Double Parking while Black

On Memorial Day evening, 1962, Samuel Clark was double-parked in front of his mother’s Jefferson St. home. With his sister, Thelma Wilson, he was unpacking picnic gear from a family excursion to Six Mile Waterworks, when a police cruiser screeched to a stop, dangerously close to Thelma. Alarmed, the two siblings complained to Patrolman Paul…

Home of the Irish Potato, Part I

Our thanks to Mike and Mary Ryan for their help with this post. Ryan’s Farmers Market is an Albany institution, in business for over a century and still run by the same family. In 1901, 24-year-old William Frederick (Willie) Ryan began selling produce with his brother, Jimmie. Their shop at 104 Hudson Ave. was on…

The Typewriter Guerrilla and the Billion-Dollar Hot Potato

Our thanks to Scott Christianson for his help with this post. Fresh out of college and newly married, Scott Christianson—an aspiring investigative reporter and former hometown football star (Bethlehem Central)—took a job at the Knickerbocker News in the summer of 1969. Over the course of several months, he moved up the journalistic ladder from copy…

Our Name Means Shoemaker

Our thanks to Angelo Kontis for his help with this post. Hudson Shoe Rebuilders was more than just a shoe repair store. It was also a variety store, selling inexpensive socks, shoes, shirts, and other sundries to residents of Albany’s rooming house district. At the back of the store, Greek immigrants could find cheese, olives,…

Albany’s Rooming House Queen

Marion “Mae” Carlson was once the rooming house queen of Albany. In 1960, Knickerbocker News reporter Edward Swietnicki probably overestimated by at least 100 persons the number of adults (200) and children (250) who lived in her 21 furnished rental properties, most of them converted single-family homes a couple blocks from the Capitol. At the…