WALLS HAVE EARS:

Of Romance
215-217 UNION ST.

 

As you drive down Washington Avenue in Albany past the colonnaded Education Build­ing, past the State Office Building, that mon­strous beacon conceived by Al Smith, past the charming old “Boys’ Academy” designed by Philip Hooker, sitting so placidly in the little park, then past the montage, Our State Capitol, you see directly ahead a superb building. If you don’t make a turn you’ll be right in the office of my friend Erastus Corning, Mayor of our Capital City, for this is the City Hail of Albany, designed by that great Romanticist, H. H. Rich­ardson, the reviver of the Romanesque Style. Take a good look at it when you’re next in Albany. Look particularly at the Arcade which finds an especial fondness hi my heart. It was here one night that we took shelter during a sudden shower as we walked back from the Ten Eyck to her house on Elk Street. It was here, as the rain fell softly, that I said, “Will you?” and was accepted. How thoughtful of Richardson to provide such a romantic spot for a later confrere to propose I No wonder this  later architect finds romance in the period that Richardson so greatly influenced, the period of Romanticism. All of which brings me back here to Union Street.

 

At 215 and 217 Union stand those un-iden­tical twins, the Apartment House and Amity Hall. Though far from being Richardson, they are rife with his influence. Take a good look at the Romanesque arches of sandstone, the fas­cinating brickwork. Notice the romance of the turrets and especially look at the little balcony way up in the eaves on the front of 217. Can’t you see a fair lady standing there waving to her lover? Can’t you imagine the men of the house pouring boiling oil from here upon an adversary or a housemaid dumping a chamber pot?

 

Enough of this! Let’s cross the street and go up to 242, the house from which my grand­mother was married. Obviously this is not Rich­ardsonian Romanesque. It is an even more ro­mantic style of this whole period of Romance. If you know the building, I hardly need say that here is an almost perfect example of the Gothic Revival. The pointed arches of the tall windows with their tracery and cuspeds, the battlements at the roof line, all the details could almost have been lifted from Henry the Eighth’s Eng­land, except it’s all wood. But who can deny the romance. I almost wonder if my grand­father rode up in “Suit-of-mail,’ mounted on a prancing white charger, to receive his love scarf as he went on to the joust.

 

Let’s hope that time will be as gracious to these as it has been to others in the Area of earlier dates, so that Romance may not die!

 

 

“Not A Damned Thing Between Meals”
111 Union St.

 

Lower Union Street is graced with a number of houses which could be called Victorian but which are more exactly classed by architectural historians as of the General Grant Period. They are all about ninety years old and were built during the Post Bellum Presidency of General Grant.

 

Many of these houses have lost their original character through sand blasting and having their trim painted white. However, one eleven, though now converted into apartments, retains almost completely, outside and in, the true characteristics of the General Grant Period. This makes me wonder how observant you are. Have you noticed the sandstone base upon which this building rests? It is rusticated and expresses so strongly the demarcation between the English basement and the first floor: up half a flight, down half a flight. Today we call it split level! Have you looked at the sandstone steps which bring you up to the first floor? If you have, have you taken notice of the cast-iron stair rails? They are moulded, painted, and sprinkled with sand to simulate the gracious sandstone steps upon which they sit. Look at the rather Baroque doorway and window trim all painted to imitate the stone. Then, if you look real carefully, you will see the two lions’ heads tucked under the front door of bold mouldings and etched glass.

 

Now having seen the outside, let’s walk up the steps and pull the handsome brass door bell.  The year is 1873. We are going to see the in­terior of this fine new home of Giles Yates van der Bogert, and also congratulate him on the re­cent birth of his son, Frank, born in the front bedroom upstairs. A maid answers the door; as we walk in we see the fourteen-foot ceilings of the hall with its modern lighting, two beautiful cut glass globes suspended in brass hangers. Up until quite recently these charming sources of light were lit every night by tapers. To the left is the dining room and to the right the for­mal parlours. Farther down the hall, on the left, there is the stairway, made handsome by a window at the landing which soars on up to the ceiling of the second floor. At the end of the hall, closed off by etched glass doors is the library or more exactly the living room looking out upon the garden and opening out upon the semi-circular porch. We find everything as it should be; the heavy plaster rnouldings, the gas fixtures, the parquet floors. Yes, it is a beautiful modern house done in the best of taste.

