NEB&W Layout Guide - Green Island, NY

Last Update: 2008-11-11

More on Green Island in the Photo Gallery

Green Island

In 1922, Green Island had a population of 4,400, with four churches, two grade schools and one parochial school.

In the 19th century, the Gilbert Car Co. began as a carriage works in Troy. In 1835, they built their first railroad cars for the new Rensselaer & Saratoga RR. A writer in 1836 described these coaches:

"The outside of the cars is painted of a beautiful fawn colour, with buff shading, painted in "picture panels," with rose, pink, and gold borders, and deep lake shading, the small moldings of delicate stripes of vermilion and opaque black. Within the panels are "transferred" some of the most splendid productions of the ancient and modern masters. . . The whole number of the subjects of the twenty-four cars cannot fall far short of two hundred, as each car averages from six to ten subjects. . . The "tout ensemble" is more like a moveable gallery of the fine arts, than like a train of railroad cars." (The writer went on to describe some of these paintings, which included portraits of leading men and women, landscapes, and copies of famous paintings.)

The company moved to Green Island in 1853 (and their former Troy site was used for the new passenger station). Gilbert became world renowned for their luxurious passenger cars made under contract with the Wagner Palace Car Co. They also made numerous trolley cars. At its peak, the Gilbert Car Co. occupied almost twelve acres, but was out of business by 1900.

Manning Paper

The Manning Paper Co. was organized in 1846 to make Manila paper from recycled hemp rope, for such uses as flour sacks, envelopes and later insulating electrical papers. Manning's grandson moved the firm over to Green Island in 1915, to a section of the vacant Gilbert Car Works.

Price Chopper

Another building of the Gilbert Works was taken over by a grocery warehouse in 1932, called the Public Service Market. As part of the Car Works, five tracks ran in the end, but as a grocery warehouse, all the openings, including the windows, were blocked up. This was not a traditional grocery store, but one of the earliest forms of supermarkets, with all sorts of merchandise from food to home appliances piled all over and under crude wooden tables. This was also one of the first "self-serve" grocery stores, where customers were able to go down the aisles and select items at their leisure, carrying them in a wicker basket to a grocery checker in the center of the store. While electric lights had been around from the last century, such a setting must have seemed very dark. It took the invention of the fluorescent light a few years later, in 1938, to make practical our modern windowless supermarkets, shopping malls, and even industries.

Despite this venture starting in the depths of the Depression, it prospered. A year later another store was opened in Schenectady, NY near Central Park, and hence called Central Markets. Additional stores were opened throughout the Capital District area. In 1973, Central Markets was renamed Price Chopper, a large supermarket chain from Pennsylvania into New England.

Eagle Foundry

Eagle Foundry was built in 1851. By 1950, the building had been taken over by Manning Paper Co. In this building, used rope from the Port of Albany was untangled and unwound, so it could be used as a raw material in Manning's electrical papers. The building stood until the mid-1990's. The roof trusses extended above the roof line, which helped make this building unusual.

The Railroad Facilities

On the west side of wye, the D&H had its Bridge & Building Department, a cluster of small buildings with a gantry crane. The gantry crane still stands today. On the east side, the D&H had its signal department.

There were several lines that diverged after crossing the Green Island lift bridge. The original line of the Rensselaer & Saratoga swung immediately to the north to head up to Waterford by means of the large islands in the mouth of the Mohawk River. The R&S acquired the Albany Northern which ran up from Albany through Cohoes proper, and when they in turn were taken over by the D&H, this became the mainline. At Green Island, a connection was run due west from the lift bridge to the Albany Northern. The Troy & Schenectady RR (later taken over by the New York Central) also headed west.

The T&S had built its own depot and freight house diagonally opposite from the D&H's depot. The T&S depot was a two-story structure built in the Greek Revival style, with columns built into the corners and a frieze band under the eaves.

The first Green Island station built by the D&H was a Carpenter Gothic style one very similar to the one built at Howe's Cave. Around WWI, this building was moved a block away to make room for a new depot. This older depot became a private house and still stands today. The second station was built in the Queen Anne style. The two dormers were topped with rather unique pinnacles. Both the D&H and the NYC depots were torn down in 1938, apparently in conjunction with the removal of the trolley system in Green Island and Troy. (We are modeling both depots, but not the trolley system.)

In addition to these stations, the D&H built a long freight station parallel to the Hudson River, and United Traction had a waiting shelter there. In all, there were two freight stations and three passenger ones clustered around this one intersection and a former one just around the corner.