History, Natural History & the Arts
Over the last three-plus decades, Bill Kauffman has written about and interviewed upstate New York novelists, politicians, and civic activists who have given the region much of its interest to the author.
Upstaters: Poets, Pols, Prophets and Bush-League Heroes of Upstate New York (SUNY Press, 2026) collects these into a single volume. [Read more…] about Upstaters: Poets, Pols, Prophets & Bush-League Heroes
Following the stock market crash of October 1929, an economic malady gripped the United States and much of the world, lasting several years. Loss of employment created excessive hardships, limiting even basic necessities of life.
The President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had previously been the two-term Governor of New York State, developed a composite plan to help citizens cope with the financial disaster and provide jobs, commonly known as “The New Deal.”
The ambitious program was multi-faceted, with one face being the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) established in 1933, where young men were organized into military style labor, housed in barracks at remote locations. [Read more…] about How The New Deal Helped Ignite Interest in American Skiing
Every four years when the Winter Olympics make their appearance, the Lake Placid bobsled course return to mind. Although built for the 1932 Winter Olympics, the birth of the modern sliding sport goes back to the mid-1870s in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
It wasn’t long after that bobsledding spread to Ilion, a village on the Mohawk River in Herkimer County, NY. Blessed with steep hills and wintry weather made the introduction of bobsledding into the local scene a natural fit. In the mid-1880s, Ilionites were so active in bobsledding that they founded the “Ilion Coasting Club.” [Read more…] about Bobsledding History: A Mohawk River Community’s Experience
On April 4-5, 1968 in New York City there was a disturbance sparked by the assassination of Martin Luther King. Harlem, the largest African-American neighborhood in Manhattan, was expected to erupt into looting and violence as it had done on July 23–30, 1967, in which two dozen stores were either burglarized or burned and four people were killed. [Read more…] about Carrying the Torch: New Yorker John Carlos Barred from the 1968 Olympics
The XIII Olympic Winter Games were held in Lake Placid, Essex County, NY from February 13, 1980 to February 24, 1980. Among the most remembered parts of the 1980 Winter Olympics were the Miracle on Ice, in which the U.S. hockey team upset the Soviet Union’s team, and speed-skater Eric Heiden’s five gold medals. Less remembered is the event’s musical legacy. [Read more…] about The 1980 Lake Placid Olympic Games’ Musical Legacy
A proposal has recently been developed in coordination with the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) to host the sliding events (bobsled, skeleton, luge) for the 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (February 6 – 22, 2026) in Lake Placid.
Joe Jacobs was born in 1896 to Hungarian Jewish immigrants. He grew up in the neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen, Midtown Manhattan, then a bastion of poor Irish Americans, where his father ran a tailor shop.
For many young males living in that tough setting, boxing was both a badge of identity and a means of survival. Every immigrant neighborhood had its own champions and heroes. Boxing was a flag of ethnic pride, attracting a large and loyal local following. [Read more…] about The Odd Couple: Yussel the Muscle & Maximilian Schmeling
The book Marty Glickman: The Life of an American Jewish Sports Legend (NYU Press, 2023) by Jeffrey S. Gurock takes a look at Marty Glickman, who for close to half a century after World War II, was the voice of New York sports. [Read more…] about Marty Glickman: American Jewish Sports Legend
An Article 14 Constitutional Amendment is being proposed for the Mt. Van Hoevenberg Olympic Sports Complex in the Adirondack Park outside Lake Placid.
At the Mt. Van Hoevenberg complex, the Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA) currently manages around 1,220 acres of Forest Preserve classified as Intensive Use by the Adirondack Park Agency (APA). Abutting these lands is 319 acres of land owned by the Town of North Elba.
Together this complex houses the Olympic bobsled and luge track, cross-country skiing and biathlon trails, and associated facilities, with most of the intensive buildings and facilities located on the town lands. These facilities have seen massive upgrades and state spending in preparation for hosting the World University Games in 2023. [Read more…] about A Constitutional Amendment Proposed for Mt. Van Hoevenberg
New York State’s connection to Olympic wrestling goes all the way back to 1904, the very first year freestyle wrestling was included in the summer games, when Isidor “Jack” Niflot, then of New York City, but later a longtime Sullivan County resident, won a gold medal in the bantamweight division. [Read more…] about Jack Niflot: Olympic Gold Medal Wrestler
On this episode of Empire State Engagements, Dr. Clarence Jefferson Hall, Jr., talks about his book A Prison in the Woods: Environment and Incarceration in New York’s North Country (UMass Press, 2020). [Read more…] about Empire State Engagements: North Country Prisons
The New York State Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA) has announced that after a 10-month construction project, the 400-meter James C. Sheffield Speed Skating Oval at the Olympic Center has reopened to the public.
