• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar

New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Adirondacks & NNY
  • Capital-Saratoga
  • Mohawk Valley
  • Hudson Valley & Catskills
  • NYC & Long Island
  • Western NY
  • History
  • Nature & Environment
  • Arts & Culture
  • Outdoor Recreation
  • Food & Farms
  • Subscribe
  • Support
  • Submit
  • About
  • New Books
  • Events
  • Podcasts

Bill Orzell

Bill Orzell is a retired Geographic Field Analyst and sportsman who resides in De Ruyter, New York. He has had a lifelong appreciation of the economic, political, social and sports history of the Empire State.

Empire City Race Track in Yonkers: Some History

April 17, 2022 by Bill Orzell Leave a Comment

Fleetwood Park Morrisania, NY July 9, 1878 courtesy Library of CongressEarly 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

Filed Under: History, New York City Tagged With: Gouverneur Morris, Horses, New York City, sports, Sports History, The Bronx, Westchester County, Yonkers

Old Man Patterson’s Spring in Saratoga

March 6, 2022 by Bill Orzell Leave a Comment

Postcard view of the Alexander Patterson designed High School which opened in 1884 and wasSaratoga 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

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: Architecture, Environmental History, Saratoga County, Saratoga Springs

Saratoga Race Track’s Wilson Chute is Returning; Here’s Some History

January 25, 2022 by Bill Orzell Leave a Comment

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map 1 (May 1954) showing the Saratoga Racing Association grounds (the Wilson Chute is marked with an arrow)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

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: Gambling, history, Horses, NYRA, Saratoga Race Course, Saratoga Springs, Sports History, Vice

The Spirit of the Times: A 19th Century Chronicle of American Sports

January 14, 2022 by Bill Orzell Leave a Comment

Title page of the September 1, 1894 issue of The Spirit of the Times, featuring an illustration by Henry Stull.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

Filed Under: Arts, Capital-Saratoga, History, New York City, Recreation Tagged With: Baseball, Belmont Park, bicycling, Civil War, Cultural History, football, Gambling, Golf History, Horses, Journalism, Manhattan, New York City, Newspapers, Publishing, Saratoga Race Course, sports, Sports History

The Sinking of the Ford Freighter Green Island

November 3, 2021 by Bill Orzell Leave a Comment

Launching Ford Motor Company Ship “Green Island” at Great Lakes Engineering Works,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

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History, New York City Tagged With: Binghamton, Green Island, Maritime History, Military History, New York City, World War Two

A Canal Gunpowder Blast: The Day Verona Beach’s Waterfront Was Razed

October 25, 2021 by Bill Orzell 2 Comments

Map of Sylvan Beach 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

Filed Under: History, Western NY Tagged With: Barge Canal, Erie Canal, Fires, Oneida County, Oneida Lake, Sylvan Beach, Transportation History, Verona Beach

Baseball: The 1944 St. Louis Street-Car Series

October 19, 2021 by Bill Orzell Leave a Comment

Billy Southwards heads homeI 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

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Baseball, Major League Baseball, sports, Sports History

The Submarine U-505: Predator, Prey, and Memorial

September 9, 2021 by Bill Orzell Leave a Comment

Tugboat Pauline L. Moran employing a 'breast-tow' to move the U-505 through the St. Lawrence River courtesy TowLine Magazine June 1954 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

Filed Under: History Tagged With: Maritime History, Military History, Navy, World War Two

Saratoga’s Kensington Hotel: From Sanitarium to Skidmore

August 24, 2021 by Bill Orzell Leave a Comment

The Kensington Hotel on the north side of Union Avenue between Circular and Regent Streets. Lucien R. Burleigh 1888 bird’s-eye-view map of Saratoga Springs.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

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: Cultural History, Saratoga, Saratoga Springs, Skidmore College, Social History, Tourism

St. Johnsville’s Lion in Love Sculpture: A Piece of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel Upstate

August 18, 2021 by Bill Orzell Leave a Comment

George C. Boldt courtesy Library of CongressThe Margaret Reaney Memorial Library is a fixture in the Erie Canal-side community of St. Johnsville, Montgomery County, NY. The Library contains a museum which features a wide array of art in a very fine collection.

An outdoor sculpture display in the north garden is listed in the Library’s catalog as “Nude Female and Lion” by Roland Hinton Perry. The bronze was cast in 1898 by Jno. Williams, Inc. foundry which was located on West 26th Street in Manhattan. [Read more…] about St. Johnsville’s Lion in Love Sculpture: A Piece of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel Upstate

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History, Mohawk Valley Tagged With: art, Art History, Libraries, Montgomery County, New York City, sculpture, St. Johnsville, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Support Our 2022 Fundraising

Subscribe to New York Almanack

Subscribe! Follow the New York Almanack each day via E-mail, RSS, Twitter or Facebook updates.

Recent Comments

  • Katie L Williams on “Labor’s Slaves in the Adirondacks”: Building the Adirondack Railroad
  • Edythe Ann Quinn on Slug Slime: A Secret Weapon
  • Stefani on Jet Ski Invasion of NY Harbor Rounds Manhattan’s Tip
  • Debby Starck on Coyotes: Decoding Their Yips, Barks, and Howls
  • Sean on A Brief History of the Mohawk River
  • Helise Flickstein on Susan B. Anthony Childhood Home Historic Marker Dedication
  • Art and Fashion Teachers Opportunity: Quilts, Textiles, & Fiber Exhibitions Looking For Entries DEADLINE August 14, 2022 – Keeper of Knowledge on Quilts, Textiles, & Fiber Exhibitions Looking For Entries
  • Margaret on Catskills Resort History: The Beginning of the End
  • Kathleen Hulser on Georgia O’Keefe At Wiawaka On Lake George
  • Alison, descendent of Thurlow Weed on Albany’s Thurlow Weed: Seward, Lincoln’s Election, & The Civil War Years

Recent New York Books

off the northway
Horse Racing the Chicago Way
The Women's House of Detention
Long Island’s Gold Coast Warriors and the First World War
Public Faces Secret Lives by Wendy Rouse
adirondack cabin
Spaces of Enslavement and Resistance in Dutch New York
ilion cover
Spare Parts

Secondary Sidebar

preservation league
Protect the Adirondacks Hiking Guide