My Non-Urban Life

To the cycling samaritan . . . .

2010-03-10T12:40:40Z

To the cycling samaritan who stopped on the sidewalk of the Dunn Memorial Bridge yesterday, got off his bike, and used a piece of index card to diligently brush broken glass off the sidewalk: Thank you. What an amazing thing to do. Now I think I'm going to stick a piece of index card in my jersey pocket when I'm traveling across the river for exactly that purpose. (For some reason, and I'm not sure if it's drivers or pedestrians, smashing bottles on the Dunn seems to be something of a sport. There is always glass on the walkway, and I've picked up a large number of flats there over the years.)

Save East Greenbush Music!

2010-03-09T13:19:15Z

Mark Wood dazzles East Greenbush strings students before their two-day workshop, Electrify Your Strings

Times are hard, no question, and schools are faced with tough choices as they try to present budgets that can pass. The shortfalls are huge, and the cuts are deep. And the cuts, as always, include music. The current proposal in our district is to eliminate the elementary programs (and with them, because of the way these things work, an incredibly dedicated, inspiring teacher who leads the orchestra). And parents and students, understandably upset over the potential loss of one of the programs that makes our school district special (and is one of the best programs in the State, and probably beyond), are scrambling to find ways to save our music.

Usually this raises the question of why music is always on the chopping block, but that's not really the right question. The right question is, "Why is music optional?"

It is well-known that the study and playing of music not only taps into something extremely primal in our brains (and if you haven't already read it, I highly recommend Daniel Levitin's "This Is Your Brain On Music"), it promotes complex thinking in ways that support other learning - particularly maths and sciences, which we all agree are more important than ever and will be the highest-paying career paths for the foreseeable future. Simply understanding the concepts of octaves, intervals, frequencies, the circle of fifths - these are surprisingly complex concepts, but they are concepts that, more than any other part of the curriculum, can be experimented with and demonstrated in the real world, in the orchestra room, every day.

We are constantly being told we need to do better in the maths and sciences, yet despite years of increasing standards and forced testing, the beatings are not improving test scores or morale. Beatings rarely do. So now, faced with even more beatings (and don't think that a standardized test is anything else - it serves no instructional purpose, and the teachers' promises that they don't "teach to the test" are, unfortunately and necessarily, untrue), we are looking to cut the only instruction in our schools where math, science, personal expression and actual fun are brought into our schools on a daily basis. This makes no sense. It should be mandatory.

Music education not only gives you the tools for abstract thought and a daily application, it provides numerous other benefits that are always being stressed in the "core" academic classes. Teamwork? There's no team that needs more teamwork than a band or orchestra. Study and practice? Absolutely required. Ability to read another language? Musical notation is definitely another language. Public presentation? Every student in orchestra, band, or chorus knows what it's like to stand up in front of a crowded auditorium, with every person out there waiting to hear what you have to say. Problem-solving? These students, some of the most dedicated in the school, sit down in front of a fresh problem every few days and go about figuring out how to solve it. (Okay, so the bass players stand. Still . . . .) How can this be optional?

I suspect that music is frequently dismissed as an optional part of education because it is so ubiquitous - it is so much part of the background of our culture that we hardly notice it. Try to find a space in our lives that is without music - it's in our cars, our offices, coffee shops, grocery stores, elevators. Search for a moment on television without music in the background. The entertainment industry is one of our country's few growth industries, one of our biggest exports, and nearly every arm of that industry uses music.

How important is music to our everyday lives? With all respect to the sciences, no one invented a world-changing portable periodic table player that is in every teenager's pocket, and those kids aren't finding new ways to get hold of pirated copies of Fermat's Last Theorem. (It's free, and they still don't want it.) So does it make sense that our schools, which are meant to prepare the next generation, would deny them the education that would prepare them to take part in or even just understand something that is at the core of our culture? Does it makes sense that a school might be the only place you could go today and not hear music?

We're on the college tour circuit, and we recently visited MIT, the oldest (and many would say still the finest) institution dedicated to practical education, to the application of mathematics and sciences to real world problems. At MIT, students build robots for the hell of it, 73 members of its faculty have been awarded Nobel Prizes through the years, and its graduates are virtually guaranteed good-paying jobs in science and tech. And at MIT, 82% of undergraduates take arts classes. The number one minor at MIT, the top technical school in the country?

It's music.

Take music off the chopping block, and instead make it the centerpiece of a 21st-century education.

Hannah and Mark Wood on "Eleanor Rigby"

2010-03-08T12:55:23Z

Hannah and Mark Wood on "Eleanor Rigby", originally uploaded by carljohnson.

At Saturday night's "Electrify Your Strings" performance with Mark Wood, the first lead violinist of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Hannah was featured on electric violin on "Eleanor Rigby" . . . and she was awesome.

For rights reasons we were asked not to post video of the concert (and video is the work of the devil anyway), but the local news covered it and captured her having an amazing great time -- see it here.

The elementary music program is currently on the chopping block. Why music is always considered optional, when it's an integral part of our everyday lives and one of the most important things to our culture, is just beyond me.

