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Category Archives: Albany

Parking Salvation in Downtown Albany

When I started working for the state of New York, way back in the summer of 2001, my office was located at the bottom of State Street in downtown Albany. As I sat in a meeting room on my very first day, I was indoctrinated to state service with a bewildering stack of documents and papers to sign, choices to make, and all sorts of spur-of-the-moment decisions to decide. The only one I really understood or took any active interest in was the parking situation. Forget the health benefits and insurance and deferred comp and retirement, I wanted to know about parking, because that was the only immediate concern I had in working downtown.

Eventually, the woman giving the run-down in my orientation reached the parking topic, and my ears perked up. I figured there might be a bit of a wait, since I was brand new to state service, and I didn’t know how much parking was actually available to all the state workers. She said I could put myself on a waitlist for parking downtown, but that it would probably be a while since spaces seemed to be opening up at a snail’s pace. Still, I had hope, so my next question was where they might be on the current list, and how many people were ahead of me. 

While she didn’t know that exact answer, she did know that at the time, in late August of 2001, they were just getting parking spaces for employees who had started work in 1982. In that instant, any hopes, dreams or fantasies about pulling into my very own parking space in downtown Albany immediately dissipated. It wasn’t a big deal, as Andy was able to drive me to work, nor was it a big emotional blow, though the notion that they were only then getting to 1982 portended general state slowness in the years to come. In a weird way, I ended up being grateful for that bit of information, because I filed away the idea of available parking into a place so far into the future that I would probably retire before I was afforded a space. There the idea remained as some dim and elusive piece of paradise, purely fictional because the days ticked by so slowly back then. 

I would move to other agencies, and find parking in the lots that were not in downtown Albany, but when I returned to Broadway, just a few blocks down from where I started, I didn’t even bother to check where I was on the parking list because it still felt far away. Our commute wasn’t bad, so having Andy drive me was a comfort and, quite frankly, an indulgence, as time with my husband usually calms me. 

Last week, I got an e-mail at work saying that I was being offered a parking space in the covered garage adjacent to my office. Almost 22 years after beginning my state career, I had downtown parking, and this, more than any other promotion or accomplishment or anniversary, made me feel like I had finally arrived. 

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Dazzler of the Day: Matt Baumgartner

In the magical way with which she does just about everything, Tess Collins provided the perfect segue into this Dazzler of the Day with one of the photos from her feature. Most people in Albany need no introduction to the magnificent Matt Baumgartner and his storied career (from starting the Bombers enterprise with a single casino win to his current raging success at June Farms). For all his business successes and acumen, he has an equally-powerful philanthropic side that more than justifies his ability to dazzle (many of us still recall the billboard he erected in support of marriage equality, back when New York teetered on the edge of not passing it into law). For a beautiful glimpse of the spell Baumgartner has cast on upstate New York, check out the idyllic majesty of June Farms this spring and summer, and visit their website for all they have to offer

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Dazzler of the Day: Tess Collins

The fabulous Mother Hen of all Albany misfits, celebrities, restaurant workers and just about everyone who has played a part in this fair city over the past couple of decades, Tess Collins is long overdue for this Dazzler of the Day crowning. No matter how many setbacks or knockdowns that are thrown her way, she gamely deflects and defies, rallying over all adversity in the take-charge manner for which she is rightfully adored and admired. Generous of spirit and industry, she has crafted a one-woman enterprise that is a foundation of all that is good in this city, and remains a font of wisdom for anyone seeking guidance or some tough love. She is one of my favorite people in Albany, so be sure to say hello the next time you catch her working her magic at McGeary’s. 

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Dazzler of the Day: Brandon Styles

Feeding a fellow human being has to be one of the most heartwarming things one person can do for another, and Brandon Styles has made a career of it. Proprietor of Mr. Bumbles Cafe, Brandon previously headed up chef duties at the Tipsy Moose Tavern. Mr. Bumbles is a work entirely of his own creation, and his enduring talent at crafting delicious plates easily earns him this Dazzler of the Day. (Bonus: Mr. Bumbles Cafe just revealed a new spring menu, so stop by to check it out – the wraps and sandwiches look amazing.)