The Speed Skating Oval was dedicated to James C. “Bunnie” Sheffield by the Olympic Organizing Committee in 1978. Sheffield was inducted into the National Speed Skating Hall of Fame in 1971, and his inspiration contributed to the organization and promotion of winter sports, including the 1980 Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid. [Read more…] about Lake Placid Speed Skating Oval Renovations Complete; Free Skating Jan 6th
The 1932 and 1980 Olympic bobsled track, located on Mt. Van Hoevenberg in Lake Placid, N.Y., is on The National Register of Historic Places.
Clearing for the original one and a half, 26-curve course began in August 1930 and the track, specifically built for the 1932 winter games, was open to the public just 148 days later on Christmas Day 1930. [Read more…] about New York’s Olympic Bobsled Track: Some History
This is the second article in a 5-part series that looks at amendments to Article 14, Section 1, the famed forever wild provision, of the State Constitution. This article looks the Mt. Van Hoevenberg Olympic Winter Sports Complex in the Adirondack Park, managed by the Olympic Regional Development Authority. The first piece looked at the recent history of Article 14 amendments. [Read more…] about The Mt. Van Hoevenberg Olympic Facility and Forever Wild
This episode of A New York Minute in History recalls the “Miracle on Ice,” when the U.S. Men’s Hockey team upset the Soviet Union in the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. [Read more…] about 40 Years After An Olympic Miracle
North Country native Melvil Dewey was obsessed with order from the time he was young. At the age of 5, he would alphabetize the spices in his mother’s pantry. He was preoccupied with numbers, lists, rules and efficiency.
This obsession helped change the way we categorize information across the world with the invention of the Dewey Decimal system, which is still in use today at libraries in 150 countries worldwide. He also founded the Lake Placid Club and was instrumental in helping to bring the 1932 Winter Olympics to the region. [Read more…] about Considering the Controversy Around Melvil Dewey
Lake Placid is one of only three cities world-wide to have hosted two Olympic Winter Games, 1932 and 1980. Since then, it has played host to annual World Cup events and other large-scale sporting competitions.
The community is set to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the 1980 Olympic Winter Games from February 13-23.
[Read more…] about Events Added for 1980 Olympics Celebration
Forty years ago this February, the Adirondack village of Lake Placid hosted the 13th Olympic Winter Games. The U.S. Men’s Olympic Hockey Team’s improbable win over the Russians, known as the “Miracle on Ice,” along with speed skater Eric Heiden’s five gold medals, helped make the 1980 Lake Placid Games one with an enduring legacy.
From February 14 – 23, the two-time Olympic village (the first winter games to be hosted outside of Europe took place in Lake Placid in 1932) is set to host a full slate of activities. [Read more…] about Lake Placid Celebrating 1980 Olympics 40th Anniversary
Long before the 2015 escape of Richard Matt and David Sweat, the word Dannemora instantly conjured images of the prison. While the high wall dominates the landscape, the village does have other historical connections, some of them in the world of sports, including one through the person of John “Jack” Lagree. Jack was a native of Churubusco, a tiny hamlet in northwestern Clinton County.
Blessed with engineering talent, mechanical skill, and a strong, traditional, North Country work ethic, he rose to national prominence in the world of bobsleigh competition (referred to hereafter by the more popular term, bobsled). [Read more…] about Jack Lagree: Dannemora’s Bobsled Guru
The 2016 Summer Olympics have ended, and as usual, they were quite the spectacle. Folks in the Adirondacks and North Country are perhaps bigger fans of the Winter Olympics, for obvious reasons: the games have been held twice at Lake Placid, and a number of area natives have attained lifelong dreams by earning a place on the podium. But a man born in this region achieved summer Olympic glory long ago, one of many highlights in a very accomplished life.
Karl Telford Frederick was born in 1881 in Chateaugay (northern Franklin County), where his father was a Presbyterian minister, which required a somewhat nomadic existence (five relocations in 14 years). Before Karl was three, the family moved to Essex on Lake Champlain, remaining there until 1888—not a long time, but sufficient to establish a lasting connection between him and the Adirondacks. [Read more…] about Chateaugay Olympian Karl Frederick: Literally A Shooting Star
Use your bank’s “bill pay” option (or just send a check)
Thanks for your support! These are difficult times. Without your support we cannot publish the Almanack.
*Donations are not tax deductible.
(Click the X in the top right corner this box to not see this message again for 7 days).