Talk:History of Albany, New York

Suggestions
Nice attempt. I would suggest breaking this article down into sections, in addition to creating an introductory paragraph (or maybe 2 or 3). Take a look at History of New York City or History of Boston for some guidance. ~  ωαdεstεr 16  «talkstalk» 07:38, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You are being too kind to go as far as "nice attempt"! Just getting the history section over to this page was my main priority so that I, along with others, could continue to make it longer without burdening the main article, I really hope others start coming over to the article, it looks kinda weird that nothing happened in Albany after the Empire State Plaza was finished. I took a quick look at the History of New York City page, definitely got alot of ideas just from a quick look. I'll put in temporary sections just for now, I'm just afraid that if I break it into the sections I'm thinking of right now then many of the sections will be awfully short even though I know some day in the future they'll be longer once the information is located with verifiable sources. I wouldve suggested stub status for this article except that it's so long, but really compared to what it should be when complete it might as well be treated as a stub. This should definitely be at the top of any "to do" or "badly in need of help" list on wikiproject CD.Camelbinky (talk) 12:36, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I added a quick intro and three sections. Its all very preliminary but if you get a chance to look at the intro and give suggestions on any topics that should be touched on in the intro that would be very helpful. For now I put the sections into "pre-history and dutch colonial", "british colonial", and "post-colonial" just to make it easier to edit a specific area and put in information instead of having to edit the whole page. Its very temporary. In the coming week I hope to flush out pre-European info (despite the mentioning of penpotawotnot, which I cant find a credible source for, there doesnt seem to have been any Native Americans actually living in the city if you read history books!). I may just put a small amount of information on how the Hudson and Mohawk rivers formed from Lake Albany in the glacial period and geographic information on how the pine bush formed, a real pre-historic beginning to Albany. So there will be a prehistory section, then a dutch colonial section, then an english/british (they didnt use the british name until some time after Albany was conquered), and then maybe 3 or 4 sections from 1776-today, with 1825 (completion of the Erie Canal) as one of the transition points between sections and perhaps having 1940-1982 as the "Corning Years" or something. Still working on it and wanting suggestions!Camelbinky (talk) 01:06, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I've just read the entire article. It gets boring at some parts. I don't think that the succession of mayors is particularly important, and perhaps a separate chart should be used. The article seems to be very chronological, rather than type of event selected. I would break the history into eras, and then group together happenings within that era, such as realignment of city boundaries, changes to street names, commercial and industrial development, cultural development and changes in character due to influx of immigrants, and also first by Albany or Albany related people, i.e. John Henry could be in a section "science and technology". While there is a significant amount of detail regarding structural changes to the city, the reasons behind these remain unexplained in many instances. For instance, why were streets renamed with numbers in the south end? There's also very little modern history. It would be as though the building of Empire State Plaza was the last thing to have happened. There is little regarding some of the negative aspects of the city's history, such as the 'white flight' out of the city core to the suburbs, which left the core of the city to decay,the loss of major industries, the emergence of government bureacracy as the major economic engine of the city, the recent conviction of Joe Bruno, etc. History is not hagiography, these and other negatives need to be included, and put in context. Of course, lots of analysis of facts may lead to differing opinions from different people, but these can be enumerated and detailed in sub-articles. Bobkeyes (talk) 19:12, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Newer history is left out frankly because I got bored and distracted by many other "easier" articles to do. White flight in Albany is hard to document using reliable sources, blogs and "common conceptions" arent admissable, but in the future I hope to show that, as far as Bruno is concerned- Bruno NEVER represented the city of Albany and has nothing to do with the city's history. That could be covered in a History of New York's Capital District, which is one more project I hope to get to in the future. Feel free to start on it yourself. For cities like Albany "negative aspects" tend not to get written since mostly the history books on cities tend to be by residents and people who love the city (McEneny's seminal work Albany, Capital City on the Hudson for example); but you are right that it needs more on the negative aspects and historical events such as Corning/O'Connell machine keeping out civil rights protesters, keeping out federal urban renewal money, and Rockefeller's many "grand plans" of the city with an impact similar to that of Robert Moses downstate, the destruction of hundreds or thousands of acres of Pine Bush for shopping centers and office buildings; feel free to be bold and rearrange, put things into sections, etc.Camelbinky (talk) 21:04, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Sections 1—3
I re-read this part of the article again today and did some copyediting, rearranging, etc. Here are some of the things I ran into that I figured were worth noting:
 * Past vs. present tense: Everything in this article occured in the past. As such, all wording should be in the past tense.
 * Mayors: I would suggest putting the history of the mayors in each time period all together rather than breaking up the history of mayoral succession with other (sometimes) random facts. I know it makes sense to go completely chronologically, but in sections that have starting and ending years, I don't see it being a problem if you kept one paragraph for noting all the mayors, thereby keeping that part separate from the rest of the (typically more exciting) history. Also, are these mayors "replaced" by a governor or are they elected (after 1700)? Maybe a "List of mayors of Albany, New York" article is called for?
 * Sheriffs: Tell us what happened after Springfield and Albany arrested each other's respective sheriffs. Sounds interesting.
 * Franklin: Is the Albany Plan of Union the same meeting as the British Lords of Trade suggested happen to prepare defenses against the French or were they just coincidentally near each other chronologically?
 * Flow: Generally speaking, much of the earlier history does not flow all that well. It still reads like a list of facts, many of which are unrelated, just placed together in paragraphs.
 * Revolutionary War: The article doesn't really point out the start of the war like it should.
 * Declaration of Independence: Mention how many signers there were from New York and say something like "Philip Livingston, one of only x signers, was born in Albany."
 * Elections: How long did the city go without elections during the war?
 * Clarification: What do you mean by "cutting the United States in half"? (you can ctrl+F the phrase in quotes to find it.)
 * George Washington's Visit: Did he get the "freedom of the city" award? What is meant by that? I don't get it.

