to complete church choirs as the downtown welcomed the Christmas season. As in previous years, automobiles were banned from the area while the event occurred.
LED Christmas lights are growing in popularity as their price comes down. The lights offer brighter glow and energy savings when compared to incandescent bulbs.
Santa was on the right float in the annual Waterford Christmas parade on Saturday night. Sponsored by the local Masons, the float took first place honors as announced at the conclusion of the parade at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Park, where a tree lighting ceremony was also held. Temperatures were cold but the air was dry as the community celebrated the Holiday season.
Despite temperatures that dropped into the teens Friday night, a robust crowd filled Main Street in Johnstown to watch the sixth annual Classic Image Johnstown Holiday Parade.
Jeff Wilkin and two Daily Gazette colleagues picked up all the flour, eggs, fruits and vegetables that will be used by Schenectady County Community College culinary professors and students to make 10 reader-submitted recipes that will be featured at the Autumn Cake Party from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday in the Van Curler Room of Schenectady County Community College.
MASS MoCA, the nation’s largest contemporary art space, is getting even bigger. On Sunday, Nov. 16, the museum known for its art experiments will unwrap an extraordinary art experience — one mile of wall space covered with 100 geometric drawings by the late Sol LeWitt, a founder of conceptual and minimalist art.
Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective is housed in Building No. 7, a 27,000-square-foot space that was renovated especially for the exhibit and is opening to the public for the first time. The LeWitt installation, which will inhabit Building No. 7 for 25 years, expands the MASS MoCA galleries by 25 percent.
A freak autumn winter storm dumped as much as a foot of snow on parts of the Capital Region on Tuesday. These photos come from Gazette and Associated Press staff photographers and Gazette readers.
For Greenwich native Becky Mann, it started out with some wallets. Eventually, she moved on to larger items, such as a messenger bag. Things culminated with a prom dress that Mann created for an art class at Greenwich Central School during the final months of 2004. All of those objects share one thing in common — Mann built them with duct tape.
Every old house has its characteristic creaks and groans: the hiss and moan of steam heat, the whine and crack of old wood, the rustle of mice in the walls. But when you’re lying awake in the middle of the night at the Olde Knox Mansion, the things that go bump in the night aren’t so easy to explain away.
The 110-year-old Johnstown home, now run as a museum and bed and breakfast, is rumored to be haunted
For high school students in Schenectady, a slate of “do-it-yourself” courses prepared young men and women for paychecks as nurses, welders, woodworkers, machinists and other jobs in the workforce in the fall of 1957.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. has confirmed plans to build a $4.5 billion computer chip factory on the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Malta and Stillwater.
Pajama parties, fund drives, ice cream sundaes and singing in school — they were all part of teenage life during the mid-1950s. So was Rotterdam’s former Draper High School.
Three men are facing felony gang assault charges, accused of severely beating another man Friday in his home following an incident in a St. Johnsville bar.
The weekly Capital Region Scrapbook feature looks back at October of 1959, when a testimonial dinner was held to honor longtime Mohawk Golf Club pro Jim Thomson.
A look back at activities of the Schenectady Aeroneers Club as they enjoyed their model planes in 1958 in this week's "Capital Region Scrapbook" feature.
Syrup season for Tony Van Glad has long been when maple tree sap flows near winter’s end, but a September harvest of sweet sorghum is adding a second sweet season at his Wood Homestead Farm on Blenheim Hill.
After a smaller experiment last year, Van Glad is now cutting about 40 acres of sweet sorghum, squeezing the sugar-rich juice from the stalks, then boiling off the water to make an amber syrup and sweetener more familiar to Southerners than Yankees.
The past 40 years have been far from an easy journey for The Eighth Step. The venerable Capital Region folk organization, which began as a coffeehouse in Albany’s First Presbyterian Church in 1967, has weathered two moves with several years of nomadic wandering in the interim periods, as well as ups and downs in the music’s popularity. Now, as Eighth Step prepares to launch its 41st season, its second at Proctors in Schenectady, with French-Acadian group Gadelle on Saturday, director Margie Rosenkranz is preparing for what she called “a pivotal year.”
Montgomery County sheriff's deputies have charged 13 teenagers with committing a string of recent crimes, including burglaries, car larcenies, criminal mischief and the use of stolen credit cards. Deputies are withholding the identities of five of the suspects because of their ages.