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Rising Like Oz In Downtown Albany

Rising majestically near the Hudson River in downtown Albany, this domed beauty is the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, where I work as the Associate Director of Human Resources. Every now and then I pause on my lunch break and take it all in, along with remembrances of the journey that brought me to this Emerald City of buildings. It’s a source of pride that I am privileged enough to work at an agency whose work and mission to conserve and protect the environment is one that is both noble and necessary. Even better than that is the fact that I get to work with some great people, including good friends I’ve had for over a decade and a half. 

It is a gift, one that I consistently appreciate, and the gratitude I feel is genuine. It makes me want to do the best work that I can do, to contribute in some small way to the larger mission of what our agency does. When I started out as a Data Entry Machine Operator in the summer of 2001 just down the street at what was then the Department of State, I didn’t envision the turns and twists that my state career would take. Looking back during a sunny lunch break, I’m grateful for all of them. 

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Dazzler of the Day: Dominick Purnomo

Today one of our favorite restaurants in the world, dp: An American Brasserie, celebrates its 16th birthday. In honor of that, and all of his contributions to the community, owner Dominick Purnomo easily earns this Dazzler of the Day. From his impeccable attire to his mastery of every single detail of hospitality, Purnomo has cut a winning stride through the Capital Region. A true gentleman, his philanthropic work and community service prove he is more than his exquisite boutonniere (check out the Feed Albany organization he began shortly after COVID hit). For an elegant yet relaxed dining experience in downtown Albany, visit his restaurant, dp: An American Brasserie. He promises more great things to come in their 17th year, and we’ll be reserving a table soon.

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Dazzler of the Day: Nathaniel Gray

Once upon a New York State Agency meeting, I had the privilege of sitting across the room from Nathaniel Gray (he/him), who wowed with his impressive energy and ideas (and hair) at a gathering of the NYS LGBTQ+ Interagency Task Force, on which he was working as part of the Governor’s Pride Outreach team. Since then, he’s been named as the Executive Director of the Pride Center of the Capital Region, and today earns his first Dazzler of the Day. On March 31, he’ll be the proverbial ice sculpture around which a ‘Meet the Executive Director’ event unfolds at the Franklin Terrace Ballroom in Troy, NY – get your tickets here. He recently expressed his hopes and plans for his new role:

“My plans are to establish a solid foundation and resources for the Pride Center that is diverse and provides long term opportunities. I also hope to establish relationships with local businesses and organizations to provide training and consultation on LGBTQ+ cultural awareness and policies; to support schools in creating safe environments for all youth, and to engage community leadership in a dialogue about making the entire Capital Region a safe and affirming environment for LGBTQ+ folks of every age and race; LGBTQ+ Visibility Saves Lives.
I am looking forward to meeting many of you at my first community forum and hear from our region’s LGBTQ+ community.”

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A Go Fund Me for a Friend

Every now and then a Go Fund Me pops up for someone I know, and this time it’s worth a share. Check out the page for Ken Screven, a history-making hero who could use a little help right now. See the Go Fund Me page his friends have set up for him here: https://gofund.me/dd2fd7dc. And feel free to share it.

Our friend Ken Screven needs our help.
 
Ken has been hospitalized since October 30, when he was admitted to Albany Medical Center. Ken spent most of November at AMC before being transferred to the Fulton Center in Gloversville. He’s since been back to AMC and soon will be transferred to the Shaker Place Rehabilitation & Nursing Center in Colonie.
 
His medical expenses are piling up.  Although he worked for one company for more than three decades, his insurance coverage ended when he retired. He is now on Medicare and it’s not covering the extraordinary expenses of his medical care. We hope to raise $25,000 to pay his out-of-pocket expenses and to purchase equipment to allow Ken to successfully rehab and hopefully return to his beloved apartment in Center Square.
 
Ken is our legend: He was the first black man hired to report the news in New York’s Capital Region. We all remember hearing his deep baritone voice in our living rooms for 34 years while he worked as a reporter and anchor for WRGB, the local CBS affiliate. 
Ken is our hero: He was awarded the Albany Damien Center ‘Hero Award’ in 2020 in appreciation of his longtime advocacy for the region’s LGBT community.
Ken is our fighter: He’s a fierce (his favorite word!) defender of racial justice. 
Ken is our friend: So many of us have so many memories of Ken being there for us when we needed him.
 
