At the intersection of George and Hudson Streets, 1909-2023

I have had a tremendous amount of fun with finding old postcards from the Town and Village of Green Island, and then trying to superimpose those old images onto the way the area looks today. Last year, my shot of the old McGowan Fire Hose building – now an apartment complex – took an Honorable Mention at the New York State Fair, so I’m kinda thinking I may want to try this again.

Take a look at this nice little postcard.

That postcard was used in 1909, and it shows the fork at the Town and Village of Green Island. Go left and you will travel on George Street; go right and you’ll visit Hudson Avenue.

And as for that hand-drawn arrow in the Hudson Avenue area … the postcard itself lends a clue.

“Dear Friends, Troy, April 7th, ’09. This is Green Island. The arrow points to Watson’s, my sister’s house. You see it is quite a nice place. You see the little park in the foreground. George Street – on the right [sic] is the main street in the town. Cars run on this street. Hudson Ave. has all residences and fine trees. George Street you see has no trees all cut-down when they paved the street. Expect to sned your cards for Easter. The weather is some different from last year when I was down. Regards to all, Russell.”

Now THAT is cool. Someone doodled on the back of a postcard to show where they lived – AND added that to the description on the postcard’s reverse. I see no stamp or postmark, however, so I don’t believe this card was ever mailed. Maybe it was supposed to get sent with the Easter cards.

So I found the intersection at Hudson and George. It’s right near the Green Island Bridge, where motorists haul ass to get from I-787 to Troy and hope that the Green Island Police don’t catch them for speeding. I kid. No I don’t.

This is tricky. I don’t have very many lines or angles to match up here – just the curb and the angle of the sidewalks. And an apartment building on George Street that still exists today.

And in the end … after a few tries and a little adjustment … I got this for my troubles.

Holy 125-year-old overlay, Batman … that is sweet. I intially “cloned out” the arrow, it just didn’t add anything to the finished product.

But I couldn’t let that go without at least showing the postcard itself.

And here it is, combined.

I’ll take that. Perhaps it will look nice in an art show or maybe as a dark horse for BUILT.

But yeah, if I keep finding these old Green Island postcards and lining them up with their locations today … man, I could put together a whole series based on this.

Yeah. This is fun.