History, Natural History & the Arts
The Saratoga Race Course is instantly recognizable by its iconic roofline and unique treatment. The Gilded Age survives to our time through the turret-spiked, finial capped, slate roof of the grandstand.
The very distinguishable noble crown of racing’s dowager queen places one instantly at the Spa in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains, and announces “Saratoga Springs.” [Read more…] about Saratoga Race Course’s Grandstand: Some History
Early April saw New York State lawmakers adopt the 2022 budget and approve a plan to accelerate the siting of three new full casinos in the metropolitan New York area. This plan will see the casino licenses awarded to those able to cover the $500 million fee and be approved in a selection process.
The obvious first choice for one of the three sites is Aqueduct Race Track in Queens, and another possible location would be Empire City Casino in Yonkers.
Both locations for many years have successfully demonstrated their feasibility by conducting horse sports, and each of the casino facilities are managed by experienced operators, Resorts World at the Big A, and MGM at Empire City.
With Aqueduct in the Big Apple so well known, perhaps this is a good opportunity to delve into the origins of Empire City. [Read more…] about Empire City Race Track in Yonkers: Some History
Saratoga Springs has been gifted with many unique attributes by both nature and the hand of man. The artesian fountains have been an attraction since the dawn of habitation and have endowed the area with an important role in the development of our nation.
It’s admirable that residents and interested visitors combine with a fervent dedication to the history of the community. We have recently witnessed this in the efforts by the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation to secure a historic residence, designed and built in the nineteenth century by Alexander A. Patterson, at 65 Phila Street in the Spa City. [Read more…] about Old Man Patterson’s Spring in Saratoga
The New York Racing Association has recently announced a revised configuration for the historic Saratoga Race Course for the 2022 race meet. A chute, or straight-away will return, allowing for a start directly into the clubhouse turn for races of one mile in distance. Known as the Wilson Chute, it had been a regular feature of the track until 1972, when the area was converted to additional parking.
The Wilson Chute is named in honor of Richard T. Wilson, Jr. who had been the President of the Saratoga Racing Association beginning in 1909. As an executive and an investor, he was integral in saving racing at the Spa and then developing the sport and the racing plant that so many are familiar with today. [Read more…] about Saratoga Race Track’s Wilson Chute is Returning; Here’s Some History
In the early 1800s it was unusual for Americans to be interested in sporting matters on their own shores. News from Europe was the only sporting news of merit, and publishing an American sporting journal was considered a risky use of capital.
The first attempt along these lines may have been in 1829 Baltimore, where John S. Skinner published a monthly magazine which focused on race horse pedigrees called The American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine. Another early attempt was published in New York by the recognized writer and horseman Cadwallader R. Colden, whose organ was called The New-York Sporting Magazine and Annals of the American and English Turf, first published in 1833.
Among the most notable of the sporting press arrived in 1831, when William T. Porter and James Haw published the first issue of The Spirit of the Times, focusing on horse literature and sporting subjects. They had chosen the name for their broadsheet from a quotation in Shakespeare’s King John, “The spirit of the times shall teach me speed.” [Read more…] about The Spirit of the Times: A 19th Century Chronicle of American Sports
When hostilities in 1939 created a combat situation between allied European nations and Germany, initiating the Second World War, the United States was officially neutral. However, the construction of ships began in America, to aid Great Britain and her allies.
When the events of 1941 pulled the U.S. into the conflict, the Navy and the Wartime Shipping Administration had a very serious need for vessels to transport war materials. This task was the duty of the country’s Merchant Marine, and all possible craft were requisitioned, including those on the Great Lakes and inland waterways. [Read more…] about The Sinking of the Ford Freighter Green Island
The Oneida County resorts of Sylvan and Verona Beach are located on the sandy eastern shore of Oneida Lake. This twenty-two mile lake, and its geographic orientation, affords this setting spectacular sunsets. These factors made the eastern shore a desirable vacation destination in the nineteenth century, and a thriving resort community developed along Wood Creek.
Originally, Wood Creek had been improved in the late eighteenth century by the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company as part of that private entity’s effort to link the Mohawk River to Lake Ontario. [Read more…] about A Canal Gunpowder Blast: The Day Verona Beach’s Waterfront Was Razed
I often wish one of the great play-writes like Moss Hart or Arthur Miller, or a screenwriter like Billy Wilder, had been bigger baseball fans, as the game would often make a very funny script.
If I had a mind to write one, I would set the plot in St. Louis, at the height of the Second World War. Baseball had a large presence there, and for plenty of seasons including the war years, the Gateway City was home to two major league ball teams.
The National League entry had played in St. Louis since 1892, as one of the surviving franchises from the American Association, which had failed financially the year before. The Brown Stockings took their name from their hose color in the best 1890s baseball tradition. The team changed their name in 1899 to Perfectos and in 1900, mercifully changed it again to Cardinals. [Read more…] about Baseball: The 1944 St. Louis Street-Car Series
Many unusual craft have passed through New York’s several natural and man-made waterway systems through the years. A remarkable vessel that was certainly one of the most unique to travel the waters of the Empire State was the German submarine U-505, captured by the Unites States Navy during the Second World War. [Read more…] about The Submarine U-505: Predator, Prey, and Memorial
Visitors from every part of the world have made their way to Saratoga Springs for myriad reasons, but mainly for their health or their hippic interest.
They have been accommodated in fabulous structures, but unfortunately most of these great hotels have been lost. In their time they established a superior level of service, dedicated to sybarite satisfaction which help make Saratoga a resort destination. They mainly stood along Broadway.
The Kensington Hotel however, stood away from the others. Its location was on fashionable Union Avenue, the splendid thoroughfare which reaches from the village to Saratoga Lake, with the race track in between. [Read more…] about Saratoga’s Kensington Hotel: From Sanitarium to Skidmore