Too much rock for one hand

2010-03-06T21:45:05Z

Or one weekend. Spent the whole day yesterday shooting the great kids in the East Greenbush Central School District strings program preparing for their massive concert tonight with Mark Wood, formerly of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and now the driving force behind the Electrify Your Strings program. It was extraordinarily cool to get to watch them rehearse, see how brilliantly prepared they all are, and watch them have fun by stepping out of their classical training to get a little rock on. They're doing "Eleanor Rigby," "Born To Be Wild," "Live and Let Die," "Stairway to Heaven," and a few other rock chestnuts that sound very very cool when played by an orchestra that is stomping on its strings, accompanied by a group of electric violins and cello, led by the guy who made the instruments. The concert is tonight, and it will be amazing. Plus also, Hannah's rocking the Viper during "Eleanor Rigby."

Best quote of the day yesterday? "Cellos! You only have one note!" "But it's a really great note!"

Also, even as we speak, Rebekah is at NYSSMA, the big annual evaluation, rolling through a ridiculously complex piano piece and I'm sure doing very well. It kinda required a third hand, as far as I could see.

Albany, Home of Bobsledding

2010-03-05T00:04:31Z

Just in time for the Olympics, this post is. Or it will be if I backdate it.

The folks at All Over Albany dug up an amazing test of the knowledge of eighth-graders in Albany in 1882. Not least amazing, besides the assumption that schoolchildren should know how to divide opium to the smallest scruple, was this instruction: "Write an exercise of 15 lines on the pass time of bobsledding."

Several years ago, it was asserted that scenic Albany, New York, and not scenic St. Moritz, Switzerland, was the original home of the bobsleigh. Writing on the debate back in 2002, the Times Union's Tim Farkas said a report from Albany City Historian Virginia Bowers listed the year of origin as 1885. This test would make it clear it was on the minds of Albanians at least three years earlier than that. The story goes that the earliest bob sleds were adapted from their use as lumber sleds, where two short ("bobbed") sleds were linked together and hitched to teams of horses that could carry enormous loads of lumber. It certainly makes sense - ]]>
Harper's Young People, apparently a juvenile version of the venerable magazine, wrote in its March 17, 1885, edtiion, "'Bobbing' Under Protection of the Law."

". . . American boys and young men are rapidly pushing the bob sled to the front as an American institution. Last month the Common Council of Albany, the city of hills as well as the capital of the Empire State, passed an ordinance making it lawful to use, every evening after half past seven, certain streets within the town limits for bobbing or coasting. Therefore doth the heart of the young Albanian rejoice to know that now, instead of running the risk of being arrested for indulging in his favorite pastime, the once-dreaded police are detailed to clear the track for him. The deepest snow of the season lay on the ground the week this marvellous change was wrought, and every night the favored streets echoed to the shouts of the happy 'bobbers' and to the clanging of their gongs of warning.

"A 'bob,' we may here explain for the benefit of some of our readers, is simply a long board set on two independent runners. The picture on the front page of this number shows one of the ordinary kind. The sleds of the Albany boys are provided with appropriate names, such as Avalanche, Polaris, Dynamiter, etc. The largest, called the Brooklyn Bridge, measures twenty-nine feet in length, weighs over five hundred pounds, and will carry thirty-three persons. When it is remembered that some of the Albany hills are ten and twelve blocks long, the speed which a 'bob' of this description will attain can be imagined. Already, and in spite of every precaution, several accidents have occurred, some resulting fatally. The streets devoted to the sport are lined with spectators, and the horse-cars on a route crossing the favorite avenue are withdrawn early in the evening. On the other hand, many of the citizens are in favor of repealing the law, and it is probable that the privilege of bobbing under legal protection will not last as long as this winter's snow."

On January 21, 1886, by anyone's account very early in the history of the bobsled, the New York Times wrote about "Albany's 'Bob' Carnival - A Parade of Coasting Clubs and a Night on the Hillside." The references to "old" clubs and the tremendous development of the sleds make it clear that this sport had not appeared suddenly the previous winter:

"Albany, N.Y., Jan. 20 - The 'bobbers' are holding high carnival to-night. In Albany the bob sled has probably reached its greatest development. Built on a series of hills the city is naturaly adapted for coasting, but before last Winter the sport was not openly permitted by the authorities. When the Common Council last Winter granted the use at night of half a dozen steep streets, 'bobbing' became a tremendous craze. Great preparations were made weeks ago for the enjoyment of coasting on a huge scale this season. The streets, however, have not heretofore been favorable for the coasters on account of the light fall of snow, but yesterday's heavy storm put the hills in splendid condition, and the town will be wild over bob sliding before next week. Tonight the coasting clubs had a parade and carnival, picturesque and novel in character, which was witnessed by thousands. Eighty clubs, with gayly decked machines and bright uniforms, marched through the principal streets with bands, torches, lanterns, and a blaze of fireworks. At the head of the line was the stalwart politician, James W. Bentley, in one of the oldest sleighs in the city. Behind the mounted staff came the 80 bobs, divided into two sections, with bands, the machines being arranged in a double line, 10 feet apart, with a sled in the centre at intervals of 100 feet.

