The Gateway announces Patrick Quinn, former dean of the RPI School of Architecture, as our 2023 Gala honoree. We continue to work with architects on plans and bid specifications for our $500,000 renovation, and are hopeful that some contracts can be signed by the end of the summer. We follow up the article on the Ford Motor Co. parts plant in Green Island in our last Newsletter issue with a story about several early attempts to manufacture automobiles in the region. And in a belated nod to St. Patrick’s Day, enjoy an article on the Fitzgerald Brothers Brewery in Troy.

Gateway to Honor Patrick Quinn at 2023 Gala

We are pleased to announce that Patrick Quinn, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Emeritus Professor of Architecture and former Dean of the RPI School of Architecture, will be the honoree at our 2023 Gala, to be held September 28, 2023. Patrick, along with RPI colleague the late Rev. Thomas Phelan and several others, was also a founder of the Hudson Mohawk Industrial Gateway nearly 50 years ago.

Born in Ireland, Patrick received his architecture degree from University College Dublin. He came to the United States for graduate education at the University of Pennsylvania. He was an associate professor at the University of California College of Environmental Design for 11 years before coming to RPI in 1971 as Dean, serving from 1971 to 1980. He remained on the RPI faculty until he retired in 1996.

Patrick maintained an active architectural practice even while teaching. He specialized in religious architecture, and among his numerous projects was the expansion of the Chapel + Cultural Center on the RPI campus. Patrick is also active in local theater.

Please plan to join us in honoring him at our Gala.

Burden Iron Works Museum Renovations Expected to Start This Summer

HMIG Museum Director Susan Ouellette with plans

The Burden Iron Works Museum restoration funded by the 2017 New York State Environment Protection Fund grant continues to move forward. Our architects from the firm Mesick Cohen Wilson Baker have developed and produced the key drawings for the restoration work, including the HVAC system, the exterior stone steps, and a combination of other related projects in the museum building. In addition, they met with our Historic Site Restoration Coordinator from the NYS Division for Historic Preservation, Frances Stern, who came to the museum to review the proposals with them on February 9th. We are currently preparing for the next step, which is the contract bidding process, and we hope to be reviewing bids, selecting contractors, and moving forward on selected projects by early summer. While we plan to open the museum to visitors this summer, we will also need to be mindful of the needs of contractors going forward. Visiting days and times will have to be tailored to the needs of contractors as they move through their work.

The Short History of Automobile Production in the Hudson Mohawk Region

The demolition of the Ford Motor Co. plant in Green Island in 2004 severed the last link between this region and one of the major new industries to develop in the 20th century: the mass production of motor vehicles. The Ford plant produced components –radiators and heater cores at the end – but never complete vehicles.

Was there any series production of complete motor vehicles in the Hudson Mohawk region? It appears not. While a number of companies were organized to manufacture cars, and several actually produced a few vehicles, no company succeeded in making commercial quantities or in staying in business very long.

Not surprisingly, with the largest and wealthiest population in the region and the most developed industrial base, Troy saw the greatest efforts to develop an automobile industry. According to Beverly Kimes in her reference work on early automobiles, Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942, seven companies based in Troy tried to make cars in the first decades of the last century: Bernard, Biggelman, Dormandy, Harvard, Hidley, Listman, and Lucey (the Lucey Motor Car Company at 231 River Street was a motor car dealer). In addition, there was the Green Island-based Trojan, and another company based in Cohoes, the Wood-Loco Vehicle Company.

Of these, Bernard, Biggelman, Listman, and Lucey are not believed to have reached the production stage. Wood-Loco produced its steam-powered cars in Cohoes from 1901 to 1903, but then production was moved to Brooklyn where it continued until 1905. Similarly, the Trojan was built by William S. Howard in 1903 while he was briefly employed by the Trojan Launch and Automobile Works at the corner of George St. and Bleeker St. in Green Island. He then moved to Yonkers, N.Y., and produced vehicles under the Howard name. Later, the Harvard automobile was built in Troy in 1915 and 1916 before production was moved to Hudson Falls, N.Y. As many as 80 vehicles may have been built there before the company was sold and moved to Maryland.

The two most interesting cases are the Dormandy and the Hidley. As Beverly Kimes wrote, “It can safely be assumed that the Dormandy was the only automobile in the United States ever to be produced in a shirt-collar factory.” The building in question was the United Shirt & Collar Co., which operated at the Lion factory building at 742 Second Ave. in Lansingburgh.

Company President James K. Polk Pine had factory machinist Gary Dormandy build a vehicle powered by an air cooled four-cylinder engine. Most of the mechanical components were fabricated by Dormandy and company blacksmiths. The coachwork was provided by Troy Carriage Works at 914 River St. in Lansingburgh, a business also owned by Pine. Four cars were produced in the period 1903 to 1905: one for Pine, two for his sons, and one for Dormandy himself. Pine apparently then decided that Dormandy was better employed maintaining the company’s shirt-collar making machinery, and production ceased.

