Jump to the introduction.
View overlooking Troy.
Fulton Street looking east | Fulton and River streets | most recent streetview
City Hall | State and 3rd street | most recent streetview | The city hall was destroyed by fire in 1938. It's now Barker Park.
Troy Union Station | 6th and Broadway | most recent streetview | It was demolished in 1959. There's now a Rensselaer County office building there.
Catholic Central High School | 110 8th Street | most recent streetview | It's now an RPI building.
Hendrick Hudson Hotel | Broadway and 2nd Street | most recent streetview | Still stands on Monument Square. The building contains offices and restaurants. (Those old awnings are great.)
Troy Music Hall | 30 2nd Street | most recent streetview | Still stands. Still sounds great.
Rensselaer County Courthouse | 80 Second Street | most recent streetview | Still there.
Hart Library | 100 Second Street | most recent streetview | It's still there, serving as the Troy Public Library. Strangely, it appears the artist didn't include the tower that's attached the adjacent Rensselaer County Courhouse Annex (the annex was a church before it was court space). And Ferry Street, the cross street, is now underground there.
Approach to Troy-Menands Bridge | Rt 378 | most recent streetview | The bridge is still there, but the lifting device was removed in the 60s, and the towers for the device in 2000.
Troy as it was, from one perspective.
We happened upon this collection of old postcards -- including cards from the Capital Region -- from the Boston Public Library not once, but twice this week. And after the second time, we figured we pretty much had to do something with them.
All the postcards are thought to be printed between 1930-1945. Some of the cards depict places that no longer exist. And even the cards that show places still standing probably present a version of that place that never truly existed -- the backgrounds de-cluttered, the landscaping manicured, the scenes mostly devoid of people. It's the past as it was idealized by someone then.
The collection includes postcards from different spots around the area. So we decided it'd be fun to periodically pull a handful from a spot, map the locations depicted, and match them with the current streetview.
First up: Troy.
The postcards are in large format above -- scroll all the way up.
The Boston Public Library has posted its postcard collection on Flickr -- and it's searchable (example: Troy). It also has defined a New York State set of cards.
The images are all Creative Commons licensed.
One of the places we came across this collection: Hoxsie, where Carl has been highlighting postcards from Saratoga Springs this week.
The Scoop
For a decade All Over Albany was a place for interested and interesting people in New York's Capital Region. It was kind of like having a smart, savvy friend who could help you find out what's up. AOA stopped publishing at the end of 2018.
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Comments
You beat me to these! I like the mapping. All of these were phenomenal buildings, but particularly when following the saga of the ever-temporary City Hall, the loss of that old beauty makes me weep.
If you'd like to see what it looked like up close, in excruciatingly beautiful glass-negative detail, filled with awnings and bustles, take a gander at this photograph:
http://www.hoxsie.org/2012/01/and-what-a-city-hall-it-was.html
... said Carl on Jul 11, 2013 at 7:10 PM | link