Henry Hilton

Growing Up On Saratoga Springs’ West Side

February 26, 2025 by Guest Contributor 1 Comment

This is a story about growing up on the west side of Saratoga Springs as a member of the post-World War II baby boom generation (1946-1964). Which side was the east side or the west side of Saratoga Springs was determined by the railroad tracks until the late 1950s, but today Broadway is considered the dividing line.

Our neighborhood was centered on the intersection of Waterbury and Lawrence Streets and was very similar to other neighborhoods in Saratoga. Kids were everywhere. [Read more…] about Growing Up On Saratoga Springs’ West Side

The Seligmans, Philip Payton & Harlem’s Black-Jewish Alliance

April 10, 2023 by James S. Kaplan 4 Comments

Around the time of the Civil War Joseph and Jesse Seligman were the most prominent Jewish businessmen on Wall Street – financiers of the Northern effort in the Civil War and close associates of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.

Every summer in the 1870s they would bring their families with a retinue of servants to stay at the Grand Union Hotel in Saratoga Springs, NY among the most prominent resorts in the United States. In 1879 however, the new manager of the hotel, Judge Henry Hilton, announced a new policy — henceforth no Jewish people would be allowed to stay there. [Read more…] about The Seligmans, Philip Payton & Harlem’s Black-Jewish Alliance

Saratoga’s Grand Union Hotel, the Leland Brothers & A.T. Stewart

February 8, 2023 by Bill Orzell 2 Comments

It may be Paris in April, and Miami or the Riviera in January, but it has always been Saratoga in August. This fostered a necessity to house guests, whether they were seeking the curing waters, or the fickle whims of fortune at the track or faro tables.

Accommodating guests in Saratoga Springs was the fruitful brain-child of the municipal founder Gideon Putnam, who somehow fantastically envisioned a resort community only a scant few years after the the United States shed the bonds of Colonial rule. Putnam’s Tavern and Boarding House, later called Union Hall, and then the Grand Union Hotel, was the well-spring of Saratoga. [Read more…] about Saratoga’s Grand Union Hotel, the Leland Brothers & A.T. Stewart

Saratoga’s ‘Fanny the Flower Girl,’ Gotham Book Mart Founder

December 14, 2021 by Jaap Harskamp 1 Comment

Frances Steloff was the daughter of a Russian immigrant and itinerant rabbi who, in an age of rising anti-Semitism, was one of the early Jewish settlers in Saratoga Springs. The large family lived in dire poverty.

After the death of her mother, Frances was “informally” adopted by a wealthy Boston couple. Having run away from her foster parents, she made her way to New York, worked in a Brooklyn department store selling corsets, before establishing a tiny bookshop in Midtown Manhattan. On her death, after eighty-one years in the business, she was revered as one of America’s most influential booksellers and bibliophiles. Founder of the Gotham Book Mart, she turned her establishment into a center for avant-garde literature. [Read more…] about Saratoga’s ‘Fanny the Flower Girl,’ Gotham Book Mart Founder

Henry Hilton

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