10/13/2022
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Foundation grant provides updates to Crane Street
Schenectady’s Crane Street is a busy corridor, a diverse mix of mom-and-pop shops, restaurants and residential buildings. Like any busy corridor that has been around for nearly 200 years, it could use a bit of a facelift.
Thanks to a $21,000 grant from The Schenectady Foundation’s Thriving Neighborhoods Challenge program, the Mont Pleasant Merchants Association are sprucing up Crane Street, hanging attractive banners on light posts and installing sturdy new trash cans in front of businesses.
“We want to interest people in investing in the area, but they won’t invest if they see trash, loitering,” said the Rev. James Bookhout, president of the Mont Pleasant Merchants Association and pastor at The Bridge Christian Church on Crane Street. “We have to take pride in our businesses. If we want new businesses and new people to come up here, we have to clean up.”
The Merchants want to instill a sense of pride among those who live and work in the neighborhood by renaming it “Engine Hill,” a reference to the area’s bygone status as a hub of rail activity. Mohawk & Hudson Railroad ran the first steam-propelled railroad transportation service in America out of a small brick station on Crane Street.
To find out more on this project, you can go to our blog
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Train buffs know that Schenectady played a huge role in the development of the railways and the engines that operated on them. There is even an ALCO Heritage Trail with interpretive signs [https://www.ptny.org/newsandmedia/e-news-1/2019/06/alco-heritage-trail]. There are signs along the trail giving you more info about the site of the American Locomotive site on Erie Boulevard, the trains and engines built there, and why Schenectady became known as the “City that Lights and Hauls the World.”
You can also check out this link for specific history of the Schenectady railroad station