"An Albany bob is not simply a plank fastened upon two hand sleds. It is an elaborate machine, 15 to 40 feet long, gorgeous in fancy paint, gold lettering, and cushions, and equipped with complicated steering apparatus, head lights, steel brakes, and trip gongs. Many of the bobs are surmounted by handsome canopies, hung with lanterns, adorned with rosettes and festoons of evergreens. Besides these decorations which were displayed by nearly all of the clubs a few of the older and more powerful organizations had mounted upon their machines transparencies bearing the club name and some motto or emblem illustrative of the club's age or prowess. Many of the men in the line wore the picturesque toboggan costumes. The 'Mikados' paraded in Japanese suits and had Japanese decorations on their bob. While most of the machines were drawn by the members of the clubs, the heavier ones were preceded by gayly caparisoned horses. The pioneer bob, the 'Monitor,' was drawn by a horse draped with the American flag and ridden by a youth of Ethiopian extraction. The sled was covered with a red canopy, with evergreen festoons and a row of Chinese lanterns along each side. At the forward end was a transparency, inscribed with the club name, and bearing a picture of the original monitor of naval fame. On the rear end was a similar transparency bearing the legend 'The Pioneer Bob.' The 'Brooklyn Bridge,' the largest bob in America, was not in line as expected, because it is not finished. It is 40 feet long, strongly trussed, equipped with steering apparatus before and behind, weights about 1,000 pounds, and will carry 40 people, so that when loaded it will rush down the hill with the increasing impetus of a projectile of nearly three tons weight. Several bobs in line were over 30 feet long.

"As the long and unique line rounded along North Pearl-street and up Clinton-avenue the sight called to mind the scenes in the Montreal carnivals. At many points fireworks were discharged and colored lights burned. The procession came to an end at the corner of Madison-avenue and Hawk-street, when the carnival proper began. Until nearly midnight the steep hill stretching out half a mile to the river was alive with flying bobs carrying hilarious loads, and watched by crowds that packed the sidewalks. The snow was rather heavy for very fast time at the start. Later in the evening the track worked into better condition. The parade, it is said, was the first of the kind in the United States."

The Times years later wrote a glowing review of Albany's Winter Carnival on February 4, 1888, which proved less than prescient regarding the permanence of the Carnival but usefully notes the large number of bobbing clubs then in existence: "Albany's first attempt at a Winter carnival was so successful that it is likely to become a regular annual attraction for the local population, for legislators, and for visitors . . . it made a specialty of bobsledding, with competition by nineteen Albany bobbing clubs, besides others from a distance . . . . Albany must be permanently reckoned among the carnival cities, and will no doubt henceforth be visited by many lovers of midwinter frolics who cannot go as far as Montreal and Quebec."

Whish's "Albany Guide Book" of 1917 called it "coasting," and said, "This winter pastime was popular with the early settlers and continued to be so for years until the city's growth and the street cars made it too dangers. In 1887 a winter carnival was held which was notable for the 'bob sled' parade, in which the Beverwyck, 28 feet long, and the Brooklyn Bridge, 40 feet long, took part. The coasting was done on Madison avenue hill, which was roped off and policed for safety. In 1888 an ice palace was erected in Washington park and a carnival held on January 15. In 1889 on February 2, during a carnival, the sled races on Madison avenue were marred by fatal accidents and Charles O'Hara was killed by the 'bob' [of] Alderman Connors. Thereafter the sport was discontinued because of the danger at the street crossings and the many serious accidents which kept occurring."

While I'm doubtful that the early settlers indulged in bobsledding (after all, their free time was taken up selling sugar cookies to the Indians), these accounts of the long-forgotten bobsledding craze of the 1880s really make me wish we could still go sledding down Madison Avenue, banging gongs, frightening (and occasionally killing) horses and passersby and generally having a grand time.

There was even a landmark legal case, Toomey v. The City of Albany, 1898. Toomey's horse and sleigh, standing on a public street, were struck and damaged by a bobsleigh engaged in coasting down the street. Toomey claimed that the accident was due to the city's negligence in allowing the street to be used for coasting. The court found that "prevention of fast driving and the like is a part of the police business of the city. And a negligent performance of that business or duty is not a ground for action against the city." I think the law has changed since then, but it's still a not a good idea to tie up your horse on a bobsled run, and that's why you rarely see horses at modern winter Olympics.

The Hawk Street Viaduct

2010-03-02T22:12:19Z

A few weeks back Paula at Albany Daily Photo wrote about the Hawk Street Viaduct, which prompted me to dig up an old postcard I'd put in the files, waiting for a reason to figure out just what the Hawk Street Viaduct was, because I'd never heard of it other than this postcard. For 82 years, this marvel of engineering loomed over Sheridan Hollow, connecting Arbor Hill to Capitol Hill, and then it disappeared with hardly a trace. Thanks to the holdings of the Library of Congress and the incredibly valuable Historic American Engineering Record, I've found some much more detailed views of the Viaduct, and some of its story.

Read more about this "monument of another age . . . "

]]> According to the HAER records, the Hawk Street Viaduct, originally called the Hawk Street Bridge, was "a monument of another age, it has been condemned as unsafe, and only pedestrians now (September 1969) cross over this rusted, dilapidated structure . . . According to the commemorative plaques attached to the bridge, it was built in 1889-1890 by the Hilton Bridge Construction Company of Albany, when Edward A. Maher was Mayor. the bridge was rebuilt in 1925 under the leadership of Mayor William S. Hackett. By 1949 extensive deterioration of the bridge made it necessary to reduce its allowable carrying load from ten to three tons. In 1958, the city appropriated $250,000 for reconstruction, but the plan was abandoned. Records of the bridge's construction and maintenance were lost." The bridge was beautifully on axis with the Washington Avenue entrance of the Capitol, providing a view that no longer exists. In this picture, probably July 1970, you can see the Corning Tower rising up over what was then called the South Mall. You can also see a large brick smokestack to the left, visible again here:

That stack was part of a power plant then, and it's still part of the Sheridan Avenue Steam Plant, which provides steam heat to the Empire State Plaza. I drive past the stack nearly every day. The railing in that Google Street View is a sad and certainly accidental echo of the structure that preceded it. More from HAER: "Despite its almost obscure record, the Hawk Street Viaduct is significant in the physical and social history of Albany. Spanning the raving between Capitol Hill and Arbor Hill, it connected the fine residential section, which had grown up around the government buildings, with working class neighborhoods. A canal at one time ran through the ravine, but it has been filled in and displaced by Sheridan Avenue.