Wilton resident Molly McMaster, a colon cancer survivor, co-founded the Colondar, a calendar featuring survivors who bare their scars to help raise awareness of the disease.
The Heritage Home for Women has a celebrated history of helping "sisters" in need. The home if for women who can no longer live on their own or who want the socialability the place provides.
Vote from the three cars that won our monthly "Cool Car for Summer Contest" and choose the ultimate "Cool Car Of Summer.<br/>
Click on car to browse and vote for your favorite.
Truly appreciating Lindenwald, much like getting to know and admiring Martin Van Buren, requires some effort. You have to delve into the interior and take a much closer look before coming to any conclusions.
Claude Monet had a special relationship with Giverny. The Impressionist painter called the French country village beautiful and “a splendid spot.” And he said “my heart is to Giverny forever and ever.”
A mud-splattered Rajiv Maragh walks briskly through the clubhouse at Saratoga Race Course, minutes after the fourth race on a sunny Thursday afternoon.
The 23-year-old Maragh, a jockey for the past five years, is concluding his first season at Saratoga. “It’s an amazing feeling for me,” he said. “Nowhere else compares. I love riding at Belmont, but Saratoga, it’s a different atmosphere. You have a lot of racing fans, people who really love the game.”
Irish eyes smile during the middle of March. Scottish eyes smile near the end of August.
The sons and daughters of the former group wear their green around St. Patrick’s Day. The dancers and pipers of the latter wear their tartan plaids for the long-running Capital District Scottish Games, held in late summer.
This year’s Games take place Saturday and Sunday at the Altamont Fairgrounds. Piping, drumming and dancing are on the agenda. Stage bands, exhibits by Scottish clans and societies and jewelry and gift sales are other planned diversions.
The white balls in the New York State Lottery’s game machines are doing their midafternoon flutter, zooming and bouncing inside plastic bins like giant kernels of popcorn.
It can’t help but catch the eye: a sprawling bluestone structure akin to a castle, a newcomer on a street of gracious old Victorian manors. Boldly seated a stone’s throw from the sidewalk, the mansion beckons passers-by to listen for the music of its fountains, admire its impeccably kept gardens, bend to smell the Russian sage that bows between the bars of its wrought-iron fence, strain for a glimpse beyond the multitude of arched windows.
Giant bowls of green and lavender hang from the long, neat front porch of the Union Gables bed and breakfast in Saratoga Springs.
Wicker chairs and tables stand on the wood, ready for people and small parties on Union Avenue.
Zumba is the latest exercise craze, and classes are being offered around the region to introduce people to the dance. Gazette photographer Bruce Squiers caught the action at Zumba classes in Clifton Park and Saratoga Springs.
It took a lot of searching for Seth Benzel to find just the right house. A horse trainer by trade, he wanted a residence close to Saratoga Race Course, but had to find one to fit his budget.
Fledgling rider Leo “Pepper” Belouin of Schenectady, a 1952 graduate of Mont Pleasant High School, participated in exercise drills, cooled off horses and raked the shed row at Saratoga Race Track during the summer of 1954. Photos are by Gazette photographer Charles B. Sellers.
As far as Lovett Smith is concerned, the best way to see the country is by rail, and nowhere is the view any better than from the back of the New York Central 3.
An elegant business car built in 1928 for executives of the New York Central Railroad, the NYC 3 is still transporting people to different places, although not nearly as often as when it was part of the Empire State Express during much of the 20th century. Smith, a former manager with Union Carbide and now retired, purchased the car in 1992 for $240,000 from a railroad repair yard in Florida after it had been abandoned by Conrail in Altoona, Pa.
Steve Gross and Susan Daley had already been making photographs in Schoharie County for 10 years when they brought their work to editor Jim Mairs at W.W. Norton in 1997 — and it would be another 10 years before Mairs declared the project ready for publication. But the true birth of “Time Wearing Out Memory: Schoharie County” (2008) came much earlier, in 1974, when Gross and Daley met while studying in the vaunted photography program at the University of New Mexico.
People have been camping out with coolers under pines, maples and elms since 1985, when space in back of the Saratoga Race Course grandstand was converted into a park to help accommodate Saratoga’s huge summer crowds. Visitors bring decks of cards and stacks of newspapers. Pizza, chicken wings and turkey sandwiches trimmed with lettuce and tomato slices are always on someone’s menu.