The amount of detail is great, and it's a lot of interesting stuff to find out about the city; nicely done. ~  ωαdεstεr 16  «talkstalk» 04:59, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I must admit I am TERRIBLE at putting things in a flowing way and need copyediting help alot with articles I do. I'm much better at hunting down info and just putting it in hoping someone can make sense of it! I'm glad you stopped by the page Wadester. I will start with putting everything in the past-tense.

Camelbinky (talk) 06:08, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
 * MayorsThere already is List of mayors of Albany, New York, should I eliminate mentioning each election/appointment except important ones? The list article only is a table of them in order, doesnt give election results or opponents or party affiliation. I like the idea of putting the mayors of each section in a separate paragraph, should I do the same for topics as well, ie- Religious events in a paragraph, Transportation related developments in another. I put things in a chronological way for ease of writting it at first but I see your point about it being a list of facts right now.
 * SheriffsI will have to do research on the what happened during the border dispute. May have been anti-climatic with them just being released, just guessing. I know the boundary between Rensselaer County (NY) and Berkshire County (MA) was disputed for a long time and had to be surveyed relatively late in Colonial history (possibly even disputed into early US history) though I would argue that should be covered more in Albany County (as that was the county at the time) and Rensselaer County histories.
 * Franklin Yes, the Albany Plan of Union was the meeting set by the Lords of Trade, I will attempt to make that more clear at the next chance.
 * Flow I'm in the middle of researching and finding more sources and info on the earlier history and then will hopefully with yours and others help get something like a flow and narrative going.
 * Revolutionary War I will add the beginning of the war and hope to find some info on what Albany's population thought about things like the Boston Tea Party, Boston Massacre, and Lexington & Concord.
 * Philip Livingston Will do.
 * Elections The article mentions what years were skipped but I will add in how long a time period it was between the last election that was held and the next time an election was held.
 * Clarification Cutting the United States in half was meant to mean that the plan, both by the British in the Rev War and by the French in the F&I war, was that by taking Albany and NYC you would cut the New England colonies from the Middle and Southern colonies, it must be remembered that the US was just a bunch of coast hugging colonies in a row, eliminating one would bisect what ever remained above from whatever was below, there was no depth to the nation. In the Rev War NYC remained British after Washington's defeat at Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights, so by taking Albany the US would be bisected. I can try and make it clearer in the article.
 * GW Visit I think the freedom of the city was basically the same as saying someone got "the key to the city". I did come across someone else getting the "freedom of the city" as well and there was a photo of the award and parchment of it, I'll see if I can find that person again and put that in as well and maybe a copyright free photo of the freedom of the city award. I'll get a citation for GW's award and mention that the freedom was the same as getting a key to the city type honorary award.

Section 4
To be done later.

Historical populations
I think it would be valuable if someone could add Albany's historical population rank to the historical populations table, as is the case with Providence. --Albany NY (talk) 03:18, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Good idea, but where to get the info? ~  ωαdεstεr 16  «talkstalk» 03:29, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * We could for now use the same source as the article Largest cities in the United States by population by decade though I disagree with myself on using it for the long term, as I dont believe it to be entirely truthful in its title of "largest cities" as many of those places are equivelant to or actually are townships NOT actual incorporated cities and as such span such huge areas that of course they make the list of top ten largest cities in the US at a certain decade showing up larger than Albany. This History of Albany, New York article does mention at what decades the city does show up in the top 10 largest cities in the United States, according to that same source I mentioned.Camelbinky (talk) 06:13, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

August 2010 copy edits

 * The article needs to be converted to the past tense. I see this was recommended in 2009 and it is in line with what I see on other similar articles.
 * Nanotechnology etc appears in the lead but not in the article so it had to be removed.
 * Section headers end at 1942 but the article seems to end around 1983 or so. What should this last section header say?
 * If all the mayors are removed from the section 1664-1744 and placed to the side in a table, the table is already longer than the section and will be even more out of proportion once the chronology of mayors is removed from the text. The article about New York City only mentions three prominent mayors. What to do? It's up to you. I am stopping for now.

-- Diannaa (Talk) 22:52, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

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