"In the late nineteenth century, the Hawk Street Viaduct provided a solution to both a social and an engineering problem. It was necessary to establish direct access and communication between the separate camps of the city, but neither the city nor state governments worked rapidly toward a solution. All through the 1880s the state legislature rejected a bill authorizing a viaduct across the ravine, which, by that time, was at least an engineering and a financial possibility. Two successive mayors, city councils, and corporation counsels also opposed this logical civic improvement idea. The legislature finally approved the project in 1888, thanks to the efforts of Maurice Cranwell, the 'father of the bridge,' who facilitated the 'poor man's short cut to town.' The City of Albany at that time appropriated $125,000; only $107,000 of it was used for the construction costs which actually were only $90,000.

"As a significant engineering achievement, the construction of the Hawk Street Viaduct in 1889-90 heralded the use of the cantilever arch. It was regarded as 'a genuine architectural wonder,' and was much admired and copied in Europe and America, in spit of the fact that it was a dry-land structure and lacked the romance and boldness of bridges across water . . . "A contemporary writer described the Hawk Street Viaduct as 'a daring experiment in bridge construction.' At its highest point the viaduct is 79 feet above the street level blow. A power plant on Sheridan Avenue barely rises to the level of the roadway. Undoubtedly, this elevated featured has been an invitation to the would-be suicide, and a considerable number are reported over the years to have leaped to their death from the railing to the pavement below.

"The original structure novelty of the viaduct has long since been eclipsed, and its abandoned, dilapidated appearance adds a note of sadness to the general disarray of central Albany as it undergoes reconstruction and renewal. The vast South Mall and its gigantic buildings rising slowly on Capitol Hill on one side of the Hawk Street Viaduct is matched by the leveled surface that covers much of Arbor Hill on the other side. As these areas are rebuilt, the need for a new bridge linking them across the Sheridan Avenue ravine will become more urgent. It is expected that in due course a new and more modern viaduct will rise across Swan Street, a block west of the Hawk Street Viaduct. Indeed, there may be need of another bridge across the raving at a point closer to downtown Albany east of Hawk Street. All of this points to the growing importance and utility of a crossing at this strategic site, which has been evident since the last century."

HAER gives some background on the engineer, Elnathan Sweet, as well: "Elnathan Sweet (1837-1903), the designer and engineer of the bridge, was also president of the Hilton Bridge Construction Company, its builders. Sweet's contribution was significant both professionally and technically. In many respects the Hawk Street Viaduct was the most important engineering project in his long and diversified career. Born in Cheshire, Massachusetts in the Berkshire Mountains, Sweet received a degree in civil engineering from Union College, Schenectady in 1859. It was the age of railroad building, and he traveled westward to participate in some of its more ambitious undertakings; he was particularly involved with the construction of the Rock Island and Northern Pacific railroads. In 1875 he came to Albany where Governor Samuel J. Tilden engaged him to help clean up the scandalous activities of the contracts on the state canals. Sweet was subsequently elected State Engineer of New York and served until 1887. Returning to private engineering practice, he became president of the Hilton Company. In the Hawk Street Viaduct design he introduced some novel features, most important to the combination of the arch with the cantilever in one structure."

The structure was dismantled in July 1970, and the photos below appear to have been made during this process.

The houses at the end of the Hawk Street are still there, as are the buildings at the corner of Hawk and Clinton Avenue.

The importance of being limber

2010-03-02T11:36:00Z

It's March, which means the start of the cycling season I've been waiting for since the Last Best Ride back in November. A few jaunts out on the warmer days and even fewer miles logged on the rollers have done nothing to preserve my base, and my muscles are tighter than they've ever been, which is saying something. Every day, Facebook reminds me that my high school classmates are all hitting the half-century mark, and even my own body has to admit that flexibility is a privilege, not a right. I've already learned that nothing heals anymore so I'd better not tear or break anything.

So to get ready I've got a crack squadron of trained ballerinas (made them myself: sugar, spice, Chemical X, spandex) improving my floor exercises, giving me points on form, and telling me what Miss Madeline would say if she could see me. (It wouldn't be anything good.) I've had the Olympics to train to for two weeks (watching elite athletes always inspires me to new heights of stretching), and I've even been getting the rollers out. Rollers are vastly superior to trainers in that you're actually riding a bike, rather than being bolted to a flywheel. Your pedal stroke becomes smooth as glass, or else you meet the floor (clipping in: not recommended). However there is no classic rock album, no podcast, not even an extended Groucho Marx impression by Gilbert Gottfried that can overcome the simple fact that on rollers, you're not going anywhere, and you can't coast. So ultimately, I've just gotta get out there.

