The limestone-faced building on 5th Avenue, just north of the Collar City Bridge and Hoosick Street stands tall, beautiful and empty.  In spite of the fact that it’s a pretty distinctive building – there are certainly no other limestone Beaux-Arts buildings in the area, it is easy to miss if you aren’t looking carefully.

People driving underneath the bridge towards the traffic light are looking at the light, or looking out for cars barreling through the avenues, but most are only vaguely aware that there is even a building there. After all, this is not Troy’s finest stretch of real estate. It’s a no-man’s land created when someone thought that highways cut through urban areas would be a boon, not a traffic and neighborhood destroying nightmare.
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But in spite of everything, it stands, one of North Central’s many closed up and abandoned buildings.

Happy New Year!! Welcome, 2016!

And welcome back to Spellen of Troy! I’m welcoming myself back, as well!

This time last year, (and the year before, for that matter) I was one busy starving writer, frantically churning out nine articles a week for my gig at Brownstoner.com.

I wanted to do a Troy blog, but it was just too much, I was chained to the computer, blurry-eyed, and burned out.

So Spellen of Troy sat here, unwritten, unread and unloved.

​This year, things are different.