From Pleasure Island to Mid-City: Albany’s Lost Amusement Parks

It all started in 1882 when the Albany-Troy (Al-Tro) Steamboat Company purchased part of an island in the Hudson River, north of Albany, to open a picnic grove. The populations in both cities were growing, densely packed around a central core. Factories belched black smoke and ash. In the summer it was hot and steamy. People left their tenement houses to sleep on the roof. They needed an escape.

Pleasure Island
Pleasure Island provided that escape. The area became an Island when it was separated from the shore by the Erie Canal, just above the Albany city line in North Albany. The “Troy Daily Times” called Pleasure Island a “beautiful and romantic spot”. It was lined with trees and a breeze drifted from the River. Steamers with orchestras left the docks in both cities for the short trip to the Island. It soon became the go-to spot of baseball games, sports field days and small boat races around the Island. There were improvements over the years – a refreshment stand, a small theater, a dance hall, and frequent fireworks displays. There were special concerts and balloon ascensions.

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But by the late 1890s there was competition – from other parks created by transportation companies – the Day Line ran boats down to Kingston Point, site of a vast park with swimming and dancing, The Albany and Hudson Electric Railroad created Electric Park in Kinderhook and there was the Adirondack Amusement Park on Sacandaga Lake.

Lagoon Island/Dreamland
And so the owner of the Al-Tro Co. (and Pleasure Island) created the Lagoon Island park in 1897 in the same location. Larger structures were built, rides added, there were bike races, more concerts, more dancing, FREE vaudeville, and sliding chutes into the River

The park changed hands for one year in 1905 under the name Dreamland about a year. And then the park went through yet another makeover.

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Al-Tro (“Fairyland on the Hudson”)
The cities had begun to expand into what had been country. People were buying “villas” in Pine Hills. In Albany Beaver Park had been created and was on its way to becoming Lincoln Park. Competition became fiercer. People were traveling more. With electric trolleys people could get everywhere faster and automobiles allowed people to get to lakes and other areas around the city they couldn’t reach before.

Enter entrepreneur Max Rosen with a dream and wads of cash. He purchased Lagoon Island and re-made it. Al-Tro Park opened in 1906. It had an almost 1,000 ft. boardwalk (take that Atlantic City), rides, a large theater, a miniature railroad, a pony track – all tricked out with thousands of electric lights. It was designed to rival Luna Park, the heart of Coney Island, which opened in 1903 and had already become the stuff of legend.

Unlike many other amusement parks and groves Al-Tro sold liquor and despite its own police force there were reports of pickpockets and “Thugs”. It sort of had a wee bit of a bad rep.

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Maple Beach Park/Midway Beach
After the 1908 season Max sold Al-tro Park (he owned several other amusement parks across the country) and the site became Maple Beach Park by 1910. The new owners doubled the size, banned booze, and attractions were added; the Park was bigger and better -still packing in large crowds. Tragedy struck in 1913. Fire broke out and when it was over there was nothing left.

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It was re-built by new owners under the name Midway Beach Park, albeit on a smaller scale, but with the “largest dance hall in New York State”, in time to open for part the 1914 season. It continued to thrive, even during World War I when the Park broke attendance records in 1918.

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Mid -City Park
But there was competition across the way, on the Albany-Troy Rd. (Broadway) when the Mid-City Amusement Park was established in 1920. Mid-City had a huge roller coaster, carnival like games, pony rides, vaudeville acts, acrobats, a merry go round and other rides, roller skating. It wasn’t subject to the vagaries of the weather. There was even an ice skating rink. By 1922 Mid-Way Beach was gone, the land sold – it simply couldn’t compete. In 1926 Mid-City installed a huge swimming pool, the likes of which no one had seen around here. (The Lincoln Park Pool wouldn’t be built until 1930.)

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World War II pretty much did in the Mid-city amusement park, but the pool stayed open until 1959 when the land was sold for a shopping center. (There were proceedings lodged against the owner by New York State for refusing admittance to African-Americans.)

(Thanks to Kevin Franklin, Colonie Town Historian, for helping me sort out who owned what when, and thanks to Jamie McDonald for many of the Mid-City Photos.)

Julie O’Connor

When Albany Was Crazy for Horse Racing: The Speedway – Hurstville – Island Park – Woodlawn Park

Albany was horse racing mad in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Around the time of the Civil War racing became hugely popular (it was at the same time the Saratoga Racetrack was established) in the north and continued for decades.

The Speedway

There had always been racing at county and town fairs. But by the 1870s racing came into the city. Both Western and Washington Avenues, beginning about Quail St. and west were referred to as “The Speedway” for horse drawn sleigh racing on the weekends in the winter. (There was a Speedway Hotel on the corner of Manning Blvd., the Klondike Hotel on the corner of North Allen and the Western Turnpike, and Carrick’s Hotel was on the corner of Madison Ave and West Lawrence.) In the summer there were trotter and pacers.