The last two days the temps haven't been bad, a couple of degrees above freezing but with no wind, but the wetness is at flood stages and the spring ritual of our roads crumbling into nothingness is well underway. Where I live, that means that the shoulders that don't exist, already littered with winter's pointy debris, are slick and lined with chunks of asphalt. When you're cruising along at 20 mph with about 3 square inches of contact with the ground, all of this matters. But I will get out there this week, and find out what parts work and what parts don't. On me, not the bike.

Surgery for the Eye and Ear

2010-03-01T23:27:14Z

Surgery for the Eye and Ear, originally uploaded by carljohnson.

From an 1860-something Albany directory. I don't know what's wrong with the eye on the right, but I'll say this: I don't want it. Also, whatever the surgical cure would have been in the time of the Civil War, I don't want that, either.

Palace Marquee

2010-02-28T13:55:59Z

Image by carljohnson via Flickr

When they designed the new Palace Theater marquee, they didn't fool around. In fact, they went back to the source, the old Palace Theater marquee. It was run by various companies through the years, including Radio Keith Orpheum (RKO) and Fabian, but the marquee remained the same for a long time.

That 1951 picture accompanied a Life Magazine article on how the movie industry was battling "T-V" by showing things such as live boxing matches. The cutline was "Crowds gather early for telecast at Fabian Palace Theater in Albany, N.Y., which seated 3,000 and turned away 3,000." The battle between media was intense in those early days, as movies saw a precipitous drop in attendance as television spread throughout the land. "Last week NBC was at work on a plan to make its own movies from television shows and to release them in movie houses." God help us, nothing has changed. But in the case of the marquee, that's a good thing. (Because when it was changed, it looked like this.)

Speaking of science,

2010-02-27T17:50:51Z

Static electricity. And a sporran.

So where was celluloid invented?

2010-02-26T14:21:34Z

For years I've meant to get a picture of this marker, located next to a defunct Friendly's restaurant not far from our old Albany neighborhood, where Southern Boulevard meets Delaware Avenue. The shopping plaza and the Friendly's were brand new then, back in 1990, and I even had some vague memories of the big brick factory building that had been on the site just a couple of years before. home to the Albany Hyatt Billiard Ball Co. The marker proudly proclaims one of the least-known historic facts about Albany - that it was here that the first practical plastic, celluloid, was invented and developed into commercial products.

First Plastic
Celluloid - Invented 1868
by John Wesley Hyatt
First Use - Billiard Balls
Albany Billiard Ball Co.
The Plastics Pioneers Assoc.

While it has the appearance of an official Education Department historic marker, this was most likely a privately placed marker, perhaps installed when there was some controversy over the possible redevelopment of the site in the mid-'80s. Thanks to this marker, I've always been proud to know the location of the development of celluloid. Except, of course, that it's wrong.

While the final version of the Albany Hyatt Billiard Ball Company manufactured at this distant location, in the late 1800s this was farmland, part of the town of Bethlehem and served by the Normansville post office. The closest thing to industry was a paper mill on the Normanskill. And the location of the factory isn't the only cloudy part of this story.

]]> John Wesley Hyatt was born in Starkey, New York, on the west side of Seneca Lake on November 28, 1837. When he was sixteen, he went to Illinois and became a journeyman printer. He (and later, his brother Isaiah) came to Albany and worked in printing. His interest in invention is shown by his patent of a knife sharpener in 1861. The story goes that Phelan and Callendar, a major manufacturer of billiard tables in New York City, offered a $10,000 prize for the creation of a composition ball to replace ivory. Years later, in 1914, the New York Times related that Hyatt entered that competition in 1863, and that "it was by accident that Mr. Hyatt discovered the chemical product that has brought him fame the world over. He was accustomed to use collodion for cuts while working at the printing trade. One day a bottle of collodion overturned, and it was after watching the solidification of the collodion that he got the idea of making celluloid."

Whether celluloid was invented in 1863, 1868 or somewhere in between, Hyatt filed for a patent in 1865 (granted in 1870), and continued working as a printer for several years, living at 32 Chestnut St. and later at 149 Spring St. He must have been working on business arrangements during that time,. In 1867 Hyatt was with Osborne, Newcomb & Company, checker manufacturers at 795 Broadway. By the end of 1869 Hyatt had turned his invention into a number of commercial products, all being manufactured in Albany. In that year, the Osborne, Newcomb was sharing space with the Hyatt Manufacturing Company, making billiard balls, checkers and dominoes at 795-797 Broadway (now an empty urban field just north of Livingston Avenue). By the end of 1871, the billiard balls were being made by the Hyatt Manufacturing Company at 19 Beaver Street, just west of Broadway. His brother, Isaiah Smith Hyatt, took up the checker and domino business as the Albany Embossing Company, a few blocks south at 4 and 6 Pruyn St. The material was also apparently put to pioneering use in dental plates, by the Albany Dental Plate Company. (Despite numerous references to this company in the histories of celluloid, I find no reference to this company in the city directories of the time.)

