NEB&W Guide to Cohoes, NY

Last Update: 2009-09-23

Layout Photo Gallery Table of Contents

Overview

Cortland Street Gate Tower

Harmony Mills Freight House

Firehouse

  • Looking east on Oneida from the edge of the Harmony Mills freight house gives a better view of the Hope Knitting Mill.

    Old Freight House

    • The old freight house was built in 1853. It was torn down after they built a new one in 1914.
      • [Prototype view c. 1914 looking north. From the NEB&W D&H Collection. A similar-looking building just beyond is the Harmony Mills warehouse. Star Woolen Mills (with a tower that has since been removed) is in the background on the right. (The tower on the left was part of the firehouse.)]
      • [Prototype view pre-1914 looking south. St. Bernard's is in the background with the earlier Academy building.]
      • [Sanborn map, c. 1925 (but I think updated to 1940).]

  • Sighting down the main looking north past St. Bernard's and Keveny Academy, with the Harmony Mills freight house in the distance. (The interesting buildings on the right side of the tracks - east side - we don't have room to model.)

    Rear of 65-59 Canvass Street

    • One of the power canals ran along the east side of the tracks from Ontario Street to Courtland. This close-up view of the above photo shows the crossing shanty on Oneida also shows one of the city water mains rising above to clear the power canal. (We are looking east, and it looks like there was a gravestone loading facility on the other side of the track. This was the site of the original D&H freight house.)

    Grandilly Monument Works

    • In the site of the old freight house was a monument company, Grandilly's. They must have been established (or moved to the spot) after 1914. In '35, they were still advertising in the Troy City Directory. In the '40 Directory, they were listed but not advertised. They were gone by '51.
      • [Photo c. 1931, from the NEB&W D&H Collection.]
      • [Sanborn map, c. 1925 (but I think updated to 1940). Grandilly is the small building labeled "vacant".]

    • With but one photo to go by, we are attempting to model it with a kitbashed Woodland Scenics Tucker Bros. Machine Shop and an Alexander stiff leg derrick. (Alexander has been purchased by Tomar, who kindly donated a kit to us.)

    Oneida Street Crossing Shanty

    • The crossing shanty at Oneida Street c. 1919.

    • On our layout, Oneida on near side of the tracks becomes Pine on the west. We won't be modeling this crossing shanty, instead will do the two story one that was next to the depot.

    Hope Knitting Mill

    • Most of the mills were located along the series of power canals, and thus not near the tracks. Hope Knitting Mill was next to the track, but that's because its power canal was there. Hope Knitting Mills was demolished about 1968.
      • [Fire insurance map of the complex. (In order to read it, it is rotated. The tracks are to the left.)]
      • [Valuation photo photocopy with Hope in the background. (Note you can see the base of a water tower.)]
      • [Photo c. 1931 of the trackside looking south, from the NEB&W D&H Collection.]
      • [Another photo c. 1931, looking northeast showing just the trackside wall, and Star Woolen in the background. Photo from the NEB&W D&H Collection.]
      • [Up close showing the window and cornice detail of the trackside wall. (The series of semi-circular brick "icicles" in the cornice are technically called "machicolation", a hallmark of the Civil War-era Norman a.k.a. Victorian Romanesque, very common in Troy area.) Photo from the NEB&W D&H Collection.]
      • [And another photo. Looking east from the firehouse, showing the south wall and roof of the tower. Note the wood water tank.]
      • [And another photo c. '31, also looking east but closer to the tracks.]
      • [Looking south (from Waterford). Close-up of a c. 1950 photo courtesy Jim Shaughnessy's Delaware & Hudson book. (This long-distance photo is good for determining the pitch of the tower roof.)]
      • [C. 1960 photo by Gerrit Bruins, looking northeast. Hope Mills is in the background. The concrete block gate tower had replaced the wood one by the time of this photo.]
      • [Photo c. 1968 of the street side, as it was being torn down.]
      • [Another photo c. '68.]
      • [Model view c. Jan. '04, close-up of the Hope Knitting Mill kitbash in progress.]
      • [Model view c. Oct. '04, of the Hope Knitting Mill kitbash progress.]
      • [Another view c. Oct. '04.]
      • [And another c. Oct. '04.]

    Ontario Street Gate Tower

    • The gate tower at Ontario Street c. 1919. It is shown next to the original St. Bernard's Academy. This looks like one of the enclosed version of the two story tower, only the upper windows are missing.

    City Hall

    • City Hall is an extremely ornate building. It was on the west side of St. Bernard's Academy, facing west. (So we will have to model the rear view. Can anyone think of a plastic kit that is even close for a quick kitbash? We might use the Vollmer post office as a starting point.) STOP THE PRESSES! Walthers has just announced (July 2007) a kit (no. 933-2943) for the Milwaukee Road's depot in their namesake city. While representing a brick prototype, it is the same style (Romanesque/Queen Anne) and assuming it is of the same general size, should be easy to kitbash into something akin to the Cohoes prototype. (Could be too big, but then we might have to wait the N scale version.) Might just paint it the same beige color as the Cohoes building, but overlaying the walls with thin styrene to duplicate the stone pattern might not be hard at all.
      • [Cyberkitbashed, showing just one half of the building being used. (Tried to change the color to approximate the prototype with only a little success.)]
      • [Cyberkitbashed further. (The tower was lowered by a story.)]
      • [Cyberkitbashed furthest. Lots of rearranging of the photo to see how close we might make this model. The roof is too tricky to get right in the cyberkitbashing, but a breeze to get that right, so ignore that. Tried to wash out more of the color to get closer to the prototype.]

    Silliman Church

    Post Office

    Pine Street

    Methodist Church

    • This is the front of the fifth church, the First United Methodist Church, facing on Remsen (121 Remsen) with its back facing east, toward Mohawk. It also was a Norman building.
      • [Postcard c. WWI.]
      • [Postcard c. WWI.]
      • [Photo of the front c. 2000. By this time, the rectory on left had been replaced by a bank.]
      • [Photo looking west on Pine, June '09. Former YWCA on the left, Dutch Reform Church on the right, United Methodist in the background.]