Melancholy, arriving on track 2

union station waiting room   sept 1968  albany ny 1960s

Check out this photo of the old Union Station waiting room in downtown Albany, via the Albany Group Archive. It's dated to 1968, which is the same year the other train station opened across the river in the Rensselaer.

There isn't anything super remarkable about this photo, but there's something about the mood that caught us when we happened upon the pic, like the station itself was feeling melancholy. (Though we do kind of want to stop by the snack bar for a patty melt.)

The building, of course, is still in downtown Albany, but it's been used as offices for various companies for decades, and is now known as Kiernan Plaza. It's currently owned by SUNY Poly, though like with everything else related to that institution, there seems to be some uncertainty about the future.

As we've mentioned before, the Albany Group Archive on Flickr is an enormous rabbit hole of local history images. Start clicking through and you might not surface for days.

Earlier: Gawking at Kiernan Plaza

Comments

So elegant!

The Department of General Services has some of those benches in their garage. Maybe there's a better place for them in the city?

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