One of my most enjoyable tasks is to walk around Troy on a nice day looking for artifacts from Troy's past. Much of the infrastructure of this 200 year old city was made by Troy based industries during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Much of it still serves the purpose in which they were manufactured. Let's take a look at a few examples.

While you probably only notice fire hydrants when you are trying to find a place to park, many of these little emergency devices were made by the Ludlow Valve Company.

Henry G. Ludlow invented his valves in 1866 in Waterford and moved to the Burgh in 1872. However, in 1897, the company moved to a large complex at the foot of Adams Street in Troy and remained there until it went out of business in the 60's or 70's.

Ludlow valves can be found in over 3000 cities and foreign countries. Besides fire hydrants and valves, they made sluice, foot, and check valves, and a valve for drilling oil. You can see a Ludlow valve near the old B&M Roundhouse off Middleburgh Street. There is also a large valve on the stack at the Burden Iron works lower works complex (the old coke plant) in the South End.

There are dozens of cast iron store fronts on buildings throughout the city. I've written about these in the past but you can often see nameplates that belong to Michael Mahoney and Starbuck Brothers, two Troy foundries.

Mahoney's foundry is now owned by Lusco Paper on 5th Avenue. Starbuck's foundry is long gone since it was on Starbuck or Center Island and was replaced with all those oil tanks on the south tip of the island.

Mahoney went on to make boilers and furnaces when storefronts went out of vogue after World War II. I wonder how many old Mahoney boilers are in the basement of some of Troy's old business structures? You can see a Mahoney sidewalk grating at the front of the old Thompson Drug Building on Congress and River.

Many of our manhole covers were cast by the Neemes Brothers Foundry and Burden iron Company in South Troy.

Russ Ziemba pointed out to me that one thing you never have to worry about is a traffic jam at the corner of Russell and South Streets. South is today's College Avenue. Just before you reach the top of College look to the right. There lies an 1840's or so brick house with a vacant lot to the east of it. Look at the east corner of the building. You can see carved in stone the names South (College) and Russell. Russell now looks like a vacant lot but you can see the entire road width that climbs down to meet Farm Road (empties into Congress).

Speaking of old street names keep these handy the next time you want to throw some Troy trivia around. Fulton Street was originally called Elbow Street (changed in 1847). Look at the street from a map and you can see why.

Broadway was originally called Albany Street until 1861.

The "Alley" that begins at River between Third and Second (entrance near the American Theater) is not an alley at all but Franklin Street and ran all the way to Harrison Street in South Troy.

There are really two Division Streets and only five blocks separate them. Grand Street is actually Grand Division Street. This was the dividing line between the northern farm of Jacob I. Vanderheyden and the middle farm of Jacob D. Vanderheyden. Present day Division Street, the one south of Ferry, was the other dividing line between Jacob D. and the southern farm of Matthias Vanderheyden. The two Division Streets separated all three farms.

There were two Congress Streets existing at the same time in 1818. The current one, between State and Ferry, and the other now named Adams Street.

There are two train tunnels in Troy that allowed trains from Albany and beyond to enter the center part of the city (Union Station between Broadway and Fulton). The largest tunnel, which runs a city block, lies between Congress and Ferry and was called the Ferry Street Tunnel. The recently demolished Ahern Apartments sat on top of and to the sides of the tunnel (I wonder if the demolition crew knew that?). The tunnel still exists and the entrance is now the filled in intersection of Sixth Avenue at Congress.

A stone retaining wall runs along the Ferry Street side of the tunnel to a point where the other tunnel begins. It runs under Fifth Avenue at the intersection of Liberty.

If you notice other Troy made items still existing or performing their tasks, let me know. Every artifact tells a story