 

Now let’s visit the house again after that baby, Frank, has grown up and has become the first pediatrician in Schenectady. It’s a little different from that day in 1873 when we walked in dressed in our morning coats and high collars. Now, what used to be the formal parlours are the Doctor’s waiting room and office. Now mothers are sitting waiting for the Doctor and, if you listen carefully, you’ll hear him say, as he gives a mother a diet for her child, “…and not a damned thing between meals except water!”

 

 

 

Let’s Go Down to the Corner 
Mohawk Club: 1 North Church

 

Spring! The dance of the skip-rope, the rumble of roller skates, the click of marbles, and the snap of the top string, now replaced by the whirr of the Yo-Yo! These were and still are the sighs and sounds of Spring. Sleds, skis, ice skates and galoshes have found their spot down cellar, or in the attic, to hibernate. Snow suits have been sent off to the cleaners, all to be replaced by their rightful heirs.

 

This year the young ladies are emerging in a dress not un-similar to what the girls wore back when we used to get out our “ball bear­ings” tops and all, and say, “Let’s go down to the corner,” the corner where that stately build­ing, the Old Mohawk Bank, now the Club, stands, and where the old flagstone sidewalk had been replaced with concrete, making the corner’’ the only really good roller skating spot in the Stockade. Yes, back then the girls wore long black stockings and short skiffs. But how different the dress of the boys. We wore no slacks or zippered jackets. In fact we did not wear long pants until Graduation Day from Grade School. That day we were men and wore our first pair of white flannels. Up until then we had worn “Buster Brown” shoes, not quite knee-length socks and shorts or perhaps long socks and knickers whose buckles slipped incessantly so that one pant-leg invariably was drooping. And until we were quite old, our hair was “Dutch cut” a Ia “fluster Brown.”

 

But what matters our dress! The snow has gone; the crocuses are up; Spring is here so “let’s go down to the corner,” and take a good look at that grand building around which we used to play, sometimes becoming so boisterous that we were told in polite but certain terms to quiet down or “vamoose.” Built in 1816, the building has been somewhat altered over the years. The pedimented entrance for the custom­ers of the Bank which was on the Union Street side of the building has gone, the only original

entrance left being the one on Church which was used by David Boyd, the cashier, who occu­pied the upper floor as his home. The circle head windows on Union Street have been changed. Additions have been added on both streets. Gone is the classic balustrade that hid the juncture of the roof and the street wall. However, despite these alterations and changes, the Old Bank building stands as a monument to the growing interest among the citizens of this little Dorp Town in building “in the best style.” The Old Bank is an expression of the London of Christopher Wren and Inigo Jones, the Boston of Bulflnch, the “Builder’s Handbook” of Asher Benjamin. The ordered lines of this dignified building are far removed from the almost Gothic character of its neighbor up the Street, the Abram Yates House, with its gay butterfly brickwork, decorative beam anchors and brick finial. Truly this is what makes this cluster of houses in the Stockade Area so priceless, “Taste” expressed in Architecture from 1700 to 1962. But enough of this. Let me tell a little of the story that the walls of this Classic building have to tell.

 

For thirty-seven years the coins of the resi­dents of Schenectady clinked within this edifice. Then the Bank moved. Chauncey Vibbard, superintendent and one of the organizers of the New York Central Railroad bought the place and converted it into an elegant residence. It was he who closed up the Union Street door. Later the building was sold to Henry Crane and then to Edward Delavan, organizer of the New York Temperance Society. This makes me feel rather guilty since shortly after the repeal of the Volstead Act I was commissioned by the Club to design a barroom for them. Well, I think I can forget the guilt because in 1871 the building was owned by my grandfather who, judging from the cellar that I am told he kept, did not agree with Mr. Delavan. Subsequently it became the Union Classical Institute, Sche­nectady’s High School. Voices of youngsters rang through the halls. Probably Mr. Halsey, the principal, and his successors often said “quiet down” just as the steward of the Club sometimes said to us some years later when in the Spring we went “down to the corner.”

