Cast Iron Albany
The Albany Public Library Foundation joined forces with Friends of Historic Albany on Saturday, May 30, to present a display at the Carnegie Library of historic items and to offer a downtown walking tour of the remaining cast iron store front elements along 1st and 2nd Avenues.
The tour was led by Bernadette Niederer whose Master’s Thesis focused on cast iron architecture.
Cast iron architecture has strong Albany roots because during the latter part of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, there was always one and often two cast iron foundries in Albany. They supplied many of the surviving store front features viewed by the tour and the foundries also sold architectural items all over the western part of our state. (It isn’t often hard to determine a manufacturer of a pillar because they usually put their name on its bottom section.)
The tour was enjoyed by roughly fourteen enthusiast who got the view the historic items (and books) at the Carnegie before setting off.
Many of the store fronts along 1st and 2nd Avenues were covered over during the 1960s and 70s with the cast iron re-emerging (and sometimes supplemented by modern copies) as the interest in historic preservation gained strength in the last forty years.
Bernadette shared an amazing amount of information and the tour was enjoyed by all.
The next hands-on event at the Carnegie (302 SW Ferry in downtown Albany) is the musical instrument petting zoo presented jointly by the Albany Public Library Foundation and the Albany Youth Orchestra on Saturday, July 11, 11:00 am to 12:30.
The free, all ages instrument petting zoo will feature a wide variety of string and keyboard and percussion instruments you can sample. Have you ever tried playing a banjo or a mandolin or a three string Russian balalaika? Your opportunity comes to the Carnegie on July 11!
