New York Almanack

Belmont Park Through The Ages

Bill Orzell — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 20:20:44 +0000

Sporting venues that are operational across succeeding generations develop a distinct affinity with those who patronize the many performances at these special locales.

These settings are more than just a point-of-interest on a geographic information system or map; instead, all the successes, failures and experiences combine with our psyche and heart strings into something more than physical, and form an emotional legacy across the measure of time.

Even the meccas of competition which have been lost to the ages stay with us as memories, or are revered by historic accounts into legend.

Rutgers, Race & The Hardenbergh Legacy

Jaap Harskamp — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 18:00:30 +0000

The New York and New Jersey metropolitan area hosts several leading higher education institutions, ranging from elite Ivy League and public research universities to specialist technological schools. Three of those belong to the historic group of nine pre-Revolutionary colonial colleges.

The College of New Jersey was set up in 1746 by seven Presbyterian trustees. All of them were slave-holders. A decade later the institution moved to Princeton. Its Nassau Hall served as a military hospital during the Revolutionary War.

Smooth Slender Crabgrass: A Quiet Engineer

Guest Contributor — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 17:00:55 +0000

For all the adventures I’ve had in New Hampshire, I’ve spent few of them looking at the ground. The plants I pay the most attention to are closest to eye level, such as the gorgeous draping branches of spruce trees and the pale bark of white birches.

However, when I started a job as a fishways operator at Amoskeag Fishways, I did a deep dive into the flora and fauna of the state and learned about a fascinating little plant: smooth slender crabgrass (Digitaria laeviglumis).

Free Accessibility Options Expand for Great Camp Santanoni, Frontier Town Campground

Editorial Staff — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 16:00:15 +0000

There are now new accessible mobility device options for two popular sites in the Adirondacks. The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and Adirondack Architectural Heritage (AARCH) have expanded the existing Great Camp Santanoni Accessibility Program with a new wheelchair-accessible transport service device in Newcomb, in Essex County, NY.

Frontier Town Campground in nearby North Hudson will also now offer free use of both an adult- and a youth-sized electric wheelchair suitable for the paths and paved areas of the campground.

The 1970s on Long Island Experience

Editorial Staff — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 14:30:00 +0000

If you lived through the 1970s, you know the decade was about more than orange shag carpets, platform shoes, avocado-colored walls, oversized Detroit-made “land yachts” and spinning Saturday Night Fever or Grease on vinyl. The completion of the Long Island Expressway was followed by the 1973 OPEC Oil Embargo; the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 became the 1776 Bicentennial – the period was layered and complex.

Across Long Island, social, political, and demographic shifts fueled cultural and artistic innovation, even as new questions and vulnerabilities emerged.

Forest Rangers Recover Hiker’s Body; Make Several Rescues

Editorial Staff — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 13:23:40 +0000

New York State Forest Rangers responded to several backcountry incidents between September 8th and the 12th, including the recovery of the body of a hiker who died on Rocky Mountain in the town of Inlet, a family of four lost off the trail to Algonquin Peak, several more hikers who were injured, ill, or ill-prepared in the Adirondack High Peaks, and an overturned kayaker Hamilton County.

Town of Keene, Essex County

Wilderness Rescue: On September 8 at 1:27 p.m., Ray Brook Dispatch received a call for a hiker experiencing cardiac issues near Round Pond in the Dix Mountain Wilderness.

When Alexander Hamilton Called Albany Home

Editorial Staff — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 20:26:49 +0000

On Sunday, September 27, 2026 at 1 pm, Schuyler Mansion State Historic Site and New York Archives magazine will present “When Hamilton Called Albany Home.” Schuyler Mansion Site Manager Heidi Hill will highlight Albany’s role in Alexander Hamilton’s life – from his ties to the prominent Schuyler family to the broader political and social networks that helped define a young nation.

This talk complements the Summer 2026 issue of New York Archives magazine, which discusses Hamilton and how the Tontine Coffee House played a role in the emergence of America’s first political parties.

Adirondack Outdoor Recreation Economy Events in Jay, NY

Editorial Staff — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 17:30:38 +0000

The Adirondack town of Jay will host a community welcome event on Friday, September 25, from 5 to 8 pm, and a community workshop on Saturday, September 26, from 9 am to 4:30 pm, to invite community input in planning an outdoor recreation economy that supports Main Street revitalization as part of the Recreation Economy for Rural Communities (RERC) program.

“This is a chance for people who enjoy being outside in Au Sable Forks, Jay, Upper Jay, and our neighboring communities connected by the Ausable River to shape the future of outdoor recreation here,” said Town of Jay Councilor Olivia Dwyer.

Northeastern Alpine Stewardship Gathering Seeks Presenters

Editorial Staff — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 17:00:21 +0000

The Waterman Fund is now accepting abstracts for the 14th Northeastern Alpine Stewardship Gathering, to be held at the end of October in Maine. They are seeking proposals that highlight ecology, stewardship, education, recreation, history, and the spirit of wildness in the arctic-alpine areas of the northeastern United States and Canada.

The following formats will be considered:

Oral Presentation: 12-15 minutes, Microsoft PowerPoint. Projector and clicker will be provided. Talks will occur on Friday (Oct.

New York’s Great Warpath & Historian Harrison Bird

Anthony F. Hall — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 15:00:48 +0000

Lake George, NY resident Harrison Bird (1910-2003) belonged to a rare class of historians, those whose situate the local within the continental and, indeed, the global.

In four books published by Oxford University Press – Navies in the Mountains (1962), March to Saratoga (1963), Battle for a Continent (1965) and Attack on Quebec (1968) – Bird wrote about Lake George, Lake Champlain, Fort Ticonderoga, Saratoga, Quebec and the northern waterways not as isolated historic sites, but as parts of one strategic corridor: the route by which empires, armies, navies and ambitions moved between Canada and the Hudson Valley.