Sunglasses aren't just for summer; they're worn year-round and various styles achieve various looks. Employees Ilana Roth and Carl Phelps of Sunglasses Hut in Colonie Center model sunglass fashions, with comments from store manager Jacqueline Roland.
People have been riding the Ferris wheel over and over since 1893, when George Ferris — who studied engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy — showed off the first round giant at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
Brigette Zacharczenko is passionate about all things creepy-crawly.
The 19-year-old Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake high school graduate turned college zoology major, in fact, can’t ever recall a time when the outdoors and its myriad inhabitants were not the focal point of her days and nights.
She has gained international attention and has become a favorite among area insect enthusiasts for her ability to replicate a variety of critters by using crafting techniques her grandmother taught her as a child, including sewing, cross-stitch, knitting and crochet.
There are enough museums in Saratoga Springs to satisfy most history buffs, regardless of their particular interest, but if it’s the middle of summer and you’re in Saratoga, then the National Racing Museum and Hall of Fame is definitely the place to be.
Vote on the car you like for the "Cool Car for Summer Contest" or...<br/>
<div style="font-family:Verdana;">
<a href="/coolcars" style="text-decoration:none;">SUBMIT YOUR COOL CAR</a><br>
<a href="/contests/results/?hotcarsaugust" style="text-decoration:none;">RESULTS FOR AUGUST SO FAR</a><br/>
<a href="/photos/2008/jun/20/4174/" style="text-decoration:none;">JUNE'S WINNING CAR</a><br/>
<a href="/photos/2008/jul/03/4437/" style="text-decoration:none;">JULY'S WINNING CAR</a>
</div>
Many upstate New York villages and towns like to boast of a long and illustrious history, but in Fort Edward words such as freedom and liberty seem to ring a little bit louder.
At the Old Fort House Museum on Broadway in the village, all of Fort Edward’s rich past is on display, and what quickly becomes evident is that freedom and liberty can mean slightly different things to different people. To the townsfolk of Fort Edward during the American Revolution, the words meant overthrowing the yoke of British tyranny, and to Patrick Smyth, who built the house in 1772, they meant skedaddling to Canada to find a new home. To Solomon Northup, a black man, they meant even more
Ahva Heyman floated in the water of the Windsor Motel, skimming stray bugs off the water with a large net.
Ahva is not an official part of the staff at the compact motel at 51 Canada St., across the street from the Fort William Henry Resort and Conference Center. But the 4-year-old swimmer was happy to help her mother, Cory Heyman, evict nonpaying customers.
“Business has been very good,” said Cory, who has owned the 19-unit Windsor with her husband, Elliott Heyman, for the past 10 years. “So far, it’s been our best year.”
Even if you’re not a “car person,” Ken Gross would invite you to take a look at the Saratoga Automobile Museum’s latest exhibition. Gross is guest curator for “Cadillac: A Century of Style,” which runs through Nov. 2.
The exhibition celebrates the General Motors Centennial with a display of vehicles that come mostly from the company’s Heritage Collection, with a few from private collectors. From the earliest single-cylinder model to hot rods and hybrids, the exhibition takes visitors on a journey across a century of automotive history through the lens of this luxury brand.
When Alli Schweizer brings out-of-town guests to the office to show them around the workplace, things can easily get carried away.
Schweizer, a New Jersey native, is the park naturalist at the Saratoga Spa State Park, 2,200 acres of natural and cultural beauty nestled between routes 9 and 50 in Saratoga Springs. Designated a National Landmark in 1987, the park has so much to offer, both in the way of outdoor and indoor activity.
More than 1,000 captive-bred Karner blue butterflies were released as chrysalis into the Albany Pine Bush and emerged as adult butterflies, nearly doubling the population of the endangered species in the preserve.
When it comes to appreciating the simple things in life, Troy resident Alison Bates never passes up an opportunity to cozy up to one of summer’s most ephemeral creatures — dragonflies.
In 1966, plenty of 11-year-old kids knew what happened when Batman and Robin rushed through their secret headquarters.
The costumed crime fighters always jumped into their car.
“Atomic batteries to power,” Robin would say. “Turbines to speed.”
The famous Batmobile ignited with a rumbling, rolling growl. Flames flickered from the exhaust and the sleek, black auto zoomed toward the fictional villains’ paradise of Gotham City.
The backstretch area of the Saratoga Race Course is open for tours. Visitors will see what life is like behind the scenes for thoroughbreds and their companion animals, owners and workers.
