On this date in ...
1918: After a meeting between Schenectady Mayor Watt, Superintendent of City Schools Edward Jones, Architect Fuller, Commissioner of Public Safety J. Sheldon Frost and Chief Bridgeford of the fire department, it was determined that the weekend fire that was though to have been disastrous at School 24 was not as bad as first thought. The group decided the school could reopen the following Monday after the holidays.
1968: Albany Law School launched a $500,000 fund drive on behalf of its current expansion program. J. Vanderbilt Straub, vice president of the law school, stressed the need for expansion in view of the growing number of applications for admission and the need to double the size of the law library and to enlarge classrooms, offices and areas for activities. Total cost of the project was estimated at $2 million. Currently the number of students was 329 and the school hoped to enrol 500. Ernest B. Morris, president of the school’s board of trustees, announced that $234,710 had already been raised.
1993: Within minutes of cutting the ribbon to open the new Northway Exit 8A, cars and trucks filled the ramps as the first of the average daily crush of 6,000 vehicles circulated through the interchange. After nearly a generation of discussion, the Grooms Road exit, straddling the Halfmoon-clifton Park town line, was expected to divert traffic from Exits 8 and 9. About 2.2 million vehicles were expected to use Exit 8A annually. Congestion had strangled Exits 8 and 9 for years, where commuter traffic clogged local roads and forced vehicles to back up onto the Northway during the afternoon rush hour as they waited to get off the highway.
Want to read more about the Capital Region’s past? Have any memories or thoughts about how our history relates to today’s events? See http:// blog.timesunion. com/history/