NEB&W Guide to Cohoes, NY - Mohawk & Columbia St. Houses

Last Update: 2009-11-06

Cohoes Table of Contents
Layout Photo Gallery Table of Contents

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• Mohawk Street Houses
  • 206 Mohawk St.
  • Other Mohawk St. Houses
  • House at Mohawk & Canvass (Next to the Baptist Church)
• Mohawk St. Gate Tower
• Columbia Street

Mohawk Street Houses

• Mohawk Street to the south of the depot area crossed the tracks at a very shallow angle. There was a line of houses along the west side of the street. The track in the foreground, I believe, is the trolley track. (There were a lot of houses and we only have room to model a few.)
  • [Valuation map. Note the trolley track.]
  • [Sanborn map.]
  • [Photo, c. 1914, from our NEB&W D&H Collection.]
  • [Photo, c. 1970's.]
  • [Photo, c. 2005.]
  • [Photo, c. 1980's, further up the street (north). (The house numbers are indicated on the photo.) Most if not all of these houses have burned down.]
  • [Photo, c. 1980's, even further north, 154 to 162 Mohawk. These would be directly behind St. John's. on our layout and we have no room whatsoever for these guys.]

• We gathered some house models and set them in our Cohoes scene to suggest these houses as sort of well detailed mockups. (We do plan to eventually model the specific buildings, as close as we can, so don't judge the scene by these stand-ins.)
  • [Model photo.]
  • [Model photo, Jan. '05, with a mockup of the first two prototypes.]
  • [Model photo, Feb. '05, with more mockups.]

206 Mohawk St.

• See this section.

Other Mohawk St. Houses

• The brick house at 204 Mohawk. According to my calculations, the Sanborn map indicates this is about 22 feet wide.
  • [Photo, c. 1919, Val. photo photocopy.]
  • [Photo, c. 2005 of the rear.]
  • [Photo, c. 2005 of 206 and 204.]
  • [Photo, c. 2005 of 206, 204, and 200.]
  • [Photo, c. 2005 of the rear.]
  This house is strange as the door is on the left side, but the stairs are on the right. Also, in the steam-era photos, there is an open porch or deck on the second floor, with the door in the side of the bay. A door in the bay window is really unique.

• No. 200 Mohawk Street was not a valid address. The house numbers went from 204 to 200.

• The frame house at 200 Mohawk. According to my calculations, the Sanborn map indicates this is about 19 feet wide.
  • [Photo, c. 1919, Val. photo photocopy.]
  • [Photo, c. 2005 of 206, 204, and 200.]
  Yishu Liu has been scratchbuilding a model of this house (the first model she has ever built).
  • [Model assembled and spray-painted a base white, Nov. '09]

• The two story brick house at 198 Mohawk. According to my calculations, the Sanborn map indicates this is about 20 feet wide. As of 2005, this had been torn down. (It is interesting that most of these houses are frame, but this brick building is the one that goes.)
  • [Photo, c. 1919, 198 Mohawk St, Val. photo photocopy.]
  • [Photo, c. 1919, rear of 198 Mohawk St, Val. photo photocopy. (Don't know why they felt it necessary to take a photo of the rear of this building, but not the others in this row.)]
  The house was still standing c. 1970's, by which time it had gained a front porch.
  • [Photo, c. 1970's.]

• The frame house at 196 Mohawk. According to my calculations, the Sanborn map indicates this is about 20 feet wide.
  • [Photo, c. 1919, 196 Mohawk St, Val. photo photocopy.]
  • [Photo, c. 2005 of 196 and 194.]
  • [Another view, c. 2005 of 196 and 194.]

• The frame house at 194 Mohawk. According to my calculations, the Sanborn map indicates this is about 20 feet wide and 42 feet deep.
  • [Photo, c. 1919, 194 Mohawk St, Val. photo photocopy.]
  • [Photo, c. 2005 of 196 and 194.]
  • [Another view, c. 2005 of 196 and 194.]
  Qin Gu is scratchbuilding a model of this house (the first model she has ever built).
  • [Model assembled but not yet detailed, Nov. '09.]

• The three story brick house at 192 Mohawk. According to my calculations, the Sanborn map indicates this is about 22 feet wide and 60 feet deep. It is being kitbashed, starting with a side wall of the Walthers Crown Paint & Hardware kit (no. 3032) donated by Kevin Endriss. The bathroom windows were opened up to make full height windows, and the roofline altered.
  • [Photo, c. 1919, 192 Mohawk St, Val. photo photocopy.]
  • [Photo, c. 2005.]
  • [Another view, c. 2005.]
  • [Model wall, Feb. 2005.]

• Where Columbia Street and Mohawk Street meet and cross the tracks, there was a three story wedge-shaped house. I think this was no. 6 Columbia.
  • [Valuation map. House in question highlighted.]
  • [Scaling the building. I matched up the Val. map to the Sanborn to get a scaling factor.]
  • [Valuation photo c. 1919, looking north. The rear of no. 6 Columbia Street can be seen in the distance.]
  Apparently a bus crashed into the front in 1937. Luckily, no one was home but I would think the building was torn down following this.
  • [Photo c. '37.]

Mohawk St. Gate Tower

• The gate tower at Mohawk Street.
  • [Valuation photo looking north. Note the trolley track.]
  • [D&H photo. I believe this is the same site, only looking south. By the time of this photo, the trolley tracks had been taken out and the short fence used to narrow the width of the crossing.]
  • [Looking south, 2005.]

Columbia Street

• Columbia Street ran into Mohawk right at the grade crossing.
  • [Photo, c. 2005 of 206 Mohawk with Columbia to the left.]
  • [Photo c. 2005.]
  • [Photo c. 2005.]
  • [Photo at the top of the hill, looking west, c. 2005.]

• There was a concrete retaining wall just south of Mohawk Street.
  • [Valuation photo c. 1919, looking north. The rear of no. 6 Columbia Street can be seen in the distance. (This house is discussed under the Mohawk St. houses, above.)]
  • [Photo c. 2005, looking north.]
  • [Photo c. 2005, looking south.]
  • [Photo c. 2005, looking south, taken from a spot slighter further north.]
  • [Photo c. 2005, looking south from Mohawk.]

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