NEB&W Layout Guide - TroyLast Update: 2007-11-09
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TroyAccording to a 1910 Railway Guide:(Troy is) "Situated on east bank of Hudson River, at mouth of Poestenkill Creek, 6 miles northeast of Albany and 151 miles north of New York City. (It) is on the New York Central and Hudson River, the Boston & Maine, and the Delaware & Hudson Railroads. "The public buildings include Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the Emma Willard Female Seminary, a Masonic temple, a city hall, nine banks, and sixty-one churches. The Rensselaer Polytechnic is one of the best known, also one of the earliest, purely technical schools in the country. It was founded in 1824. "The manufactures are important, the manufacturing establishments numbering 612, the more prominent being the collar and shirt factories, of which there are thirty-two, employing 19,000 hands and having an annual payroll of $10,000,000. One factory has a frontage of 495 feet, and is the largest shirt and collar factory in the world. Troy provides eighty-five per cent of the shirts, collars, and cuffs manufactured in the country. "Other products are horse-shoes, enough of which are manufactured annually to shoe 12,000,000 horses; iron spikes, rivets and valves, bells, chains, and stoves. There are nine breweries, with large export trade. Trade and commerce are favored by the situation of the city, which is at the head of steamboat navigation on the Hudson River, and at the terminus of the Champlain and Erie Canals. "Troy's first settlement, the village of Van der Heyden, was made about 1786, and on January 5, 1789, the name was changed to Troy. Its first charter was dated April 12, 1816." Uncle SamDuring the War of 1812, Troy merchant Samual Wilson, known locally as Uncle Sam, supplied meat to the government. It became a joke that the barrels of meat stamped "U.S." for United States actually stood for Uncle Sam. The story appeared in the New York Gazette in 1830, and from this evolved the symbolic representation of our country.
Collar CityIn the 1820's, Orlando Montague was a "clothes horse" who it is said changed his shirt two or three times a day. His wife, Hannah, grew tired of washing his shirts when it was only the collar that was dirty. (Remember that this was in the days of hand-laundry.) Hannah finally cut the collar off one of his shirts, and reattached it with a ribbon, insisting Orlando wear the same shirt all day while she washed just the collar. Within a few years, this became the center of an enormous industry of manufacturing separate collars and cuffs, earning Troy the nickname "Collar City."With the rise of so many industries in the 19th century in the Hudson-Mohawk area, the skilled labor force began to organize to demand better working conditions. Eighty-eight percent of the collar workers were women, and the first all-women labor union was started in Troy. Troy Union RailroadThe first railroad in New York State, and one of the first anywhere, was the Mohawk & Hudson RR, connecting Albany and Schenectady. The Rensselaer & Saratoga RR connected its namesake counties in 1832, only a year late. Within twenty years, three more railroads came into Troy. The resulting congestion led to the formation of the Troy Union Railroad in 1851, owned jointly by the four roads. The tracks were moved from River Street to Sixth Avenue and a new station built. One of the lines was eventually bought by the D&H RR (Rensselaer & Saratoga RR), two were merged into the New York Central RR (Troy & Schenectady RR and the Troy & Greenbush RR), and the fourth became part of the Boston & Maine RR (Troy & Boston RR).Although the tracks in Troy were moved inland to avoid congestion, the congestion followed. Railroads in Victorian times had become THE source of congestion. Row houses, stores, and factories crowded in on every parcel of unused land next to the track, no matter how triangular or odd-shaped. In other major cities, circa-1915 grade crossing elimination programs rebuilt the right-of-way at a different elevation from the streets. Similar plans were drawn up for Troy, but never achieved. Every street and alley crossing required a crossing- tender, generally an older railroad man, to flag the crossing or drop the gates. Each had his own shanty. The track ran in the pavement of Sixth Avenue for one block, and mighty steam locomotives gingerly treaded their way between parked cars. This was not industrial trackage but a Class 1 mainline.
Troy ArchitectureA spark from a passing loco set the wood covered bridge over the Hudson on fire in May 10, 1862, and flames soon spread to most of the rest of the city. Troy was literally burned to the ground. However, it was quick to rebuild. The ornate Gurley building for example, was designed, built and occupied by December of that year. As a result of this building boom, Troy represents almost an uninterrupted sea of 1860's Victorian architecture, with many examples of what was called "Norman" by the architects of the day. Norman was a revival of the early Medieval style, circa 1000 AD. Brick, particularly in arches, was used for much of the trim, including rows of small semi-circular arches for cornice, known as "machicolations".Buildings in the Norman style (later called Victorian Romanesque) include Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, St. John's Lutheran Church, the Gurley building and the two annexes. Elsewhere on the layout, the Chester depot and the Chateaugay clock tower are examples. One common design element prevalent to Troy is the brick setback on the windows. Examples include Wager's Ice Cream, Union Garage, and the two Gurley annexes. Troy also has one of the greatest concentrations of Tiffany windows. There is a self-guided tour of these posted on the Troy RiverSpark Visitor Center site. As a center of the Victorian cast-iron industry, there are wonderful examples of "iron-lacery" and other ornate architectural ironwork all throughout the city. Union DepotTroy's first depot was the "Troy House" on River Street, lasting until the move to Sixth Avenue in 1851. The second one burned in the Great Fire. The third one was built shortly afterwards, and lasted until 1900, when it was replaced by a more "modern" one. The architect firm of Reed & Stem, who had already been commissioned by the NYC to work on Grand Central Terminal, used the Troy station to test out some of their concepts. The Troy station was one of the earliest to forego the massive train shed in favor of individual platform umbrella sheds. Passengers reached the platforms by means of an underground passageway, rather than crossing the tracks at grade.The 1900 station was designed in the latest style, a colonial revival blown up to magnificent scale, over-embellished with Beaux Arts columns, swags, medallions, cartouches, festoons, egg-and-dart moldings and other classic Grecian motifs, made from terra-cotta castings. Red and brown Terra-cotta (i.e., "baked earth") decorations had been around for several decades, but now could be made white. Intricate "carvings" could be made cheaply by casting them. This had been popularized by the 1893 Colombian Exposition, known as the "White City." The station was only a block long, about 400 feet, and the passenger tracks weren't much longer. Any normal sized train blocked both grade crossings, as well as blocking access to the other tracks. Coaches sitting on the grade crossings were left with doors open so pedestrians could walk up and through the vestibule to continue their journey. In 1910, the Troy depot saw 130 passenger trains a day (one on average every 11 minutes). Nor were these quick stops. Just about every train but the Albany- Troy beltline locals had to switch engines. The station was torn down in 1958, with a single track left in place so the Rutland (who had trackage rights) could bring their milk train down to Chatham, NY. This track came out in 1964, after abandonment of the Rutland. The tracks ran in a tunnel between Congress and Ferry Streets. This area around the police station was the fabled red-light district of Mame Fay, Troy's world famous working girl. "Red light districts" referred to certain areas frequented by off-duty railroaders. They'd hang their lanterns outside so the crew- callers could find them. There is a story about a practical joke played on one of the girls in later years. Her electricity was connected to the nearby crossing gate circuit, so when the gate dropped, all the lights in her house flashed. (More on Mame Fay & the Red Light District.)
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