The Hurstville Track

But there was competition. The Hurstville race track (about where Mater Christi Church and school are today) was established in the mid-1860s. It was mostly a trotting track. Around it a picnic grove called “Pleasure Park” developed (the county fair was held at the location – then town of Bethlehem – in the 1870s.) The track was leased to the Island Park Association (a racing corporation) in the 1870s and early 1880s which improved the track and provided amenities; it ran mostly matinee races and weekend races in the summer. Racing continued until about 1900.

There was also a hotel close to the Park, on the corner of Krumkill Rd. and New Scotland Ave. It dated back to at least the 1840s, known then as the Log Tavern, then Tanner’s Hotel and later Hurst’s Hotel. It became a notorious “love nest” for politician’s trysts over the city line in the 1920s.

Island Park

But Island Park was the Big Daddy of all local race tracks. Island Park was established in the late 1860s in Menands (now part of Colonie – then the town of Watervliet) on Breaker Island (which puts it wee bit south Port Schuyler). The track was on the east side of the Champlain Canal and sandwiched between the Canal and the River. It had larger purses, better horses and could be reached by horsecars from Albany, but the meets were shorter – usually no more than 3-5 days in – perhaps 3-4 meets a year. Still it drew great horses – like “American Girl”, the most well-known trotter of the late 1860s and early 1870s.

Slowly the track improved. In the late 1870s a railroad bridge was installed – now horses could be shipped in from all over – they came from as far west as St. Louis and as far south as Kentucky.

In 1884 the Association came under the control of Erastus Corning, multi-millionaire local mogul and other very rich heavy hitters * who had a thing for racing – yes, but saw the corporation as a way to make money too. Or in track parlance.. an exacta.

Although pacers were raced it was primarily a trotting park. Island Park became part of the National Trotting Association and its meets became well- known as part of the national Grand Circuit for trotters. There were meets in the summer and fall with annual purses worth about $40,000. Two large hotels were built, Union Hotel and McDonald’s Hotel – the latter owned by the famed driver Alta McDonald. The stables could house as many as 300-400 horses. Island Park thrived. The Association made sure the new electric trolley ran to the track from all parts of the Capital District. Some of the best horses in the nation raced there, including “Major Delmar” said to be the fastest gelding alive in 1905. And then it all came to an end. We’re told that the racing stopped pretty much by 1909. The land was purchased by the D&H Railroad.

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Woodlawn Park

But never fear – Albany men DO love their horse racing. So a group of local men formed the Albany Driving Association in the early 1900s, bought a tract of land about where Albany Academy is today from a man named Wood and called the race track Woodlawn. There was racing for about 10 years, until about 1914. But the Association discovered it could make big bucks selling the land off to people who wanted to buy lots and build houses in the area that now includes Academy Rd. (then Highland Ave.) and west to about Forest Ave. (Fun Albany fact – we were told the bleachers for the original Albany Academy football field were part of the Woodlawn Park grandstand.)

By 1916 World War I was looming and thanks to Henry Ford almost anyone could own an automobile and make it up to Saratoga for the races.

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*One of the shareholders in the Island Park Association was John Holland. He owned a legendary den of iniquity (bookmaking, billiards and booze) – the White House Café on the corner of James Steuben. We were told that Holland owned lots near Manning Blvd. where he stabled and exercised his jumping horses.

Copyright 2021  Julie O’Connor

The History of the Albany County (Altamont) Fair: Not Just Deep-Fried Twinkies

There’s almost nothing as All-American as a County Fair and Albany County had one of the first in the nation; 205 years later it’s still going strong.

The first County Fair is said to have been organized in Pittsfield by Elkanah Watson* in 1807 when he took his two prized Merino sheep to Park Square; the display quickly drew a sizable crowd of admirers and, just like that, the seeds of the modern agricultural fair were sown. He then organized the Berkshire Agricultural Society, which held its first fair in 1811.

Word traveled rapidly; Albany quickly followed suit and the first Fair in Albany was sponsored by the Albany (County) Agricultural Society two years later in 1813. The initial fairs (primarily animal shows) were held in Washington Square. Subsequent fairs were held in the Parade Grounds, just beyond the Square. (Both areas are now within Washington Park.) By the 1840s the exhibits moved beyond cattle, horses and chickens to include all sorts of local crops and agricultural products.

Around 1850 the New York State Agricultural Society constructed a semi-permanent fairground in Menands. For about 20 years the site was also used for the Albany County Fair. (There are some wonderful prints of this Fair in that location- make sure you take a look at the images attached to this post.) It was during this time the Fair came into its own. There were horse races, floral exhibits, pie making and cake competitions, quilts and other textiles; almost everything you would come to expect from a county fair.

