Kenwood Preschool & the Convent of the Scared Heart by Stephen Kerwin

Each time I drive down Southern Boulevard into Albany and I see the entrance to Kenwood I remember the many morning commutes from my childhood home in Bethlehem. My parents both worked for the state, and so every weekday from 1988-1993 was spent at Kenwood Preschool.

For my classmates and I, the Preschool was a cavernous maze which seemed to never end (all the more exciting as we were rightly not allowed to explore unsupervised!). The windows in each classroom stretched impossibly tall to our young eyes, and the grounds served as an amazing place to adventure when the weather permitted. I remember our class sitting near the Gatehouse on South Pearl on the stone wall, encouraging passing truck drivers leaving the Port to tug their air horn for us (a very exciting activity for preschoolers as you might imagine).

“I remember our class sitting near the Gatehouse on South Pearl on the stone wall, encouraging passing truck drivers leaving the Port to tug their air horn for us

The building seemed to stretch into eternity, and though we didn’t have any interaction with the students at nearby Doane Stuart, we did visit the convent to see the nuns occasionally . I remember every year we would walk through the convent for our Halloween Parade to show them our costumes.

My favorite part of preschool (as you might have guessed) was the playground! It was a large wooden structure very typical of the time - I still have a scar on my knee from a rather serious game of tag.

I was surprised when the school closed down, it introduced me to one of my oldest friends and I appreciated even back then what an impressive (and slightly daunting!) building it was. I hope to see it back in reuse again soon - I’d love to visit and see what other memories came back to me.

The Hurlbut St. Garage by Ken Klapp

A few days ago I had the opportunity to drive through the Albany neighborhood where I spent the first 15 years of my life! I had mixed emotions as drove past 72 Hurlbut Street which is now an empty lot (Photo 1). Most readers will probably remember that site as the former Carosello Bakery, popular for about 30 years for extraordinary baked breads and pastries. I remember dozens of people raving about Carosello’s but I, regrettably, never stopped in.

My memories go back to the 1950’s when that building was home to the Hurlbut Street Garage (Photo 2). From the 1920s to the early 1960s my grandfather, Matthias Klapp, owned and operated a service station and storage facility there (Photo-3). As with most family businesses, my father and uncle both worked in the garage until they enlisted in the army when the U.S. entered World War II.

The garage was located next to School #18, where I spent my elementary school years (1955-1962) and I would often stop by. My grandfather was a talented mechanic and I would usually find him underneath a car. No lifts in those days; cars were jacked up using a huge floor jack. Repairs that are routinely performed standing up today were done laying on your back on a ‘skateboard’ like contraption called a mechanics creeper. Every so often he’d ask me to hand him a wrench - usually I’d get the wrong size but he was patient with me. I still have a few of his old tools (photo-4)!

“As with most family businesses, my father and uncle both worked in the garage until they enlisted in the army when the U.S. entered World War II”

Additional space in the garage was rented by a local bakery (I think it was the New York Bakery) to park their delivery trucks overnight. I remember the place never smelling like oil, grease or gasoline for it always had the aroma of bread and donuts coming from the trucks. Occasionally one of the drivers would leave a bag of hard rolls with him and he’d drop them off at our house.

“I remember the place never smelling like oil, grease or gasoline for it always had the aroma of bread and donuts coming from the truck”

Sadly the building was demolished back in June of 2019, but thanks to the Historic Albany Foundation we were able to salvage the original sign (nearly 100 years old)! Two more generations of Klapps get to stand by it (photo-5)!

After he retired, I can still remember my grandfather’s favorite quote about the quality of the current mechanics - “The best mechanics are six feet under!”

#WeSaveAlbanysStories

Thank you so much to Ken for sharing is family’s story and their connection to the garage - we couldn’t think of a better beginning to this project.

Photo 1

Photo 2

Photo 3

Photo 4

Newsletter - An advocacy success at 41 Ten Broeck, a 'Capitol' donation, & online reading options for our The Turn of the Screw Virtual Book Club

A Capitol Donation

I'm still doing no-contact "leave it on the side of the house and I'll pick it up and wave toward the house" pick ups when I can. Check out these great floor tiles from the Capitol and the story of how they were saved, written by the woman who donated them:

"About 30 years ago, my husband and I attended a tile lecture presented by an expert from L'esperance Tile Works hosted by the Historic Albany Foundation. One of the many interesting things we learned was that beautiful English Minton floor tiles cover many floors in the NYS Capital. Over the years, some floor areas became damaged. In one area of the Capital, the floor tiles were removed, because someone decided it would be too expensive to repair the area. A huge number of tiles were brutally scraped up and unceremoniously left in a dumpster. Many tiles were damaged in the process, but many others survived intact, of various designs and shapes.

Distraught State workers in the area noticed these dumped treasures, and decided to take action to rescue a small portion of these Minton tiles by taking some home. One such person was my dad. About 15 years ago, he proudly showed us his stash of rescued tiles, stored in several dusty milk crates in his garage. When I saw the tiles, I became very excited. I remembered the tile lecture I had attended many years prior at the Albany Historic Foundation, details of which were confirmed by my dad's story. Eventually, my dad reluctantly agreed to give the tiles to me (to my mother's delight). My husband and I had just bought a house in Albany, and were sure we could use these interesting floor tiles somehow. We loved the tiles not only because of their beauty, but because they represented a piece of history, almost lost.

After all these years, we've only used a portion of the tiles. Recently, we took a hard look at our limited storage space, and concluded that, realistically, we could not use any more of these beautiful Minton floor tiles. We immediately thought of donating the remaining tiles to the Historic Albany Foundation Architectural Parts Warehouse - maybe somebody else could use them? As I recall from the tile lecture, many homeowners in the Albany area used these precious rescued tiles for various projects in their homes, such as entranceways. So, it is possible that some of those folks may now need a few replacement tiles, or a few extra ones to finish a project. There's not enough tiles to cover a large area, but there is an assortment of various shapes (especially the plain ones) that could be used for repairs. The patterned ones are gorgeous, though."
L'esperance Tile Works