If you follow Ken on Facebook, you’ve seen photos of scores of friends who visited him in Albany and Gloversville during the past four months. He wrote these words about a month ago:
“The actual number of people who continue to embrace my spirit astounds me. You guys don’t realize how much your continued joy and energy is lifting me up, even in dark times here in a nursing home. This photo is from a few months ago. My current energy level doesn’t reflect what I need to rejoin you but certainly, I feel and need your love and support and courage.”
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A Magnificent Cider Doughnut

My parents enjoy a doughnut for breakfast, so I’d been making weekly deliveries of the fresh cider doughnuts that George’s Landscaping was offering, right up until the end of the calendar, when they informed me that the cider doughnut enterprise was going away for the winter, to return in the spring. It was a let-down, as they were the closest and easiest way to get fresh doughnuts to Amsterdam, but there are more doughnut options in the area, as evidenced by this glorious specimen from Cider Belly Doughnuts, which is right in downtown Albany.

The parking in downtown Albany is questionable on a good day, and right after a winter storm it’s a veritable nightmare, but I braved it on a recent Sunday morning and got the goods to get my parents through the next few days. Of course, the delivery guy got a couple for himself in the process, as it should be. Biting into a fresh and warm cider doughnut on a cold winter morning is hygge at its best. It warms the entire heart and soul. Check out Cider Belly Doughnuts if you need a fix.

 

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A Mandevilla On Lunch

Lately I’ve been making the effort to take a lunch when I’m at the office, to get out and into the air, to walk and make some sort of exercise effort because this stagnation only worsens in the winter, and I don’t want to dig this rut any deeper. On a recent trip down the road, I stopped in Stacks Coffeehouse for a hot chocolate and chocolate chip cookie. (What? I can do chocolate on chocolate – hell, I’m out EXERCISING. Did a car magically transport me those 200 feet?) I sat at the counter and sipped from the warm cup, and to my left was a potted mandevilla, with a few blooms of the clearest and brightest yellow. It was such a happy sight. There, in the early days of winter, was a reminder of the glory days of summer – and sun and vacation and pool water. Outside the window was a world of grays and browns, and we haven’t even gotten to the mess that snow and salted roads have yet to bring.

The plant was doing better than other mandevilla I’ve seen indoors, thanks to its proximity against a floor-to-ceiling window pane that let all the light in. It was a glorious vision, unfurling a few graceful tendrils and showing off a couple of other blooms at various angles. As much as I wanted to rush the winter through, I paused to reflect on the beauty of the moment. While the mandevilla bloomed like it was still summer, a gray squirrel with pointy ears of white hopped across the sidewalk and leaped onto the first trunk of a stand of trees. Nimbly navigating the climb, it soared from branch to branch, higher and higher, until it began moving horizontally through the canopy, foraging in the air for what it will need to get through the winter.

I finish my cookie and the hot chocolate – a lunchtime version of what the squirrel was doing, and much sweeter in my humble opinion. Taking one last look at the mandevilla and savoring its cheerful beauty, I exit the café and head back to work. 

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Dazzler of the Day: Sean McLaughlin

Today marks his birthday, so there’s no better time to crown Sean McLaughlin as Dazzler of the Day. He’s one of Albany’s most active community supporters and organizers, and I’ve long held that he should run for local office given his love for the area and his tireless efforts at making it a better place. His networking prowess knows no equal, and if you want something done he’s the first person many people seek to help make it happen. Above and beyond these testaments, however, he’s simply a good guy and friend – and good guys are getting harder and harder to come by these days. Happy birthday Sean – and many happy returns of the day!

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Dazzler of the Day: Subrina Dhammi

Evening anchor Subrina Dhammi has seen various Hunks of the Day to her left and to her right over the years, and now it’s her turn to step into the Dazzler of the Day for her studied poise and pizzazz on Channel 13, WNYT. When she’s not anchored to the news desk, she’s running or dancing or spending family time with her husband and daughter. 

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Downtown, Downtempo

WHEN YOU’RE ALONE AND LIFE IS MAKING YOU LONELY
YOU CAN ALWAYS GO DOWNTOWN
WHEN YOU’VE GOT WORRIES, ALL THE NOISE AND THE HURRY
SEEMS TO HELP I KNOW
DOWNTOWN

Most kids think of their parents simultaneously as the most glamourous people on earth as well as the oldest people on earth. I was no different, so when my Mom told us stories of how she used to go shopping in downtown Albany, it felt like the fanciest place in the world. She also had a record (a real vinyl record) of Petula Clark singing her signature hit ‘Downtown’ that I would play on our first record player and imagine my mother walking along Pearl Street seeking out a dress or hat or a piece of jewelry. She grew up in the time of Jackie Kennedy and the elegant suit dresses of Chanel paired with a pill box hat. It was a classic style that endures to this day.

