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Tour highlights city’s history, significance
BY CARI SCRIBNER Gazette Reporter

    A Heritage Area Trolley Tour Sunday offered about 20 people a bird’s eye view of the homes of renowned scientists, war heroes and religious leaders in historically significant areas of Schenectady.
    The one-hour tour, narrated by volunteers from the Schenectady Chamber of Commerce, brought to life the fortitude of early settlers and the creative ways buildings were constructed and occupied in the Stockade district. Covering just seven miles, the tour spans fi ve centuries from its founding in the 1615 to its designation in 1973 as the first historic district in New York State.
    Although relatively familiar with the city’s past, chamber guide Nell Burrows said she brushed up on her local history before giving the monthly tours.
    “Thank goodness for Google,” Burrows said. “What we want to do is excite people about Schenectady, help them understand what went on in the past and what’s going on today, and make them want to go back and visit some of the sites we only have time to drive by.”
    Seated on wooden bench seats with open air intead of windows, passengers snapped photos and waved to people walking the sidewalks, and people painting the facades of their homes, many who seemed familiar with the site of a passing trolley, the old-fashioned vehicle with sightseers that goes by about once a month.
    Heritage Area offers the guided tours of the Stockade Historic District and General Electric Plot, giving people a glimpse into the lives of the original settlers, with anecdotes about its inhabitants, images of colonial life and descriptions of native architecture.
    At Erie Boulevard and State Street, her fellow guide Gail Kehn pointed out the reasons why using the Erie Canal as a fast route of travel to Albany wasn’t feasible for business travelers.
    “People didn’t keep in mind that the trip would include going through 22 locks, so it took about 20 hours to get there,” Kehn said. “By stagecoach, it was only two hours.”
    Stockade walls were guarded by cold, weary soldiers one winter, and as legend has it, they built snowmen and placed their hats on them, leaving the wall unguarded. On February 8, 1690, French and Indian troops stormed the district and massacred many residents in the Stockade area.
    People returning after the attack redoubled their efforts to build a viable residential and business area. One of the businesses still operating is Arthur’s Food Market in the center of the neighborhood, still open since its inception in 1795. A fi re in 1819 burned many of the businesses, which were primarily factories for manufacturing household brooms, but the area was once again successfully brought back to life.
    On the railroad pass over Liberty Street, Burrows shared the background story behind the Irish pub named “Pinhead Susan’s.”
    “There were two sisters in the 1980’s who fought constantly and had a flair for graffitti, and over the years, one sister painted on the overpass that her sister Susan was a pinhead,” Burrows said. “It was scrubbed off, only to reappear several times with the words, Susan is still a pinhead.’”
    A drive by City Hall and the city U.S. Post Office branch, both of which are listed on the National Historic Registry, was also included, as was a peek down the narrow streets of so-called Little Italy near Jay Street, where several restaurants established there years ago still attract crowds of regular customers.
    Winding up Union Street near Union College, Burrows pointed out several brick building with ivy climbing the exterior walls and the windows mysteriously dark.
    “When there are movie companies looking for creepy, scareylooking buildings, they usually come to Schenectady and scout around here,” Burrows said.
    The trolley rambled through the General Electric Company Plot off Union Street near Avon Road, planned in the late 1800s by the company’s directors at the turn of the century as an elite neighborhood for its inventors and managers.
    People living in the large homes included scientists who sent the first facsimile messages to Europe and who won Nobel prizes. The plot is also the site of the first allelectric home, built in 1905 without a chimney to show there was no need to burn fuel to warm the house.
    “The county of Schenectady has the most patents per capita then and now than any county in the United States because of the ongoing inventions at General Electric,” Burrows said.
    The end of the tour included a trip into the Union College campus and a view of the 16-sided Victorian Nott Memorial structure, now open for public tours daily. The building is named after Eliphalet Nott, who lived from 1773 to 1866 and was president of Union College for 62 years.
    The Schenectady Trolley, a former Capital District Transportation Authority vehicle, is part of the group of vehicles owned by Albany Aquaducks Trolley Tours, which has a fleet of three trolleys and two amphibious vehicles giving tours on land and into water.
    Riders Sunday afternoon said their interest was piqued to learn more about the city.
    “I liked the churches; I can picture them covered in spiderwebs,” Colter Carlstedt, 12, of Scotia, who took the tour with his family, said. “They were pretty spooky.”
    Sofia Lesko, 12, of Albany, took the tour with her mother, Susan Petrie.
    “I liked the way they pointed out the houses,” Lesko said.
    “It’s important to me that she learn local history, because I don’t think she’ll learn this anywhere else,” Petrie said. “We’ve done historic tours of Albany, and we’re going to learn this all ourselves. It’s interesting and great fun.”

Schenectady does have some great history, thanks to GE.