It took 45 years, but Hancock Shaker Village has finally completed its end of an agreement to publish a catalog of the collection of Shaker collectors Edward Deming Andrews and his wife, Faith Young Andrews.
The catalog has resulted in the museum’s latest exhibition, “Gather Up the Fragments: The Andrews Shaker Collection,” which runs through Oct. 31. Passion for all things Shaker, and the resultant issue of what to do with them, was the precursor to this exhibition.
When it comes to face-washing, a surprising number of people fall into one of two categories, so say a sampling of skin experts — those who take their cleansing regimes to the extreme and those who give it little, if any, thought.
Ask a dancer who Jerome Robbins was and you’ll receive a multitude of answers: a perfectionist, a showman, a stylist and an outsider — along with a few words that are unprintable in this newspaper. But no matter what one thinks or feels about Robbins, he was undoubtedly one thing above all else — a hit maker.
Driving up Warren Street in Glens Falls, it’s impossible not to admire Hyde House. The Neo-Italian Renaissance villa is not only unusual architecture in upstate New York, it’s the heart of the Hyde Collection, an esteemed art museum and crown jewel of the city. But the roadside view was quite different in the 1920s and 1930s, when the Pruyn sisters lived on the seven-acre property and their three handsome gray stucco homes were embraced by one of the grandest gardens of the Adirondacks.
For people who love historic mansions as well as the state of Vermont and its history, it doesn’t get any better than the Park-McCullough House in North Bennington.
A Victorian mansion built in 1865 by Trenor L. Park, the Park-McCullough House represents more than 200 years of Vermont history, beginning with future governor Hiland Hall, whose parents moved onto the land in the 1770s, to John G. McCullough II, the man who in 1968 donated the home to the newly formed Park-McCullough House Association.
John Van Alstine’s sculptures realize the impossible.
Arcing steel forms teeter on their tips. Massive cuts of granite or slate hover above, floating weightless. Organic and strong, his works symbolize the fantastic.
No wonder his sculpture was selected for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
His “Ring of Unity — Circle of Inclusion” will loom over the Olympic Park this August. The chosen work, a Chinese rock buoyantly suspended in a steel circle, is an ideal metaphor for athletes who push to accomplish unending perfection.
The Norman Rockwell Museum’s latest exhibition, “Raw Nerve! The Political Art of Steve Brodner,” couldn’t be more timely. Through Oct. 26, visitors can get a look at recent political history up to the present through the lens of political illustrator Steve Brodner.
Ten stories about great fathers, some dramatic, some funny, some poignant, appeared in the newspaper on May 13. They also were posted at the Gazette’s online site. Readers were asked to choose one favorite, and vote with either an Internet or newsprint ballot.
A total of 419 votes were counted. Sara Huzar's “Honeymoon at Midnight” was the clear top choice with 112 votes. Second place went to Lynne Petroski Fuchs of Glenville, who wrote about her father Carl Petroski’s solution to a family pet crisis. Fuchs’ story, “The Parakeet Paradox,” earned 71 votes.
Joan Babcock of Schenectady, whose narrative about a father who hid clever poems for his daughters as they grew up, took third place. “Reading and Romans” received 40 votes.
Housing developers and builders in Saratoga County are always trying to tap into the magic and history of Saratoga Race Course.
Now the developer of St. Ledger's Woods, a new high-end subdivision in Malta, which is just south of the Spa City, has upped the ante in the race to blend the thrill of Saratoga with the comfort of home.
A group named Albany Partners recently hired a Hudson Valley artist to create a large sculpture of a steeplechase horse and jockey. The sculpture sits prominently at the entrance to the development, which so far has just a model home.
The sculptor of the horse, Rita Dee of Tivoli, Dutchess County, has created quite a buzz with her artistry.
The pottery wheels are spinning in Madeline Gallo’s studio. In another room, Gallo’s strong feelings about the war in Iraq emerge in a provocative clay exhibit by her and Jim Best. Upstairs, Heather Leyh turns on a torch. In the super-hot blue flame, she melts and sculpts rods of glass, creating candy-colored jewelry beads.
You might find yourself perusing the ice cream aisle of the supermarket with a new appreciation after taking in the Farmers’ Museum’s exhibition “Ice Cream: Our Cool Obsession,” on view through Oct. 31.
