Electric City part 1

[15_the_circle]

[OT from cottage renovations]

having grown up in a G.E. family we moved a lot when I was a kid.  inevitably one of those moves would be to the facility in Schenectady, NY. 

two score and four years ago I was ten years old and we moved away, never to return.  this week's travel to upstate New York was all about a chance to revisit the place in the company of my sister who happened to have come down from Alaska to teach a short course in Syracuse.  after it wrapped up Friday afternoon we headed back to our old stomping grounds for a couple of days of comparing memories against current reality. 

(click through these thumbnails for higher resolution images)

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the Stockade

Schenectady was settled by the Dutch and later came under English control.  the oldest part of the City is called the stockade for the protective perimeter maintained around it in the early days. 

one of the older and more impressive homes in that district is the Governor's House, built in 1735.  it has a long, narrow yard backing down to the banks of the Mohawk River (the house itself is sensibly above the flood stage).  we stopped by because the yard is surrounded by a high brick wall enclosing a swimming pool, to which we remembered there had been some sort of access through a pool association.  on muggy summer days before the advent of air conditioning it was just the thing to beat the heat. 

what caught my attention this time around was the bunch of forsythia that somebody had taken inside to force the blooms and then brought back out to hang on the door knocker, a sign of the promise of the coming of spring.  that promise hadn't yet been fulfilled, though: nothing was yet in bloom and though it was the day before April, out in the countryside the lakes were still frozen over and snow lingered in hollows and on fields. 

detail

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N.Y.C. bridge

at the East end of Riverside Park is the New York Central 1907 railroad bridge over the Mohawk River.  I found the pattern of shadow on stone piers rather appealing though it shows clearly how the bridge, built for four tracks, now hosts only one. 

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to be continued

Comments

[nienna-nineve.livejournal.com]

The sprig of flowers on the door is a pretty little celebration of spring, but somehow it reminds me of the medieval tradition of tacking a sprig of wheat to your door if someone in your household's caught the plague.

[15-the-circle.livejournal.com]

hmmm, good thing we didn't try to go inside. 

Railroad Bridge Shadows

[(Anonymous)]

I love the photo of the shadows on the RR bridge. -- Greta