Sergey Kadinsky

Albany Photography

Many cities have portals that bring pride to its residents and welcome their visitors. London has the Tower Bridge, NYC has the Brooklyn Bridge, but Albany has the Dunn memorial bridge. Built in the ugly functionalist style, it was named after a heroic local police officer.

Hudson River flows both ways, as this ecological sign shows. Salt water from the Atlantic Ocean penetrates as far north as Poughkeepsie. Maybe this is why Metro North has its northern terminal there.

The most beautiful bridge in Albany is the Maiden Lane Bridge, connecting the Corning Preserve on the waterfront to Downtown.

On the bridge there are historical murals. Yes, this city was once called Albania! The residents are Albanians, though I have yet to find one boureka stand in this city! Long before a group of white men met in Philadelphia met to set up a democracy, five upstate Iroquois nations met to set up a confederacy- the Haudenosaunee. The alliance was symbolized by the wampum in the picture on the right.

This parking field was once a railyard for Albany's Union Station. The last train rumbled out of Albany in 1968. Since then, Albany's rail station was outsourced across the river to Rensselaer. It is the only state capital on the East Coast without its own railroad station. Doomed to abandonment, the Union Station came close to being condemned. It was saved by Norstar Bank, which remodeled it into a coroprate HQ. The station platform now awaits commuters' cars instead of trains.

Like NYC's old Penn Station, Albany's Union Station also has two fine maidens guarding its clock.

Across the street is a park with a Disney-esque city seal represented in the human scale. Like the NYC Seal, it has a Dutchman and an Indian holding the seal.

Ten Eyck Plaza. An ugly modernist corporate tower. On Sunday afternoons, most of Downtown's donut and bagel shops are closed, with the exception of Starbucks. For being open, I give them the honor of appearing in my album. Downtown is strictly a 9-to-5 area, on weekends it is dead. Citizens bank is also an exception- open Sundays and every day.

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