History through the lens of this delectable, frozen treat that Americans consume to the tune of 1 billion gallons annually incorporates lessons in sociology, technology, early American social customs, health, business, and global culture. Not to worry, though, as the lessons are so subtle that they go down just as easily as a cool scoop of ice cream on a hot day.
Artist Leigh Wen delves into the natural — rugged snow-capped mountains, raging infernos and swirling winds. Yet she is most at home in the water — both raging and calm, icy and inviting. She is submerged in the element. And her massive canvases, as well as her small square porcelain reliefs, convey the expanse and fickleness of oceans, rivers and streams.
Her renderings of water are currently on show at the Beacon Institute through July 8. And on June 13, her waves will be illuminated in the windows of the Albany Center Gallery
Gazette columnist Carl Strock took some photographs on his recent trip to Istanbul, Turkey, and as a no-cost addition to his blog he posted a selection of them so that you, the reader, can view them.
Gazette columnist Carl Strock took some photographs on his recent trip to Istanbul, Turkey, and as a no-cost addition to his blog he posted a selection of them so that you, the reader, can view them.
Edith Wharton didn’t like parties, at least not those big formal affairs with hundreds of people milling around the house and grounds enjoying tea, crumpets and their place in polite society.
But, after visiting The Mount, Wharton’s home for nine years from 1902 to 1911 and the place where she wrote “Ethan Frome” and “The House of Mirth,” it seems almost a shame she wasn’t more predisposed to entertain. The three-story home, designed by Wharton herself in the fashion of a 17th century Palladian-style English Country home, would have been a great place to host parties during the last days of the Gilded Age, but Wharton wasn’t so inclined. She was much more concerned about writing.
When author Gail Fraser created Lumby, the small town populated by quirky residents was a destination only in her novels. Today, she and her husband, Art Poulin — the folk artist who depicts Lumby on the books’ covers — own 40 acres in Greenwich, Washington County.
If you close your eyes on the Galway corner where Ralph and Nancy Caparulo’s home, Wyndbourne, sits, you’ll hear just what the Scottish settlers who likely built the homestead heard — birdsong and the breeze. And when you open your eyes, the view is probably much as it was back then as well: a fusion of forest and farmland, the Helderbergs and Green Mountains in the distance.
The annual St. Clement's Saratoga Horse Show kicked off its 49th year today at the Yaddo. The competition, which runs over two weeks, is billed as the oldest and one of the largest volunteer-operated horse shows in the country. Competition continues through Sunday, then resumes from May 14-18. Proceeds from the annual event benefit St. Clement's Regional Catholic School, an elementary school in the city that serves students from preschool through sixth grade.
Earthworms, starlings and honeybees. Oh my.
Perhaps they’re not as threatening as lions, tigers and bears, but at the New York State Museum they’re three of the more than 50 invasive, nonnative species — bugs and plants included — that make up a new exhibit called “The Invaders.” In many ways they make things a bit tougher for the natives, but that doesn’t mean Cliff Siegfried and his staff at the New York State Museum are out to get all of them.
With the Beijing Olympics just 100 days away, activists brought the Human Rights Torch Relay to the steps of the Capitol on Wednesday to remind people of China’s crackdown in Tibet and its record on human rights.
Thaddeus Kosciuszko, the Polish engineer they named the Northway’s twin bridges after, knew how to build things to make them last. Take the earthworks at Peebles Island, for instance, more than 230 years old.
“Where else in the area can you see the original remains of earthworks from the American Revolution?” asked Paul Huey, an archaeologist with the State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation whose headquarters are on Peebles Island. “They haven’t been restored, enhanced or improved for interpretation. They’re unchanged, just the way they left them. That’s pretty unique.”
Volunteers throughout the Capital Region took time out on Earth Day to participate in a host of activities designed to help take care of our natural resources.
What used to be the fringe of the industry, reserved only for the wealthy, has started to come into the mainstream. Helped along by new programs from the National Association of Home Builders, more builders and remodelers are offering their customers the option to build and improve environmentally friendly homes, better for Earth and for those who live in them.
