Why Don’t You: Play Tourist

 

Just a few short days after I moved to New York, I took a trip to two of the local visitors’ centers. [Albany and Schenectady.]  I wanted to learn a bit about the history of where we were living, and also picked up a handful of brochures for interesting places to visit in our new home.

I also grabbed a few different maps for historical walking tours near by.  Recently, when Cynthia and I planned to spend an evening together, we decided that a walking tour would be an interesting activity to do together, giving us the ability to catch up while getting some light exercise, and learning a bit about the area as well.  We decided the GE Realty Plot tour was the way to go and set out like we were tourists in a new land. 

 

 

The GE Realty Plot was originally an undeveloped area owned by Union College which was sold to GE in the late 1800’s to help the college pay off a debt. Executives at GE divided the land, laid out streets and built houses.  Each home was required to meet a minimum lot size and house value and two of the house were the first fully electric houses in the country which GE used as models.

Local businessmen and politicians settled into the houses in the GE Realty Plot, along with GE research scientists.  The scientists who resided in the Plot were collectively responsible for over 400 patents!!  Talk about a brilliant collaboration of neighbors!

Cynthia and I covered over 3 miles worth of ground following the map, stopping along the way to read the historical fun facts (sadly, no Presidents were mentioned ) at each stop on the tour.  

  

We saw plenty of gorgeous houses along the way, and only got lost a time or two. In our defense, a few locations on the map weren’t marked very accurately. 

  

We also found our way onto the Union College campus a few times…

We had to say hello to our friend Tina’s alma mater, including the GORGEOUS Alumni House, of course! Abbe Hall was originally built for the President of GE!

Why don’t you take a trip to a near by visitor’s center? I am sure there are LOTS of places you haven’t learned of yet which are just waiting for you to visit!  I’m pretty stoked to take a stab at the other 3 walking tours I have maps for in the area!

 

Bonus: Check out this fabulous post, How to be a Tourist in Your Own Town found on Marta Writes by Elise Blaha.  An awesome post collaboration by two of my favorite bloggers ever?  YES, PLEASE!