There are numerous hints that all was not well with the finances of any of these companies. Even in the year in which Isaiah was listed in the city directory as President of the Embossing Company, the New York Times wrote glowingly of the enterprise and identified Robert C. Pruyn, of one of the most established families of Albany, as its head. 4 and 6 Pruyn Street was also home to the Albany Saw Works, an established firm run by Pruyn ("manufacturers of extra cast steel circular, mill, gang, cross-cut and other saws.") The Times also spoke of embossing wood, not celluloid, and of the company having been burned out twice in the previous two years. One has to wonder whether those fires were related to a persistently reported quality of the new celluloid material - that it was explosive. The oft-repeated stories of exploding billiard balls are unlikely to be true, but it cannot be denied that cellulose nitrate was a dangerous material to work with, at a time when workplace safety was not a primary concern. (Hyatt's later factory in Newark, NJ suffered 39 fires in 36 years, killing 9 and injuring 39.)

That same article in the Times, written at the very close of 1871, effused over the Hyatt Billiard Ball Company,

"who make billiard balls of a composition which, when colored, can hardly be distinguished from ivory balls, and which, in addition to many other advantages, are claimed to be much more durable. They certainly have this one superiority over ivory balls, that whereas ivory is always apt to be unequal in density, giving a tendency to irregular direction and to 'wabbling,' the composition balls have an unerring center of gravity from the mere fact of their being composition -- every component part being thoroughly mixed and disseminated throughout the ball." The Times went on to describe the manufacture of the composition balls: "These balls are composed principally of "gun cotton," reduced to a fine pulp and molded. The other ingredients are as yet a secret, which the makers do not desire to make public. After molding, the ball is put in a globular press, and reduced about one-third in bulk. It is then put away to be dried. When partially dry it is put into a bowl of quicksilver to test the uniformity of its centre of gravity. If not true in its balance it is thrown aside; if true it is again pressed and again put on the shelf to be thoroughly dried before it is taken to the turner and the polisher. Three months elapse from the day of molding till the time when a ball is ready to be sent to purchasers. The balls cost about one-half the price ordinarily charged for ivory balls."

The history of the company gets foggy from there. One account says that the Albany Dental Plate Company changed its name to the Celluloid Manufacturing Company and moved to Newark, New Jersey, in 1873. By all accounts, the Hyatts did move to Newark and developed new machinery and new uses for celluloid. In 1881 they founded the Hyatt Pure Water Company, and ten years later Hyatt established the Hyatt Roller Bearing Company of Harrison, New Jersey. He was even an early bio-fuels enthusiast, converting spent sugar cane into fuel. Honored by the Society of the Chemical Industry with its Perkin Gold Medal (named in honor of the inventor of mauve) in 1914, Hyatt died in Short Hills, NJ, on May 10, 1920. But J.W. Hyatt's move to New Jersey wasn't the end of celluloid manufacture in Albany.

A 1985 Schenectady Gazette article on the future of the Delaware Avenue factory says that Hyatt had raised $2000 from investors and borrowed work space from Albany machine shop operator Peter Kinnear, "who later gained control of Hyatt's business. Ultimately, Kinnear enlisted the aid of his son-in-law, Albany architect Charles Ogden, to create the billard ball factory on Delaware Avenue." Peter Kinnear, now a prominent resident of Albany Rural Cemetery, was in 1870 part of the firm of McElroy & Kinnear, brass founders at 68 Beaver St. Whether Kinnear was an early investor or not, he does seem to have been the savior of celluloid in Albany. Howell's "Bi-Centennial History of Albany" in 1886 wrote:

"The Albany Billiard Ball Company was organized in 1875, succeeding the Hyatt Manufacturing Co., organized in 1868, which was the pioneer manufacturing company in the world to make composition billiard balls. The factory, corner Grand and Plain streets, is a three-story brick building, 68 by 50 feet in dimensions. The billiard balls are now made from bonsilate, a product of another Albany industry, which is mentioned elsewhere. The colors of bonsilate balls are permanent, and they will not burn. Pool and bagatelle balls are also made.

The officers are: Peter Kinnear, President and Treasurer; J.W. Hyatt, Vice-President; Louis Dietz, Secretary; and B.P. Wayne, Superintendent.

The bonsilate billiard balls are taking the place [of] all others for perfection of finish, durability and of cheapness."

This is followed by a biography of Peter Kinnear, indicating that in May 1884 he purchased the lots at the corner of Beaver and Grand streets, known as No. 64 and 66 Beaver street. "Here Mr. Kinnear made great improvements, so marked in their character as to entitle him to the credit of having beautified that portion of Beaver street in which his factory is located."
It writes of his foundry business, and then says,

"Nor does his identification with this community stop with his interest in this business, since he is also President of the Albany Billiard Ball Co., President of the Bonsilate Button Co., and a Director in both the Bonsilate Co. (limited) and the Newark Filtering Co. With the history of the manufactory of billiard balls in Albany, Mr. Kinnear's name is prominently identified. The most unique industry in Albany and, indeed, the only one of the kind in the world, is that of the Albany Billiard Ball Company. This Company was organized in 1875, and is the legitimate successor of the Hyatt Manufacturing Company, organized in 1868, which was the pioneer in the attempt to make composition billiard balls. It is not our purpose to go into the details of the trials and failures of the original organization in its experiments to produce billiard balls of pyroxiline and later of celluloid that would take the place of ivory. Let it suffice to say that thousands of dollars were spent and much valuable time lost in experimenting with little or no practical results, until the formation of the present Company, since which time, by the use of perfected processes and machinery, the invention of J.W. Hyatt, the Company has succeeded in producing billiard balls that are more perfect than ivory balls, while at the same time they are far less expensive.

