by Webmaster | May 2, 2025 | History & Walking Tours
The latticework metal spire that stands behind the St. Vincent de Paul parish center may look a bit like modern sculpture, but that’s not why it’s here. It’s one of the few things that remain of one of Albany’s most extraordinary educational experiments. For decades,...
by Webmaster | May 2, 2025 | History & Walking Tours
One of the most fondly remembered addresses in all of the Pine Hills, this stately Victorian was home to a branch of the Albany Public Library for many years. Well-worn stairs and the smell of books — for a few generations of Pine Hills children, this was a...
by Webmaster | May 2, 2025 | History & Walking Tours
The cars were souped-up stagecoaches fitted to run on the rails. The locomotive was the DeWitt Clinton, one of the earliest ever built in America. And the passengers? They didn’t know what they were in for. In 1831, the first steam-powered passenger train in the...
by Webmaster | May 2, 2025 | History & Walking Tours
Small businesses bring heart and identity to the Pine Hills neighborhood. It was that spirit of community that resident Constance Dwyer Heiden tried to capture in the mural she designed for the side of Mack’s Drugs — now a CVS — on South Main Avenue in 1977. Now...
by Webmaster | May 2, 2025 | History & Walking Tours
Out of all of the theaters built in an era of grand and glamorous movie palaces, the Madison is one of the last where you can still catch a flick. The Madison was one of the first theaters in the nation that was designed and built to show that marvelous new sensation...
by Webmaster | May 2, 2025 | History & Walking Tours
With the clang of bells and the clatter of hooves on brick — that’s how firefighting began in Albany’s Pine Hills neighborhood. The Steamer 10 firehouse, along West Lawrence Street on the point of land where Madison and Western avenues meet, started...
