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Albany

Nixing the Sixth

by Erin Pihlaja May 15, 2013

The Egg. The Empire State Plaza. The Capitol and the Million Dollar Staircase. Dutch traders. Tulips. There are certain things that are synonymous with Albany, and for anyone who has lived here during the past ...

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You’re Goin’ Down

by Erin Pihlaja May 8, 2013

How long does it take to demo a 19th-century building? Better question: How long to take down seven of them? Before 10 AM on Monday (May 6) an Albany-based demolition company, DiTonno & Sons, set ...

1 comment

Private Talks on Public Funding

by Erin Pihlaja May 8, 2013

The sign outside of Room 124 at the state Capitol may have read, “New York State Public Hearing,” but to the many people, including members of the media, who were refused entry to the proceedings, ...

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Art Beat

by Shawn Stone May 1, 2013

TULIP TIME, ALMOST Though I know you’re excited, Tulip Fest is a week away. Still, it seems worthwhile to make sure a new addition to Tulip Fest is brought to your attention now. And it ...

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MOVE Music Festival

by The Staff April 24, 2013

Toronto may have scooped up the North by Northeast Festival title, but Albany’s MOVE Music Festival is pushing to assert itself as the Northeast’s answer to the fabled Austin gathering. In its second year, MOVE ...

0 comments Red Square

He’s Back

by Erin Pihlaja April 17, 2013

Albany City Treasurer Kathy Sheehan is looking to move into the mayor’s office, and on Sunday, Darius Shahinfar announced that he is ready to take her place as Albany’s chief fiscal officer. “It’s a stay-the-course race,” ...

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Redrawing the Map

by Erin Pihlaja October 17, 2012

“Every 10 years, you get to shuffle this deck, and that’s a good thing,” said Aaron Mair, a local civil-rights activist. The shuffling in this instance will be Albany’s wards. Albany is divided into 15 legislative ...

Bank On It

by Miriam Axel-Lute September 26, 2012

Albany has a vacant buildings problem. The number may fluctuate depending on who you ask, and how you define “vacant,” but the latest count by the city puts us at over 800. This certainly not unique ...

1st Friday

by The Staff September 7, 2012

Summer is unofficially over, but you can extend your enjoyment of our sultry evenings with Albany’s 1st Friday, the monthly arts night that features gallery openings and special performances all over town. From Broadway, where you ...

Calm Down

by Shawn Stone August 28, 2012

Albany’s Madison Avenue is so heavily trafficked by cars and trucks that if you live on that historic boulevard, which begins in the Mansion and Park South neighborhoods and ends in Pine Hills, you eventually ...

Ballin’ at the Graveyard

by Shawn Stone July 12, 2012

“I’m pretty addicted to that place and those people.” Filmmaker Basil Anastassiou is talking about the public basketball courts in Albany’s Washington Park, aka “the graveyard.” These courts—which are on the Madison Avenue side of the ...

Spectrum 8 Theatres

Nothing But Net

by Shawn Stone July 11, 2012

This homegrown documentary (co-produced by Spectrum 8 Theatres co-owner and b-ball enthusiast Keith Pickard) about pick-up basketball games in Washington Park manages, on a purely entertainment level, to celebrate sports; it also takes audiences into ...

Cloggin’ in the Streets

by Ann Morrow June 27, 2012

“You know people want to sit on those horses but they can’t,” says Gutman Black, referring to the equine street sculptures of Saratoga Springs. “But they can sit on ours,” he adds proudly. “Ours” being one ...

Curb Your Enthusiasm

by Darryl McGrath April 11, 2012

If experience has taught that you can often double-park your car on a downtown Albany street, run a quick errand and get back before you get a ticket, you might want to continue circling the ...

Pay To Play?

by Darryl McGrath February 23, 2012

For years in Albany, restaurant and tavern owners have known that securing the city's permission to play live music in their establishments was a Byzantine process that resembled the legal code of a medieval Italian ...

Temple of Fancy: Pease’s Great Variety Store

by The Staff November 16, 2011

Men in hats, crinolines, cravats, tin toys, rainbow-whorled candy sticks: Things just aren’t as fancy today. But the Albany Institute of History & Art invites you to step back in time and through the doors ...

Albany Institute of History & Art

Albany in Mind

by B.A. Nilsson October 19, 2011

“Everybody went to Albany for one reason or another. They went to Keeler’s, they were here for the track. It had nightlife. Bright lights, roulette wheels, hot-mattress hotels.” William Kennedy is explaining the appeal of ...

2011 Exhibition by Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region

by The Staff July 6, 2011

In 1937, Jesse Owens dominated Hitler's “Aryan supermen” in the Berlin Summer Olympics, the Hindenburg took its maiden flight, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were dancing across the big screen, a gallon of gas cost ...

Albany Institute of History & Art

Tulip Fest

by The Staff May 4, 2011

At the height of Holland’s 17th-century “tulip mania,” tulip bulbs were being sold for 10 times the annual salary of a skilled craftsman. If prices had held, Albany would now be the Humboldt of this ...

Washington Park

The Future Is Now

by Shawn Stone April 13, 2011

The woman asked her question before I finished crossing Broadway: “Are you here for the new bus?” I smiled and answered yes. Why else would we—or anyone—be standing in front of the old Delaware & Hudson ...

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One Night Only

by Kathryn Geurin March 23, 2011

On Saturday afternoon, a handful of professional actors, directors, playwrights, producers and improvisers gathered in a rehearsal room at Albany’s Capital Repertory Theatre, some meeting for the first time, some rekindling years-old connections, others on ...

1 comment Arts Center of the Capital Region

Eggs, Kegs and Powder Kegs

by David King March 23, 2011

An ugly melee of drunken stupidity broke out on Albany’s Ontario Street on the early morning hours of March 12 in the heart of what has been long known as Albany’s “student ghetto.” Television sets, ...

7 comments

The Route 5 Express

by Shawn Stone March 9, 2011

It’s 4:42 PM on a Tuesday afternoon. The scheduled No. 55 bus is pulling up at the CDTA sign in front of the SUNY System Administration building right on time. There used to be an ...

4 comments

Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles

by The Staff February 16, 2011

It would make sense that if your tribute act is called “the next best thing to seeing the Beatles,” you may actually have out-Beatled the Fab Four themselves. At the very least, RAIN can be ...

Palace Theatre

What Now, Albany?

by Laurie Lynn Fischer February 2, 2011

Albany’s future looks grim unless it gets more state aid, Mayor Jerry Jennings said in his 2011 State of the City address. Gov. Andrew Cuomo unveiled New York State’s budget on Feb. 1, and the ...

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