Albany, NY -- On the Capitol Lawn in Albany

So, back to my sorta-regularly-scheduled blogging, as I sit here at Totem through another Yankee starter only getting 12 outs before getting yanked...

I did stroll the streets of downtown Albany yesterday to get a taste of the city on a weekday afternoon. I got out a little later than I was hoping, so I only caught the tail-end of lunch hour.

Still, I did manage to catch real, live people on West Lawn of the Capitol:



Actual people in Albany!


More people!


Always love a good fountain



The Times Union saw a lot more of them the day before.

The question remains: How do you keep people like these, who leave downtown in droves between 3 and 5 PM? I spoke to a couple of the women at the BID (Business Improvement District) on Broadway a little while later. They said that their surveys show that if national retail stores open up downtown, those state employees would hang out for the night, making moves like Ballinger's opening four bars in one restaurant a bit less of a stretch. It's a shame that local stores can't have the same pull.

Speaking of which, I found a couple of new businesses downtown that will be replacing some of my suburban shopping, and I'll talk about them later.

For whatever reason, I've always loved food off of trucks, and there are at least a dozen of them every day by the Capitol and the Plaza when the weather's nice.




I can't make this stuff up... this one's for Ari and Lisa!

Labels: Albany

posted by jbrzoska @ 9:13 PM Trackback Link