The management of the Company is in the hands of the following named officers: Peter Kinnear, President and Treasurer; J.W. Hyatt, Vice-President; Lewis Dietz, Secretary; and B.P. Wayne, Superintendent; all gentlemen closely identified with the industrial advancement of this city. Mr. Kinnear's identification with this enterprise dates from a time when failure and disaster had stripped it of the confidence of most of the capitalists of Albany. He had faith in the scheme, and unbounded faith in Mr. Hyatt, through the utilization of whose inventions he was certain success would be won for it. At considerable personal trouble and no small temporary sacrifice, he invested in the enterprise, taking risks which made some of his friends tremble for the results; and he induced others of Albany's progressive men to take stock in the Company. The result has more than justified his most sanguine hopes. The enterprise is one of Albany's notable successes."

The Bonsilate Company, at the corner of Church and Pruyn streets, was organized in 1878. "The factory is four stories, brick, where 20 workmen are employed. This company produces bonsilate in bulk and in manufactured goods . . . Bonsilate is the discovery of John W. Hyatt, the inventor also of celluloid. it has been improved by Charles S. Lockwood. it is already used in making many articles of utility and ornament, for which its qualities of hardness, elasticity, susceptibility of taking any color and a high polish, render it very valuable. It is also a non-conductor of electricity, and incombustible. It is valuable as a substitute for ivory, jet, coral, celluloid and all like substances." It was widely known as the Bonsilate Button Company. The president of Bonsilate was Albany Saw and Albany Embossing's Robert Pruyn, the president was Peter's son David Kinnear, and Peter Kinnear was a director. John Hyatt, long decamped to Newark, was listed as a board member and "Expert." The company only lasted until January 1888, when the New York Times noted its closure:

"The Albany Bonsilate Company, one of the largest concerns of the kind in the country, to-day concluded to wind up its affairs and close the business. Among the stockholders is John W. Hyatt of Newark, N.J., the inventor of bonsilate and celluloid. The company has been doing business since 1881, having been organized in Newark with a capital stock of $100,000. It was believed that there was a great future for the company, but it has steadily lost money."

Through 1899, at least, Albany Billiard Ball Company remained on Grand Street, at the corner of Plain, a site now covered by the South Mall Arterial. It's the close of the century and we're still nowhere near Delaware Avenue. But at some point there was a move to Delaware Ave., for by 1928 (there's a big gap in available directories online), ABB was finally at our "historic" site at 483 Delaware Avenue, with Ronald Kinnear as President and Treasurer, and Kenneth C. Ogden as vice president and secretary.

And there it sat, quietly making billiard balls miles and miles from the original site of the manufacture of celluloid, decaying, waiting for redevelopment and the placement of a marker that commemorates an important event in Albany's industrial history in exactly the wrong place. You could make an argument for putting the marker in front of the vacant lot at 795 Broadway, or as close to the corner of long-gone Plain Street as you can get, but celluloid was not invented way out on Delaware Avenue.

En pointe

2010-02-25T21:33:58Z

2007 recital 219, originally uploaded by carljohnson.

From a couple of years back. I'm resorting to a photograph today because, believe it or not, untangling the history of billiard ball manufacture in Albany is more complicated than you might have thought.

Mea culpa!

2010-02-24T19:02:49Z

Sorry to all the folks who took the time to comment and then wondered if I even cared. Your comment is very important to me. No, really it is. Not sure what Movable Type setting I had screwed up. It's supposed to send me an email when there are comments pending, but I got nothing. Also, if you have trouble commenting, shoot me an email and let me know. It's supposed to accept pretty much every ID system out there, and will even let you comment with just an email address. I'd turn off moderation, but you cannot believe how many spam comments I'm getting already.

Hoxsie!

2010-02-24T17:37:59Z

Hoxsie!, originally uploaded by carljohnson.

From the Schenectady City Directory for 1862-63, my favorite image ever. Ever.

No, I don't know what it means. I don't want to know what it means. It is simply perfect just as it is.

Corruption at the Capitol, 1910-style

2010-02-23T13:14:26Z

Tne New International Year Book, "A Compendium of the World's Progress for the Year 1910," provides a neat little summary of the complicated dealings of Senator Allds, highlighted yesterday when I wondered about the headlines being displayed by Lewis Wickes Hine's Schenectady Newsies of 1910. The Allds scandal had it all: bribery, bridge and sugar beet interests, thousands stuffed into envelopes, uncovering of additional corruption, and guilty legislators who had the good grace to die before all this came to light. So, from precisely a century ago, the New International Year Book's summary of the Trial of Senator Allds:

The death of Senator John Raines in 1909 made it necessary to choose a new leader of the Republican majority in the Senate. This leader, according to custom, is made president pro tempore of the body. In January the Republican caucus selected Senator Jotham P. Allds from Chenango county in the middle of the State. A small group of Republican Senators refused to act with the caucus on the ground of personal objection to Mr. Allds. The caucus selection was, however, duly chosen and installed. Shortly afterwards, a highly sensational statement appeared in the New York Evening Post charging Senator Allds with having received bribes, the statement being based upon accusations made by another Senator, Mr. Conger. The latter was connected with bridge companies . . .

