Saranac Lake ArtWorks and the Saranac Lake Area Chamber of Commerce have announced ArtWorks ArtMarket, a safe and socially distanced outdoor market set for Saturday, September 26th, from 10 am to 3 pm. [Read more…] about ArtMarket Planned For Saranac Lake
Saranac Lake
Eddie Cantor, Will Rogers, William Morris and Saranac Lake
One of the things I am missing this summer is the theater. From Broadway in the city of New York to Pendragon Theatre in the Adirondacks and everywhere in between, stages have gone dark.
Actors are a lively, irrepressible bunch, and so it’s a testament to the seriousness of the ongoing pandemic that theaters are closed. [Read more…] about Eddie Cantor, Will Rogers, William Morris and Saranac Lake
Doctors in the Garden of Science
In a time when compassion and logic often seem in short supply, many of us have a newfound appreciation for doctors and scientists.
Saranac Lake, NY’s history is full of professionals in medicine and science who had a passion for learning and an intense curiosity about the natural world. [Read more…] about Doctors in the Garden of Science
Hub on the Hill Delivery Food Program Expanding
With support from the Johnson & Johnson Foundation and the Saranac Lake Rotary Foundation, the Hub on the Hill has launched a fundraising campaign for new vehicles to deliver emergency food packages & local food from the Canadian Border to NYC.
Resulting from a successful partnership with AdkAction, The Hub on the Hill in the Champlain Valley is expected to deliver approximately 80,000 meals by October 1, 2020. [Read more…] about Hub on the Hill Delivery Food Program Expanding
Beyond Philately: In Praise of the Postal Carrier
In times of trouble, some of the most essential workers are the people who deliver the mail.
Here in the Adirondacks, where there are more trees than people, it can get lonely. Mail carriers keep us connected, and post offices in rural hamlets serve as social hubs. [Read more…] about Beyond Philately: In Praise of the Postal Carrier
Sad Side of TB Treatment History Has Echoes Today
During the era of TB in New York State the fresh air cure wasn’t all a bed of roses.
First-hand accounts left behind in letters, photographs, diaries, and memoirs paint a picture of life in Saranac Lake during the TB years. It’s an incomplete record that can lead us to believe curing was an overwhelmingly positive experience. It takes energy, time, and a degree of mental and physical well being to leave behind a personal record. People who were very ill, illiterate, or struggling with poverty did not have the same opportunity to create, or later preserve, accounts of their experiences. [Read more…] about Sad Side of TB Treatment History Has Echoes Today
Fresh Air Schools: Teaching Outdoors For Public Health
As autumn approaches, schools are thinking about ways to keep students safe by maximizing time outdoors. The concept of outside instruction is not new.
Leading up to the Second World War, open air schools were built in the United States and Europe to protect children from tuberculosis.
In Saranac Lake, in the heart of the Adirondacks, where temperatures in the winter tend to stay well below freezing, some children attended unheated, open air classrooms. [Read more…] about Fresh Air Schools: Teaching Outdoors For Public Health
Early Stunt Men, Daredevils ‘The Human Fly’ & ‘Hurricane Hutch’ in NY
Daredevil stunt man and movie actor Rodman “The Human Fly” Law had been shot out of a “monster sky rocket” and had jumped in a specialized “aeroplane parachute” from the Brooklyn Bridge and the 792-foot Woolworth Building, the tallest building in the world at the time.
For his next feat, Law came to the Adirondacks. [Read more…] about Early Stunt Men, Daredevils ‘The Human Fly’ & ‘Hurricane Hutch’ in NY
A History of TB Treatment at Saranac Lake
This week on The Historians Podcast, Amy Catania of Historic Saranac Lake explains how that upstate New York community became a center for the treatment of tuberculosis. [Read more…] about A History of TB Treatment at Saranac Lake
Cure Porch Cousining: Love In A Time of TB
“The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.” — W. Somerset Maugham.
Before antibiotics, one of the more powerful medicines against tuberculosis was love. Happy patients tended to be more successful in overcoming the disease, so health care providers took every step to improve patients’ state of mind.
Patients stayed busy with occupational therapy and social activities. In the Adirondacks around Saranac Lake, cure porches were oriented toward the best views to boost patients’ sprits with natural beauty. And then there was cousining — a term for informal romances that developed between patients. [Read more…] about Cure Porch Cousining: Love In A Time of TB