On this date in ...
1918: With the war over, brewers began the fight to convince President Wilson to scrap plans for a ban on the brewing of beer and ale after Dec. 1, and to turn those breweries into storage plants or other facilities to aid the war effort and divert the grains for that use, too. The ban allowed for the proper disposal of all beer and ale brewed up to that date; for Albany, that amounted to around four months’ worth. Local breweries would not confirm any organized campaign existed, but said they would certainly join with any that began.
1968: The John V.L. Pruyn branch of the Albany Public Library would close to awaiting the wrecker’s ball early next year. Most of the 30,000 volumes would be moved the first week in December. The State Department of Transportation held title to that structure and planned to demolish it to make way for an interchange of the Riverfront Arterial highway. A DOT official said it had advertised it for sale but no bids had been received till the Oct. 11 deadline. The building at 137 N. Pearl St., had been the state’s first public lending library.
1993: You couldn’t see it and probably never would, unless of course someone decided to take down I-787, but Albany had a new site on the list of National Historic Landmarks. The Fort Orange archaeological site was designated as a National Historic Landmark, along with the Schuyler Flatts archaeological district in Colonie. Fort Orange was buried deep under I-787 near the Econo Lodge on Broadway and hadn’t been the subject of a dig in more than 20 years. It was the original Dutch settlement, on land now known as Albany, dating back to 1624, according to a scientist for the state Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.