There’s no question that the name “Stickley” is synonymous with furniture. If asked the question, “Who is Gustav Stickley?” the majority of people would most likely respond, “A furniture maker.” While that is true, there was much more to this man. The Fenimore Art Museum’s latest exhibition, “Gustav Stickley: The Enlightened Home,” which runs through Aug. 10, explores this icon of American decorative arts in the context of how he profoundly influenced American lives and culture in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Children and their families were invited to help release 600 brown trout and 300 brook trout into Geyser Creek. Technicians from the Van Hornesville Fish Hatchery operated by the Department of Environmental Protection stock the streams each year with volunteers' help. The day also included live wildlife presentations by Beth Bidwell and the Wildlife Institute of Eastern New York, Demonstrations by Eastern Mountain Sports and Capital District Flyfishers Association,Clearwater Chapter of Trout Unlimited.
Adults in their Sunday best, teenagers in sweat shirts, law enforcement officers in dress uniform and elected officials in dark business suits filled the sanctuary at the Presbyterian New England Congregational Church on Sunday to share stories, offer support and rally for rights of crime victims. Launching National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, the gathering was the first in a series of local events that will include a rose garden remembrance, a memorial brick dedication ceremony and Take Back the Night walk.
The famous fedora and bullwhip return to movie screens next month.
Harrison Ford will be wearing them as rough-and-tumble archaeologist Indiana Jones. The fictional explorer and veteran of three previous big-budget films is back in cinema action for the first time since 1989 in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”
Adventure fans will get the usual close calls and witty dialogue in a story big on mayhem and mysticism. Fashion, too: Jones just about always wears that brown hat.
Fedora experts say the return of the character, who hasn’t been at the movies since “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” could boost sales of men’s headgear.
“First, history always repeats itself,” said Vince Rua, owner of Christopher’s mens’ clothing store in Colonie Center. “Second, when the fashion role models, which are basically actors, start wearing different items such as hats, younger people take notice and start to emulate those idols.”
If you want to create something new, dare to be different and learn from your mistakes.
“Free yourself to withstand rejection and humiliation,” advises Douglas Trumbull, special-effects wizard for “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Star Wars” and “Blade Runner.” A Hollywood legend with a lifetime achievement Oscar, Trumbull now lives and works in the Berkshires.
In the 1800s, novelist Herman Melville lived on Arrowhead Farm in Pittsfield, Mass. He struggled to support his wife and four children, but never stopped writing.
Trumbull and Melville are just two of the Berkshire brains who share their secrets to success in the Feigenbaum Hall of Innovations, a new $1.2 million exhibit space at the Berkshire Museum. The 3,000-square-foot, interactive attraction was the brainchild of museum benefactors Donald S. and Armand V. Feigenbaum, founders of General Systems Co., a world-renowned pioneer in systems management and technology. Although Pittsfield is their hometown, the Feigenbaum brothers graduated from Union College in the 1940s and have a lifelong connection to Schenectady.
Five people were left homeless Tuesday afternoon after fire ripped through a two-family house less than a block away from the Schenectady Christian School off Second Avenue in Scotia.
A circle of women slowly sidestep. As they move in rhythmic unison, their hips pulse — to the right, to the center, to the left. With each flick of the hip, copper coins that dangle from colorful hip scarves jangle to the beat.
New and improved air bags, superstrong metals, higher-voltages and batteries located in different places in vehicles are among changes that make cars safer, but at the same time complicate the task of removing passengers when crashes occur. Teams of firefighters from the Amsterdam Fire Department spent hours during the past two weeks training both in a classroom and in a vehicle graveyard to tune up their skills, which can help save not only the lives of victims, but also their own.
There hasn’t been a whole lot of excitement lately at Kelly’s Station, a now-defunct hamlet in the town of Princetown about halfway between Schenectady and Duanesburg. The only noise you might hear is the running water of the Bonny Brook and the nearby Normanskill, the traffic speeding along Route 7, and perhaps the occasional blaring horn as motorists cautiously enter the Kelly’s Station Road tunnel.
The Bouck family of Perth a year ago purchased what remained of Bojud Knitting Mills and continues to make lace under a new name: Willow Street Lace. While some textile mills in the area have survived, Willow Street Lace is the only mill in New York and one of only a handful in the country that make lace.
Seven fifth-graders at Schenectady's Paige Elementary School presented a dress rehearsal Wednesday of the skit they will perform Saturday during the state Odyssey of the Mind competition at Binghamton University. The team had to create a scenario responding to the question "What might have happened to the dinosaurs that lived years ago?"