J.H. Hidley was a well-known bicycle dealer with a shop at 257 Broadway. In the years 1901 and 1902, Kimes wrote, Hidley began assembling a steam automobile in his store window from parts he made himself. He established the Hidley Automobile Co. in 1901 with the intent to manufacture runabout and delivery versions of an eight-horsepower steam vehicle, but it is “unclear how many cars were produced beyond the prototype,” Kimes concluded.

In addition, George W. Griswold, possibly related to Troy’s famous Griswold family, built a primitive automobile in about 1906 that he was still driving around town as late as 1911. Kimes called it “a primeval machine … [and] an example of early minimal transport.”

Albany, although not part of the Hudson Mohawk region, also saw efforts to manufacture automobiles. Kimes lists nine Albany companies that were organized to manufacture automobiles, including one that proposed using compressed air for power. However, it appears that only a few even reached the prototype stage and none entered the production stage.

It seems the only motor vehicle mass-produced in our region was the Evans Power Cycle, a small two-stroke motorcycle produced in Menands from 1924 to 1926. According to Geoffrey N. Stein in The Motorcycle Industry in New York State, exact sales figures for the brand are not known, but it was successfully built for a ten-year period starting in 1916. Production started in Rochester, N.Y., before moving to Menands.

Fitzgerald Brothers Brewery in Troy Survived Prohibition, but Succumbed to Fire

Although St. Patrick’s Day is behind us for this year, let us raise a glass to beer, the drink that fueled America since its beginnings. Beer was such a popular drink in the United States that many cities in the late 19th century had almost as many breweries as houses of worship. One source lists 34 breweries in Troy at the high point of the city’s brewing history. Some only lasted a couple of years, while others endured longer, even beyond Prohibition.

One of the oldest and largest of Troy’s breweries was the Fitzgerald Brewery. In 1866, Edmund Fitzgerald purchased the Lundy & Ingram brewery on the western side of River Street, founded in 1852. Brothers Michael and John soon joined in. In the beginning, they did not brew themselves, but were distributors of various kinds of liqueurs, gins, whiskeys and brandies.

Michael dropped out in 1870, leaving Edmund and John to grow the company. They decided to start brewing their own brand of beer and ale. Arthur James Weise wrote in his The City of Troy and Its Vicinity that by 1886 the brewery was called the Garryowen Brewery, but the beer and ale were always known as Fitzgerald’s. The malt house and brewery were separate brick buildings on River Street, six stories tall, stretching back to the Hudson River. They were built in 1877 and 1881, respectively. Further down the street, the two-story office building stood surrounded by other wings and buildings associated with the company, bringing the total to nine buildings, from 195 to 511 River Street.

Weise reported that the company was producing 70,000 barrels of ale and porter annually and employed seventy men. John Fitzgerald died in 1885, passing his interests to his heirs, who continued the growth of the company. The company became the Fitzgerald Brothers Brewing Company in 1899. The company expanded by building a large new bottling plant across the street, at 494-500 River Street.

At the turn of the 20th century, Troy had nine operating breweries. Like every brewery in the nation, Fitzgerald’s was closed in 1920 by the enactment of the Volstead Act, also known as Prohibition. It lasted 13 years. During that time, Fitzgerald’s survived by manufactured malt. The barley used in making beer is the basis of this food ingredient. Former breweries were good places to produce malt, which was an ingredient used for popular products such as malted milk balls and malted milk shakes.

Malt allowed Fitzgerald’s to survive, but they did so with a vastly reduced workforce, and with much of their facilities idle. The Saratogian newspaper in 1932 reported that they had only 12 men working at the plant right before Prohibition’s end.

Fitzgerald beer can

Fitzgerald's ads

Fitzgerald's Box

William Fitzgerald was eager to dust off the equipment and start producing beer again.

The company went back into production and was soon making its popular beer and ale again. Many bottles, trays and advertising ephemera survive from the various periods of Fitzgerald’s popularity (the Gateway has such a collection). But the end of Troy’s beer boom days was near. Some of the city’s breweries never recovered from Prohibition and the Great Depression. Local breweries faced increasing competition from regional and national brands. And some of them fell victim to Troy’s recurring menace – fire.

On November 2, 1964, a fire broke out in Fitzgerald’s main brewery house. It soon became a major conflagration. When it was over, the river side of the complex was greatly damaged, although the bottling plant was untouched.

Fitzgerald’s had already moved much of their operation to Glens Falls in 1960, when they purchased a Pepsi Bottling plant there. They were already transitioning from brewers to distributers, and the 1964 fire was the death knell to Troy beer brewing for many years. In 1963 they sold the brand name and the machinery to the Drewry Company, but not the building. However, after inspecting the damage, the city ordered the plant torn down in 1964.

The large empty lot became home to Hedley Cadillac-Oldsmobile in 1966 and is now a Courtyard by Marriot Hotel. The bottling equipment was removed from the remaining plant across the street. It was sold to Troy’s Nelick's Furniture company and used as a warehouse for several years. It has been a self-storage facility for many years.

River Street once was lined wall-to-wall with industrial buildings. Only a handful remain today, and fortunately, this reminder of Fitzgerald’s proud history is one of them.

A version of this article first appeared in Suzanne Spellen’s blog “Spellen of Troy,” and is used here with her permission.

Newsletter - Spring 2023