Henrietta Carmichael, who donated land for the Sassafras Hollow Nature Preserve in Amsterdam, also sold lots on Guy Park Avenue for an elementary school.
Ann Peconie, director of the Walter Elwood Museum, came across a copy of the deed transferring two lots to the Amsterdam school district in 1900. Two years later, the Guy Park Avenue Elementary School was completed.
After some 60 years as a school building, the structure became home to the Walter Elwood Museum for 40 years. Last year, the museum moved to Guy Park Manor, a Colonial building on the Mohawk River. The school district is in the process of selling the old school building.
WHEEL OF LIFE
Peconie also commented on a recent column on specialty carpets woven by Mohawk Carpets and its successor, Mohasco.
“How about the carpet that Mohawk made for the lobby of a famous hotel in New York City?” Peconie wrote.
That chenille carpet was called “The Wheel of Life” and for some years graced the floor at the Waldorf Astoria on Park Avenue. The carpet depicted scenes showing the progress of a man from birth through death. Color pictures of the carpet from the Elwood Museum collection were featured in the WMHT television documentary on Amsterdam.
According to the Web site of the PastPresent Gallery, the Amsterdam-made carpet was installed in 1938 and covered a mosaic depicting the same scenes designed by French artist Louis Rigal.
The carpet was removed several years later — uncovering the hotel’s original Rigal mosaic — and went on tour.
A Google newspaper search turned up a 1946 ad for a Spokane, Wash., floor covering store that was displaying the Wheel of Life from the Waldorf. The ad — in the Spokane Daily Chronicle — said the carpet took eight months to weave, covered 333 square feet and used 15 million wool tufts in 69 colors.
THE CATCH
“I wanted to let you know that your piece on the Isabel’s versus St. John’s game was much enjoyed, although I was the losing pitcher that day and was yanked and rotated to center field in the final couple innings of the game,” wrote Amsterdam native and Schenectady area resident Bruce Northrup.
The 6-1 game was played in the late 1950s between two top teams in Amsterdam’s Wee Men’s Baseball League. Northrup made the outstanding play in the losing cause, robbing Dan Juliano of Isabel’s Restaurant of a home run.
Northrup wrote, “My recollection of the catch is still very vivid, and it was the best baseball play I ever made, all the more surprising in that I was very upset about being pulled from the mound, and the play happened shortly afterwards.
“Dan’s hit was a towering fly to the centerfield fence, which was a snow fence style barrier and made of wooden slats. I backpedaled to it, fell against it but was kept upright by the give of the fencing, and somehow I managed to catch the ball cleanly behind my head and certainly in home run territory, over the fence.
“Probably due to my anger over the pitching results, I turned round a la Willie Mays and threw the ball, on the fly, not to but right over the head of our third baseman. I think Isabel’s scored one or two runs on the play, despite my memorable putout. The next day I had fence marks on my back.”
Northrup continued, “Our St. John’s coaches, Eddie Szymanski and Claude Palczak, were wonderful influences on the youngsters whom they taught. And the St. John’s Club went first class, buying us real wool uniforms and not the ordinary flannels that most teams had.”