 

Elegant Buildings
217 Union St.

 

How many of you have had the fun of jump­ing from a high perch in the hayloft into the soft hay below? Probably many of you have when, as a kid, you were out on some farm. But how many of you have enjoyed this thrill, so seldom allowed the youth of today, right in your own back yard in the middle of the City. I am one of those fortunates who has been afforded this pleasure.

 

 At the end of the driveway between 109 and 111 Union Street there used to stand two hand­some stables complete with hayloft and coach­man’s quarters. It was there that we used to jump into soft hay. In one, “Toasty” was stabled, to be aroused in the middle of the night and harnessed to the buggy to take my father, the Doctor, to some sick child. Yes, these were handsome buildings done in the best style of the time, but they gave way to the new mode of transportation, the “Horseless Carriage.”

 

A garage was built. The two stables were razed and a tennis court was built where they stood’. This was back when tennis was as popu­lar as golf, back when Bill Tilden was at his prime and back when the Davis Cup was almost as important as the World Series.

 

Well, time and the goggle-eyed and finned monsters from Detroit have not erased all of these buildings. Up at 217 Union Street, the former residence of Senator James Yelverton, now Amity Hall, there remains a superb exam­ple of one of these elegant structures. It is al­most as elegant as the pseudo-Romanesque house. This was quite fitting and proper when you think of the elegance housed within these outbuildings.

 

Remember the superbly groomed and cur­ried horses? Of course they should be bedded in stalls of matched oak boarding with black iron and polished brass trim. They were the pride and joy of the Master of the House. Of course the Surreys, Ransoms, Buggies and Sleighs, each masterpieces of craftsmanship in themselves, should be housed in a building worthy of them; so should the beautiful leather-work of the reins and halters and the handsome metalwork of the bits and sleigh bells. And, of course, the quarters of the coachman should be­fit the importance and dignity of his position and dress, his polished boots, his greatcoat and his high silk hat. Yes, it was fitting and proper that the stable be elegant, for men loved these horses. We kids did too! Especially when, on a December morning, we were awakened by the jingle of sleigh bells. It had snowed last night. Now our worries were over. Old St. Nick would be able to get through with his sleigh and rein­deer, his bag full of toys and his Merry Christ­mas to All!

 

 

How Does Your Garden Grow?
23 Church Street

 

 

On the corner of Union and Church Streets next to the beautifully rehabilitated Red Cross Building there stands an interesting edifice with some rather outlandish tales to tell.

 

The house was built by Mr. Horstmeyer, a partner in the H. S. Barney Co. Here he resided with his wife and family and the Church Street Ghost!

 

Now I don’t want to frighten the present occupants, so may I assure you that the Ghost left a number of years ago when Dr. Gross, the dentist, owned and occupied the place. It was here that he maintained his office. You can hardly blame the Ghost for leaving. Had I been as ethereal I would have flown the Doctor’s chair and drill, too!

 

Before he left, the Ghost is reputed to have lived up on the third floor in the unfinished Billiard Room. It is not entirely clear why this room was unfinished. My personal belief is that when the Ghost took over Mr. Horstmeyer left the room incomplete because he refused to sub­ject his friends to the kibitzing of a Ghost as the ivories clicked.

 

I am told that Mr. Horstmeyer maintained a charming garden to the rear of the house—a garden which competed with that of another outstanding citizen of Schenectady, Dr. Stein­nietz. At this time Dr. Steimnetz lived on Lib­erty Street. Each year these two men entered a violent competition wagering on whose tulips, roses, etc. would bloom first. One year an event occurred which today would call for a Con­gressional Investigation.

 

As the story goes, Mr. Horstmeyer was in New York City on a buying trip when he ran across some superbly wrought artificial tulips. An idea flashed through his mind! He bought the proper quantity. Upon his return home, under the protection of darkness, he planted his garden. The next day he contacted the “Little Wizard” who immediately got into his electric auto and drove to Horstmeyer’s. On the way the thought kept running through the Master Mind: “This is impossible! He can’t have blooms so far ahead of me!”

 

Upon his arrival Mr. Horstmeyer ushered him through the house out into the garden where the two good friends enjoyed a hearty laugh!