Canajoharie New York and it's Dummy Light

So we drove to Canajoharie, N.Y.  today to see a photography exhibit at the Arkell Museum, a selection of about 35 photos on loan from an art museum in Syracuse, N.Y.  My main motivation for going was to see an original print of the photo of Edward Weston and Margarethe Mather taken by Imogene Cunningham and displayed on the cover of the book- A Passionate Collaboration, one of my favorite photographs and one of the best portraits ever taken.  The original was a sepia colored platinum/palladium print, however the one in the exhibit was a b&w silver print, obviously printed much later, which was a bit of a disappointment.

While there we enjoyed the small museum with its lovely collection and explored the town which may be at the beginning of a slow, inexorable decline, now that Beech Nut foods, it's main employer has left town, and left them with a large, sprawling, empty plant, an ever increasing number of empty store fronts and some sense of desperation about the future, a feeling that is not uncommon among a vast number of places across the country that have been abandoned by their primary employer.  Presently the town is in great physical shape, and as always, I am hoping they will find a way to repurpose themselves before the decay starts to set in.  Here are a few photos taken of the still lovely village...

A little research on the town informed me that this is called a "dummy light".  It is reported to be one of only 3 in NYS, and possibly the whole country.  It is unique and the best example of its type, but many people in the town find it to cause confusion and to be an overall nuisance to the orderly flow of traffic and want it removed.   They are fools.  With the loss of Beech-Nut, if they took the light away, what would be left?

Church Street looking north.

This last  one is a picture of the abandoned Beech Nut plant taken from the memorial garden at the Arkell Museum.  Mr. Arkell who founded the company and contributed most of what comprises the lovely collection in the museum seems like someone who cared alot about the well being of his town and its people, most of whom worked for him, would most certainly be quite unhappy about the sad state of affairs created by decisions made by the present owners of his creation.

                                                                  Pablo

Richville, New York, Monument to the Unreturned Soldiers of the Civil War

Further along Highway 812/11 in upstate New York north of New Bremen...

is the town of Richville, which is on a small hill east of the road somewhat off the main drag so that it would not catch your attention if you weren't looking for it.  It is large for an upstate town and appears to have been quite prosperous and well populated at one time and they had the good fortune of being off the main road and basically bypassed by progress.  Now there is little left but the churches, the cemeteries, the fire department,  and houses and empty shops in disrepair.  No bar, no stores, just a quiet isolation from the world zipping by below which is probably just fine with them.  As you are driving north on the 812 you will see the Welsh Society Building at the beginning of the turn off to the right, up the hill.  You can't miss it, and you shouldn't.  

What made this town so interesting was a monument in the Wayside Cemetery..."In Memory of the Unreturned Soldiers of the war of 1861-1865", a war so recent that it did not yet have a name.  There are 36 names on the monument,  a great number for such a small and out of the way place that was so distant and detached from the conflict yet such a part of something that cannot conceivably have touched their lives except in the abstract at first and then the loss.

It is the word "Unreturned" that sets this monument apart.  A poignant  euphemism for the unspeakable.  What happened to those "Unreturned" as their mothers, fathers, wives, children, families waited forever for the return of the unreturned that would never happen.  Did some of the families is this isolated outpost of America received some sort of notice from the army one way or the other.  The empty years of waiting, living in hope, clinging to a prayer in a time when people often never traveled more than 20 or 30 miles from home and  lived never knowing and never wanting to believe.  36 young men, "Unreturned" from a war that was not theirs, not so different from the Viet Nam, the Missing in Action.  Men who marched off into oblivion.  I ache for those families who sent their sons off to never return.  For what?  

                                                                   Pablo

Even in New Bremen they don't care...

On Highway 812 in upstate New York, somewhere between Lowville and the Canadian Border...

there is a little town called New Bremen, founded in the mid 1800's and built along the Black River Canal system to serve as a depot for farmers shipping goods by barge.  When the railroad was build some years later, the canal fell into disuse, but the town continued to serve as a depot for the railroad and grew to what at present seems to consist of 7 or 8 non-residential buildings, one of which is the Crystal View, which was once a hotel and later, between 1955 and 1966, a boarding house.  In this small canal town  there are also 2 or 3 churches, a depot building and this nice old general store...

But the purpose of this entry is not really about the town, but rather about a small wooden structure built many years ago along the side of the tracks, that looks too small to be a station, but probably sold passenger tickets, and/or served as a shelter for workers or people waiting for the train...

This photo was taken years ago during my B&W days on one of my many trips through the area.   Over the years I had developed a great fondness for this little structure that sat quietly beside the tracks, bothering no one.  For years it was just there, somewhat neglected, but looking more or less the same, until about two years ago, when I noticed that the sign  announcing New Bremen was gone, and the building was starting to fall into disrepair.  As well, someone had erected a white plastic fence behind it.  The siding was falling down, there were holes in the roof, a window was broken, and it seemed to be imploding...

Last time I drove through New Bremen, in December of 2012,  the building was gone.   Stripped of its identity, its dignity, and soon after, its existence!!!  Considering that there are only a few buildings  in New Bremen to begin with, didn't the locals even care about this important little piece of American history that was under their care!!!  Obviously not.  It was late when I passed through, so I didn't take a picture of the empty lot where the building stood for 100 years or so.  But I'm sure it will be there next time I pass through.  So I'll report back.

I live in Albany, NY, an upstate city with a deplorable history of  caring for its architectural heritage, allowing buildings to deteriorate implode and/or burn down at an alarming rate that is too painful to enumerate here.  But I was truly shocked that the people of New Bremen could allow this to happen and it leaves me feeling even more hopeless about our collective failure to protect our American past, making the place of photographer as urban archeologist even more important.  Without us, nobody would have any idea about what was once there.

                                                                       Pablo

Post Script 5/2/13

As promised, when I passed through New Bremen this week I took a picture of the no longer existent railroad building.  Now it no longer obstructs our view of the lovely plastic fence they built behind it.  

                                                                     Pablo