By 1855 the Industrial Revolution had made its way into the Fair. Exhibition Halls were too small to accommodate the vast array of agricultural implements (plows and seed planters), stoves, sewing machines, pianofortes, looking glasses and other “diverse domestic manufactures”. By the 1860s the Fair locations moved around Albany County – back to the Washington Parade Grounds, Babcock Corners in the Town of Bethlehem, near Cohoes in the northern part of the County and even Slingerlands – including what is now Albany – the locationof Mater Christi (St. Catherine’s) Church and grounds in Hurstville.

Finally the Fair moved to Altamont in Guilderland (a central location). The Altamont Driving Park and Fair Association was incorporated on May 20, 1893. Within a month the Board of Directors also approved the purchase 24.5 acres of land in Altamont for the “Altamont Fair Grounds.”

The first fair was held from September 12 through 15, 1893. Admission was 25 cents for adults, and the net receipts for the four days was $884.13. A racetrack was built in front of the Grandstand. One of the first buildings, the Flower & Fine Arts a Building, is on the State and National Registers of Historic Sites. A year later the name was changed to the Albany County Agricultural Society and Exposition.

The Modern County Fair is Born

In addition to the agricultural, animal and domestic arts competitions and exhibitions, the Fair has, through the years, incorporated other attractions. Carnival rides and a Midway were added. Auto racing was started in 1915 and continued through the 1990s.** The first airplane rides were also started in 1915.- alas the propeller of the plane hit a wall and it never got off the ground. A flea circus was a popular attraction in the early 1900s. There have been singing dogs, dancing bears, wrestling, concerts, boxing, vaudeville shows, rodeo and dramatic readings. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) booth was a mainstay before Prohibition. Politicians and political candidates made obligatory appearances. Electric lights were added in the 1920s and it became a favorite place for canoodling Flappers and their swains at night.

Here are a couple of my favorites during the height of the Cold War in the 1950s and 1960s – a guided missile display by GE, real Marines re-enacted a famous battle, a Fall-out shelter exhibit and an Atlas Missile was displayed. The 60s saw demonstrations by NY Telephone of cable slicing, a fife and drum competition and a Battle of the Bands. Cars have been won and in 1964 a new house supplied by the Albany County Realtor’s Assoc. was raffled.

The exhibits and demonstrations have changed with the times, but it’s still a summer tradition.

Note: today the Fair is a Tri-County Fair, including Albany, Greene and Schenectady Counties.

*Watson, a wealthy man, previously lived in Albany – it’s been said he was too progressive and creative for our city, and retired to Massachusetts to raise sheep.

**The Fair wasn’t cancelled in World War II. It was considered part of the War effort – with canning, preserving and Victory Garden exhibits and demonstrations to show women how to make do and make over old clothing during rationing. However, since gasoline was rationed, the car raced using propane tanks.

Copyright 2021 Julie O’Connor

Margarita Schuyler: An American Lady

Tucked in a corner of the Schuyler plot (Lot 66, Section 29) are a trio of table-style markers carved from brown sandstone. The inscription on one reads:

“Margarita Schuyler, 1701-1782, Wife of Colonel Philip Schuyler
of The Flatts. Known and esteemed in England and America through Mrs. Grant of Lagans “Memoirs of An American Lady.”

The daughter of Albany mayor Johannes Schuyler, Margarita married her cousin, Colonel Phillipus Schuyler. The couple resided at The Flatts, the family farm located to the northeast of the present Rural Cemetery. They had no children and Col. Schuyler died in 1758.

“Aunt” Schuyler, as she was called, remained a resident of The Flatts. Among the many relatives and friends who spent a considerable amount of time with her at The Flatts was her nephew, Philip Schuyler (Major General and father-in-law of Alexander Hamilton).

Anne McVickars Grant, the daughter of a Scottish army officer, spent part of her childhood at the Schuyler Flatts. Returning with her family to Scotland, she published an account of her time at The Flatts in 1808. The memoir provides invaluable firsthand details of life on the Schuyler estates and is a tribute to Margarita whom the author looked back on as “a most valued friend.” The full text can be read here: https://archive.org/details/memoirsanameric03grangoog

At the close of the French and Indian War, it was Madame Schuyler who persuaded local leaders to retrieve children of colonists taken by Native Americans during the conflict. Distraught parents came from as far away as New England and Pennsylvania to seek their missing children. Not all of the children were recovered, but the joy of the mothers who were reunited with their children was described as “overpowering.”

Madame Schuyler died at her Flatts home on August 28, 1782. Her grave in the little family burial ground near the house was not marked until all the graves were relocated from The Flatts to the Rural Cemetery in 1920. At that time, a proper headstone was placed over her remains. It can be found in a corner of the lot behind General Philip Schuyler’s granite column.