Unlike blacks, American Indians good enough to earn a spot on Major League Baseball rosters early in the 20th century weren’t told they couldn’t play.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that despite an unofficial policy that worked something like “don’t ask, don’t tell,” American Indians were often targets of the same racially based vitriol that marked Jackie Robinson’s entry into the game in 1947. Keeping a low profile may have worked for some, but for men like Louis Francis Sockalexis, prejudice was very much a part of the game and their lives.
The walls of the Saratoga Springs History Museum are now decorated with more than 30 different varieties of wallpaper: a whimsical landscape neighbors a bold geometric print; fair maidens share a wall with pensive cherubs. A vine of periwinkle posies climbs alongside a dazzling damask design. Is this curious assemblage the brainchild of some off-the-wall interior designer? Absolutely.
When Pat Goodale returns from a trip, her friends don’t ask to see the photos she took. They want to see her sketchbook journal — a diary of people, places and memorable moments that she compiles while on the road.
If you want to wow your Easter guests — or any special-occasion invitees, for that matter — before they even put a fork to their lips, start with your table setting.
Glens Falls celebrates its 100th anniversary as an incorporated city today — March 13, 2008. The city’s Chapman Historical Museum will observe the milestone with the exhibition “Building Blocks of a Community: 100 Years of Commerce in Glens Falls.” The Chapman recently allowed The Gazette to view photos in its electronic scrapbook; here are some of our favorites.
The Siena Saints celebrate after a 74-53 victory over Rider in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference championship game at the Times Union Center in Albany Monday. With the win, the Saints clinched their first NCAA tournament berth since 2002, and the fourth since the school went to Division I.
It may seem an unlikely time to be talking about a building boom, but that’s what’s happening, thanks in part to the New Urbanist credo of live where you work and work where you live.
In downtown Glens Falls, developers are pouring millions into new high-end condominiums and refurbished apartments. In the city’s various bucolic neighborhoods, homes are selling relatively well because, real estate agents say, they’re reasonably priced. And new jobs are coming into town by the hundreds.
Several chiefs put a half-dozen Johnstown firefighters through drills Friday in an abandoned city-owned house on Hoosac Street, teaching firefighter survival, rapid intervention and simulating the rescue of a downed firefighter.
For the longest time, Stacy DeMeo peppered her husband, Mark, with one question: “Can we look at the plans again?”
The “plans” were the blueprints, the drawings, the pages ripped out of catalogues detailing their dream house.
Today, tentlike maternity dresses and cutesy patterns for pregnant women are a thing of the past. Just because you are pregnant doesn’t mean your stylish days are over.Today, tentlike maternity dresses and cutesy patterns for pregnant women are a thing of the past. Just because you are pregnant doesn’t mean your stylish days are over.
Dormitory living was something of a novel idea in the first half of the 19th century, and Union College president Eliphalet Nott decided to take things a step further: He and his family would share living quarters with the student body.
What the students thought of it we can only guess, but his third wife, Urania Eleanor Sheldon Nott, definitely had her own ideas on the subject.
In 1857, with her husband in his eighties, Urania finally put her foot down and Eliphalet relented. Four years later, in July 1861, the Notts moved out of the South Colonnade and into the President’s House, a beautiful two-story structure near the Blue Gate entrance on the southern side of the campus near Union Street.
Jeff Mirel sees genuine potential where there is, quite frankly, urban decay. On a recent tour of the former St. Joseph’s Academy in the Arbor Hill neighborhood here, the 29-year-old Mirel seems to see beyond the broken windows, the water dripping through ceilings, the pigeons flying about or the piles of bird dung that litter the floor of this former, long-vacant school.
For the past two years, Mirel has had the vision of turning an unused urban space into a breathing, multifaceted arts venue with affordable live/work space for artists. His mission has led him to form a nonprofit called Albany Barn. Besides the organization’s other efforts to support the region’s arts scene, its most ambitious objective by far is to create an arts incubator out of the ashes of the old St. Joseph’s Academy.
Former Schenectady resident Antonio Ferrera did much of the film work for “The Gates,” an 89-minute documentary about the decorating of New York City’s Central Park in bright saffron orange-yellow during the winter of 2005. The show will premiere for a national audience next Tuesday at 10 p.m. on cable television network Home Box Office and will air several more times this month and March.
Phil and Bunny Savino are collectors, and like many people who are interested in a variety of things, the stuff they’ve accumulated over the years is vast and varied.
