SOUNDS OF THE SEASON

Bells ring in downtown holiday shopping

TROY, N.Y. » The city was filled with the sound of bells Wednesday as downtown merchants rung in the holiday shopping season with a new twist on an annual tradition.

The Downtown Troy Business Improvement District in previous years used a ceremonial cannon blast to announce what to many of its members is the most lucrative time of the year. This year, however, the group took a step back to the city’s eaer-liest days and recognized its reputation as the pre-eminent bellmaker in the New World by having bells throughout the city at noon.

Leading the metal melody was a bell produced in West

Troy — now Watervliet — in 1865 that served for years at Vanderheyden Hall before being donated to the Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway. The 100-pound bell now sits in the Burden Iron Works Museum, but on Wednesday, it was inside the Copper Fox, a River Street clothing store, where it was rung by the gateway’s exectuive director, Michael Barrett. Meanwhile, his predecessor, Tom Carroll, explained the city’s history in the bell-making business, led by the world-renown Meneely Bell Foundry, which produced

an estimated 65,000 bells during its 125-year history in the Collar City, many of which can still be seen — and heard — at universities throughout the Northeast and churches as far away as Guatemala and Taiwan.

Also tolling their bells to mark the beginning of the season were the Mount Ida Church of The Ascension, St. John’s Episcopal Church, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Oakwood Cemetery, the Rensselaer County Historical Society and the Watervliet Historical Society.

The ceremony kicks off a month of special downtown events that begin with today’s Troy Turkey Trot, continues Friday with a Black Friday-- themed Troy Night Out and also includes the city’s 35th annual Troy Victorian Stroll from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 3.

MARK ROBARGE — MROBARGE@TROYRECORD.COM Michael Barrett, executive director of the Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway rings a 150-year-old bell Wednesday during a ceremony to mark the opening of the holiday shopping season in downtown Troy at the Copper Fox, a clothing store on River Street.

MARK ROBARGE — MROBARGE@TROYRECORD.COM Katie Hammon, right, executive director of the Downtown Troy Business Improvement District, is joined by, from left, Lacey Davidson, owner of the Copper Fox, Deborah Lockrow, owner of Artcentric, and Deputy Mayor Monica Kurzejeski in kicking off the...

MARK ROBARGE — MROBARGE@TROYRECORD.COM Troy Deputy Mayor Monica Kurzejeski, center, is flanked by Kate Manley, left, president of the Rensselaer County Regional Chamber of Commerce, and Katie Hammon, executive director of the Downtown Troy Business Improvement District, as she speaks...

MARK ROBARGE — MROBARGE@TROYRECORD.COM Tom Carroll, left, former executive director and now senior scholar for the Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway, talks about the 150-year-old bell rung by his successor as head of the group, Michael Barrett, on Wednesday during a ceremony to mark the...