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Senator Conger testified that in his presence Hiram G. Moe, representing the interests of several bridge companies, including Conger's, had paid to Senator Allds, then the leader of the Republican majority in the Assembly, $1000 to procure the killing of a bill which was distasteful to the companies. It appeared further from his testimony that the total amount furnished by the companies was $6000, of which $1000 was given to Senator Allds, and $4000 to Assemblyman Jean L. Burnett, now dead. A second envelope containing $1000, he testified, was given to S. Frederick Nixon, Speaker of the Assembly from 1899 to the time of his death, 1905. Senator Conger testified that the companies had raised funds to influence legislation not only in the year in question, but in 1902, 1903, and 1905. The same bill, which restricted the freedom of township officers in dealing with bridge companies without specific authority from the people, had been brought forward at every session and had been used, he alleged, to extort money from the companies. He declared that in 1905 the legislators raised their demand to $10,000, which the companies refused to pay. As a punishment to them the bill was made a law. Senator Allds, on taking the stand in his own defense, denied that he had received $1000, or had ever taken a bribe designed to affect legislation. He declared that he had never seen Moe and that the incidents testified to by Senator Conger had never taken place.

After the hearing of testimony, which occupied seven weeks, the Senate on March 29 voted upon the question whether the charges of Senator Conger against Senator Allds had been sustained. Some hours before the vote was taken Senator Allds resigned, by advice of his counsel. By a vote of 40 to 9 the Senate declared that he was guilty. Four Republicans and five Democrats voted in his favor.

Legislative Inquiry.
These revelations led to the introduction in the legislature of bills for a broader investigation of legislative conditions. These bills were passed and a committee of the legislature was appointed to investigate any instances of legislative corruption within their knowledge. Governor Hughes's recommendation that the powers of the legislative graft committee be enlarged were disregarded by the legislature. The committee was made up from the membership of the Senate and the Assembly, and the Hon. M. Linn Bruce, a former lieutenant-governor was chosen as counsel. The committee was practically confined, by the action of the legislature, to those evidences of corruption disclosed by the Senate investigation during the trial of Senator Allds and the investigation into insurance matters conducted by Superintendent Hotchkiss. During the progress of the inquiry a charge was made that Frank J. Gardner, a Republican member of the Senate from Brooklyn, had attempted to bribe certain members of the legislature to vote against race track bills passed in 1908. Gardner was indicted and was arrested at Scranton, Pa., October 13. The testimony upon which his arrest was based was that of Congressman Otto G. Foelker, who in 1908 was State Senator. Foelker cast the deciding vote in favor of the passage of the bill, arising from his sick bed to do so. He charged that Gardner had sent for him and attempted to buy his vote, remarking that he would pay him $2000 more than some other senators would receive. Another witness testified that Gardner had admitted to him that the opponents of the bills had used a corruption fund of $500,000, which was placed in the hands of a man who now held prominent office, and that this man profited by failing to keep the agreements made with certain legislators. Gardner, on the witness stand, refused to testify and was held in contempt of court.

In October Henry F. Zimmelin, formerly vice-president and representative at Albany of the Lyons Beet Sugar Refining Company testified before the committee that he had paid $3000 a year for the last three years to the late John Raines, who was at that time the leader of the Republican majority in the State Senate. he testified also that $3000 had been paid to Jean L. Burnett, a Representative who has since died, and that small sums were paid to other legislative officials. The company was interested in a law giving a bounty for beet sugar and wished to prevent a repeal of the statute. It was said that in 11 years the State paid $545,000 in bounties for the manufacture of beet sugar, but in 1908 payment ceased as a result of the opposition of Governor Hughes, and that soon after this company went into bankruptcy. There was also testimony showing the collection by assessment of sums of money by the Street Railway Association for use at Albany and in political campaigns. It was alleged that one assessment of $8000 paid by the Metropolitan Street Railway Company had been disguised as the payment of damages to an imaginary person for injuries received.

Insurance Investigation.
An investigation into the conduct of certain fire insurance companies in the State was carried on in March by Superintendent Hotchkiss, the head of the New York Insurance Department. In the course of this investigation it was alleged that certain fire insurance companies had paid large sums of money apparently for the purpose of influencing legislation. E.R. Kennedy, a fire insurance broker, and a member of the legislative committee of the New York Board of Fire Underwriters, testified that in 1901 as a representative of the companies, he had expended $13,311 at Albany, in connection with the passage and enactment of a bill designed to exempt the re-insurance reserves of fire companies from taxation. He testified also that about $5000 was paid to influential politicians and that the same amount was given to the Republican State Committee. It was said that during the six years ended 1906, the insurance companies representing the New York Board of Fire Underwriters had paid something more than $100,000 in "legal expenses" at Albany in connection with legislation pending there, the chief agent in these transactions being William H. Buckley, a politician who had been a subordinate officer in the insurance department. He admitted that in one year he had received $27,000 from the companies for legal services, although he did not appear in any proceeding as an attorney of record. It was shown also that he borrowed large sums from officials of fire companies.

On April 11, Governor Hughes transmitted to the legislature a preliminary report from Superintendent Hotchkiss relating to his inquiry. The governor declared that Mr. Hotchkiss had come upon certain suggestive facts which required investigation. He stated further that he considered it a promising opportunity to investigate all alleged corruption which had been carried on in recent years in the State legislature. In accordance with his request the legislature adopted a resolution providing for a comprehensive investigation by a joint committee of three Senators and five Representatives, to report on March 1, 1911.