When it comes to hoarding hitching posts, however, particularly the cast-iron type that was so prevalent throughout much of the second half of the 19th century, the Savinos and their friends at the Albany Institute of History & Art are in a class by themselves.
When Kim and Ray Faiola are expecting guests at their Greenfield home, you won’t find them hastily straightening up a spare room, throwing a set of sheets on a sofa sleeper or inflating an air mattress. Instead, when guests arrive, Rudy greets them and shows the way to the always-ready guest quarters — a tiny cottage that mirrors the design of their main house, which Faiola built in 1984.
One hundred years ago this week, magnificent men and their driving machines visited the Capital Region. An endurance competition that matched autos and men from the United States, France, Germany and Italy departed New York City's Times Square on Wenesday, Feb. 12, 1908. Their destination was Paris, their adventure was destined for the history book. Six cars, featuring the best technology of the day, would be on the road for months, 22,000 miles through Albany, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Alaska, Japan, Russia, Berlin and finally Paris.
From Portland, Maine, to Pasadena, Calif., art nights have popped up in downtowns across America. While the concept is the same, with people taking to the streets on a special evening each month to see local art in galleries,
coffee shops, boutiques and bistros, each city’s event has its own unique personality.
Sallie Way hands me two photos of a charred center-hall colonial — glossy 4x6 glimpses of a nightmare — now smudged with fingerprints, curling slightly at the edges. The once-stately home pictured there, she tells me, is the Kalinkewicz farm, which stood for close to a century here in Galway.
The state of New York celebrated the federal holiday honoring noted civil rights leader Martin Luther King with an event Monday morning at the Empire State Convention Center in downtown Albany.
These images tell the story of a tumultuous 2007, from a massacre on a college campus and the collapse of a major metropolitan bridge to the beginning of the 2008 presidential campaign.
A record crowd was expected Monday night at the 12th annual First Night Saratoga, which included 80 musical and other performances at more than 35 locations in and near downtown Saratoga. Saratoga's even was the only First Night celebration held in the Capital Region this year.
Longtime Adirondack guide Paul Gibaldi has published "Spirit of the Adirondacks: A Photographic Journey," which chronicles the natural beauty he has been showing the public for the last 20 years.
Movie stars, parade balloons, teenagers, musicians, familiar faces in strange places — they were all part of The Daily Gazette’s history page in 2007. As the year ends, the newspaper’s history department decided some favorite photos deserve encore appearances. So here they are, back in black and white.
The fast-moving winter storm that dumped 1 to 3 inches of snow on the region Thursday afternoon caused a host of traffic problems as roads quickly became slippery.
Every year, Daily Gazette photojournalists shoot thousands of photos in their pursuit of the images that will inform, entertain, and educate readers. These images represent their favorites from a year of news, features, sports and the myriad unpredictable events that make news in the Capital Region. Each photo includes comments from the photojournalist.
The Melodies of Christmas performance is celebrating its 28th year with performances by the Empire State Youth Orchestra and Chorale at Proctors in Schenectady from Thursday, Dec. 13, through Sunday, Dec. 16. Funds raised from these performances support the Center for Childhood Cancer & Blood Disorders at the Children's Hospital at Albany Medical Center. CBS 6 will broadcast Melodies of Christmas at 7:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve and noon on Christmas Day, and the Capital Region's CW will broadcast Melodies of Christmas at 3 a.m. on Christmas Eve and 5 a.m. and 10 p.m. on Christmas Day.
Gazette Life & Arts writer Jeff Wilkin has portrayed Mother Ginger for 10 years in Northeast Ballet's annual production of "The Nutcracker" at Proctors in Schenectady.
The village of Broadalbin hosted its annual holiday parade Monday night, with people braving cold temperatures and lingering snow from the weekend's storm.
The neighboring Schenectady County Historical Society and YWCA of Schenectady are hosting the annual Festival of Trees through Dec. 9. Organizations from around Schenectady County have decorated a variety of trees for display, with 10 fully decorated trees up for silent auction. The festival is open weekdays from 1 to 5 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is $6 for adults, $3 for children ages 6-12 and free for children younger than age 6. Proceeds benefit both the historical society and the local YWCA.
Thousands flocked to downtown Schenectady on Saturday evening to watch the annual Gazette Holiday Parade. This year's parade theme was classic television.
After 134 years, the stained glass windows at Stillwater United Church are getting a much-needed upgrade by workers from Willet Hauser Architectural Glass, a Minnesota company.