JUST LISTEN TO THE MUSIC OF THE TRAFFIC IN THE CITY
LINGER ON THE SIDEWALK WHERE THE NEON SIGNS ARE PRETTY
HOW CAN YOU LOSE?

Years later, she would also show us the brighter lights of New York City and Boston, and I would eventually get lost in both on occasion, but somehow they always paled in comparison to the way little old downtown Albany sounded when it was the most exciting retail perch near Hoosick Falls or Amsterdam, NY. While its days of bustling feel lost forever, there are still glimmers of it when all the state workers are out and about for lunch, or when a new restaurant or store opens up. They are too often fleeting, but some linger…

THE LIGHT’S SO MUCH BRIGHTER THERE
YOU CAN FORGET ALL YOUR TROUBLES,
FORGET ALL YOUR CARES
SO GO DOWNTOWN
THINGS WILL BE GREAT WHEN YOU’RE DOWNTOWN
NO FINER PLACE FOR SURE
DOWNTOWN
EVERYTHING’S WAITING FOR YOU
DOWNTOWN… DOWNTOWN

This revamped version of ‘Downtown’ as sung by Anya Taylor-Joy in ‘Last Night in Soho’ is the remake I didn’t realize we needed, bringing a melancholic undertow to the notion of Downtown as a frame of mind, a time and place lost to history but rekindled in a new generation, and a new way of making one’s way through the world. The original optimism of the song is tempered by the recent decades that have certainly worked to dampen such enthusiasm. Yet hope remains on the wistful and breezy notion of finding spaces and places of escape.

DON’T HANG AROUND AND LET YOUR PROBLEMS SURROUND YOU
THERE ARE MOVIE SHOWS DOWNTOWN
MAYBE YOU KNOW SOME LITTLE PLACES TO GO TO
WHERE THEY NEVER CLOSE DOWNTOWN
JUST LISTEN TO THE RHYTHM OF A GENTLE BOSSA NOVA
YOU’LL BE DANCING WITH THEM TOO BEFORE THE NIGHT IS OVER
HAPPY AGAIN

There is a time in most of our lives – maybe our twenties, sometimes into our thirties -when the world feels as glamorous as it will ever feel, when we are as handsome and young and fashionably turned out as we will ever be, and if we’re lucky we catch the feeling, and feel the crest and synergy of it as we walk in our own ideas of Downtown. Somewhere my memory turns into that of my mother’s, and I’m browsing the endless counters at some department store, spritzing perfume and letting the silk of scarves run through my fingers as if they were the smallest jewel-like streams of water. 

THE LIGHT’S SO MUCH BRIGHTER THERE
YOU CAN FORGET ALL YOUR TROUBLES,
FORGET ALL YOUR CARES
SO GO DOWNTOWN
THINGS WILL BE GREAT WHEN YOU’RE DOWNTOWN
NO FINER PLACE FOR SURE
DOWNTOWN
EVERYTHING’S WAITING FOR YOU
DOWNTOWN… DOWNTOWN

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Imitations of Life in Downtown Albany

Seward Johnson sculpted these works of art which are currently scattered throughout downtown Albany, creating a jolt of surreal awareness when something you assume is human out of the corner of your eye suddenly turns inanimate upon closer examination. Those little tricks of perception have always been one of the most fascinating parts of art for me. Tricking the brain and challenging our too-often-unchallenged perspective is a main tenet of art that’s going to matter.

Sculptures like this also beg for some sort of engagement and interaction, even if it’s just posing for a silly selfie with them. We need more of that in this fractured world, and the idea of art as something for everyone is a comfort as we head further toward division. Art unites all of us in ways that little else can.

On a recent lunch break, I took a walk through downtown to see which of these I could find – there are a total of ten in various downtown locations – I managed to locate seven so far. The quest for the remaining three will continue next week.

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ALB Whimsy

Albany holds its whimsical enchantments close to its vest, only revealing them to those who are patient and who take the time to really look. That means going a little further on a daily lunch walk or simply keeping your eyes peeled for unexpected delights like a painted parking meter or a parking garage mural. Always a bane to the existence of the downtown worker, parking is a necessary evil that we might as well make as pretty and whimsical as possible.

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