Monday, January 14th
Several houses in the district bear signs like this one: "George Washington slept here."
Governor Yates House - Joseph Yates was the first mayor of Schenectady and the 4th Governor of New York. His home dates from 1760.
This statue depicts "Lawrence the Indian" and marks the site of Queen Anne's Fort which was built in 1704 after the French and their Indian allies masacred the residents of early Schenectady and burned the town nearly to the ground. Lawrence was a Mohawk Indian and friend of the early settlers. He lead the tracking party that pursued the retreating French. (The attack was part a series of raids by the French from Canada in retaliation for a series of Iroquois raids on Canada supported by the British.)
The spire of St. George's Episcopal Church founded in 1758.
The churchyard cemetery at St. George's. There are headstones dating from the early 1800's in the churchyard.
Schenectady's City Hall
Ken, Karl and I had a really nice dinner between shows on Saturday. We walked up Jay Street to Schenectady's "Little Italy". The neighborhood is home to a couple of tasty-looking bakeries and Cornell's Italian Restaurant. Cornell's began serving homemade Italian food in 1943 and is home to a third generation serving Schenectady. The food was delicious. We then headed back toward the theatre and to Rachael Ray's "favorite Italian bakery": Villa Italia. (Rachael Ray is from Glens Falls also in upstate NY.) We loaded up on cappuccino, cannoli and sfogliatelle before our second show.
Sunday, we just had one afternoon show before it was time to hit the road again. This time, the bus was headed east to Boston. We arrived in Beantown around 8:30 Sunday night. After we checked in, I met up with Team Wardrobe for Fran's going away dinner (Fran will leave us at the end of the week to join the Avenue Q tour). Fran, Wayne, Roy and I had a lovely dinner at Legal Sea Foods and drank a heartfelt toast to Fran's success in her new role as puppet wrangler.
When I awoke this morning, Boston was blanketed in snow. A nor'easter blew through last night leaving behind several inches of the white stuff. By the time I went out this afternoon in search of some chowder, the streets were a sloppy mess but the Commons were beautiful:
Snowy Commons
Saturday morning, I got up early and took a walking tour of Schenectady's historic Stockade district. The neighborhood's name refers to the stockade wall that surrounded the original settlements on the shores of the Mohawk River. Arendt Van Curler founded Schenectady in 1661 and the tiny town based its economy on fur trading and the transport of goods along the river (a series of falls downstream of Schenectady meant that goods were pulled out of the river here and transported overland to Albany for the trip downstate). The Stockade neighborhood was the center of business and civic life until the Erie Canal was completed in 1825. With the opening of the canal, the business district moved away from the river's edge and left the Stockade a mix of 18th and early 19th century buildings.
Several houses in the district bear signs like this one: "George Washington slept here."Governor Yates House - Joseph Yates was the first mayor of Schenectady and the 4th Governor of New York. His home dates from 1760.This statue depicts "Lawrence the Indian" and marks the site of Queen Anne's Fort which was built in 1704 after the French and their Indian allies masacred the residents of early Schenectady and burned the town nearly to the ground. Lawrence was a Mohawk Indian and friend of the early settlers. He lead the tracking party that pursued the retreating French. (The attack was part a series of raids by the French from Canada in retaliation for a series of Iroquois raids on Canada supported by the British.)The spire of St. George's Episcopal Church founded in 1758.The churchyard cemetery at St. George's. There are headstones dating from the early 1800's in the churchyard.I really enjoyed my tour of historic Schenectady, it really helped me understand what the city is doing there. After the opening of the Erie Canal, the city became a major manufacturing center. It was home to General Electric (after Thomas Edison moved his workshops there in 1887) and the American Locomotive Company. One of the first commercial radio stations in the nation is found in Schenectady (WGY-AM) and the world's first television station (W2XB) broadcast on Thursday and Friday afternoons from the GE Plant.
Ken, Karl and I had a really nice dinner between shows on Saturday. We walked up Jay Street to Schenectady's "Little Italy". The neighborhood is home to a couple of tasty-looking bakeries and Cornell's Italian Restaurant. Cornell's began serving homemade Italian food in 1943 and is home to a third generation serving Schenectady. The food was delicious. We then headed back toward the theatre and to Rachael Ray's "favorite Italian bakery": Villa Italia. (Rachael Ray is from Glens Falls also in upstate NY.) We loaded up on cappuccino, cannoli and sfogliatelle before our second show.
Sunday, we just had one afternoon show before it was time to hit the road again. This time, the bus was headed east to Boston. We arrived in Beantown around 8:30 Sunday night. After we checked in, I met up with Team Wardrobe for Fran's going away dinner (Fran will leave us at the end of the week to join the Avenue Q tour). Fran, Wayne, Roy and I had a lovely dinner at Legal Sea Foods and drank a heartfelt toast to Fran's success in her new role as puppet wrangler.
When I awoke this morning, Boston was blanketed in snow. A nor'easter blew through last night leaving behind several inches of the white stuff. By the time I went out this afternoon in search of some chowder, the streets were a sloppy mess but the Commons were beautiful:
Snowy CommonsThe Massachusetts State House across the Commons
Samuel Adams and Faneuil Hall
Quincy Market - All that tasty food hidden behind a mountain of snow.
Load-in at the Opera House
JV
No comments:
Post a Comment