Discover Troy-Schenectady Road - March 2021

Discover Troy-SchenecTady

March 10 - 16, 2021 | COLONIE SPOTLIGHT 5

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A long walk back into A long history walk back into history

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The history of Troy-Schenectady Road

By KAITLIN LEMBO lembok@spotlightnews.com LATHAM — If you’ve driven through Latham, your tires have probably touched Troy-Schenectady Road. The road that snakes through the boundaries of Watervliet and eventually merges with Route 7 is long, populated and a center of commerce for the area.

Photos courtesy of Town of Colonie

Continues on page 10

6 COLONIE SPOTLIGHT | March 10 - 16, 2021

Discover Troy-SchenecTady

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Housing $276,687

Latham According to Zillow.com, the median value of a home here exceeds $275K as of Dec. 31, 2020.

by the numbers

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Residents 20,736 37.9

The number of people who reside here as of 2010...

... and the average age of a resident is

Income Education

$76,652

The median household income.

The percentage of residents who have attained a high school education or higher.

94.4% United States Census Bureau

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March 10 - 16, 2021 | COLONIE SPOTLIGHT 7

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8 COLONIE SPOTLIGHT | March 10 - 16, 2021

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PLAZA 7 C O M M O N S Your Neighborhood Plaza You Can:

• Enjoy the vibrant bar and dining room at Innovo Kitchen.

• Get great take out delivered from Innovo Kitchen.

• Enjoy food from the many options at The Galleria.

• Visit Northeastern Insurance for all your insurance needs.

• Get your beauty on at She’s Yar Lash Bar, Nail Art 2, Skin by Ask, and Smooth Reflections.

• Play a round golf at NexGen Indoor Golf.

• Grab your favorite spirits and wine at Plaza 7 Wine & Liquor.

• Grab a coffee from Starbucks.

• Have lunch or breakfast from The Stuffed Rooster.

1210-1214 Troy Schenectady Rd., Latham, N.Y. 12110 518.608.1466 • innovokitchen.com 114481_4

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Discover Troy-SchenecTady

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March 10 - 16, 2021 | COLONIE SPOTLIGHT 9

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The 10-pin still stands Momento comes full circle at Innovo Kitchen

By DANIELLE SANZONE news@spotlightnews.com LATHAM — You can expect to see many things at a Gastropub like Innovo Kitchen — stylish decor, a nice bar, hungry patrons. But it’s not often that a restaurant’s bar is made from wood from a former bowling alley. And it’s probably even less often that a lone bowling pin is on display at the hostess station.

The pin — with the number 299 written on it —is certainly a special bowling pin.

And the story behind the pin makes the listener wonder about topics like fate, coincidence and luck.

The story, involving Innovo’s owner Tina Kruger and her father, goes back to a bowling show in the 1960s called “TV

Tournament Time.”

Kruger’s dad was a professional baseball player. He played for the White Sox “back in the day when baseball players didn’t make the money that they do now,” said Tina.

Mary, her mother, started to talk with Kruger’s father, Frank Colabello, about settling down to have a family which would require retiring from baseball.

So he stopped playing baseball and started bowling. An athletic man, he wanted to participate in the “TV Tournament Time” bowling show and he went to the Bowlers Club on Route 7 in Latham to qualify.

Picture, if you would, bowling alleys that are not oiled and did not offer a multitude of types and sizes of bowling balls. These were different times. While nowadays it’s not unusual to see someone get multiple strikes or even have a 300 game, it was a different story in the 1960s.

Now enter former White Sox player, young father and

motivated athlete, Frank Colabello.

Kruger, who was only about 6 years old at the time, still vividly recalls that day. Her father was getting strike after strike. Frist frame — strike. Second frame — strike. He was going for the perfect game.

It was around the ninth frame when the entire Bowlers Club — a huge establishment of about 50 alleys — stopped bowling and all started paying attention to this “little Italian guy,” said Kruger.

Ninth frame - strike...

It was the tenth frame at the Bowlers Club. All eyes were on Tina’s father who she described as someone who didn’t have a lot of showmanship. He wasn’t a large man and he was not used to commanding a crowd of bowlers.

But he wanted to bowl the perfect game. He wanted to qualify for the TV tournament which would mean the chance of prize money to help with the building of his young family’s new house in Gloversville.

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COLONIE & LOUDONVILLE RESIDENTS:

SHOP SMART SHOP LOCAL

Tina Kruger stands next to her father’s 10-pin at Innovo Kitchen.

He throws his last ball. He’s on his knees. He thinks he has it.

Almost all of the pins drop.

The 10 pin wobbles ... but it doesn’t fall.

The alley ends up giving him the pin and they write “299” on

Jim Franco / Spotlight News

it.

Kruger’s father qualifies for the tournament. Her parents make a deal with each other that if he wins the tournament, they will use the money for a stone

Continues on Page 12

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whole community.

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E TO... • LIVE • WORK • PLAY • STAY

10 THE SPOTLIGHT | March 10 - 16, 2021

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From page 5 ...

Troy-Schenectady Road Not only are many businesses flanking its edges, but Albany International Airport kisses the curb, with many sub streets bringing avid plane spotters closer to the action than ever.

Along with its cultural pull, Troy-Schenectady Road is also rife with history.

Troy-Schenectady Road was constructed in 1802 by the City of Troy shortly after Albany connected with Schenectady via the Albany and Schenectady Turnpike (Central Avenue today) in the late 1790s.

The new Albany to Schenectady turnpike was a straight shot between the two cities and, in time,

“It seemed whenever Albany did something to connect with Schenectady, Troy was soon to follow as they did not want to be left out of any of the commerce with Schenectady.”

— Kevin Franklin, Town of Colonie Historian

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hosted at least 15 taverns or inns along the route.

“It seemed whenever Albany did something to connect with Schenectady, Troy was soon to follow as they did not want to be left out of any of the commerce with Schenectady,” Town of Colonie historian Kevin Franklin said in an email. “[W]hen the Albany and Schenectady Turnpike was established, it was big news, having replaced the old and terrible road or path used since the 1600s called Kings Road or Kings Highway between those two communities.”

In response to the Albany and Schenectady turnpike, the City of Troy incorporated their own link between these two cities around 1802. The original Troy to Schenectady Turnpike crossed the older Old Loudon Road at what

The Troy-Schenectady Turnpike was nothing more than a dirt road that ran past the Wade Family home in 1881. Nonetheless, the direct route was welcomed by businesses doing trade between the two cities.

Photo courtesy of Town of Colonie

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As Route 7 moves toward Schenectady, Verdoy is hit before coming into the Town of Niskayuna. Most of the old Verdoy area along Route 7 has disappeared, including old houses that dotted the sides of the road and several commercial establishments. More recent demolitions included

Schenectady and later Troy with Schenectady are two of the earliest railroads in the state. The first was the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad, chartered in 1826, soon followed by the Troy to Schenectady Railroad of 1836.

The Watervliet Turnpike was circa 1830, which is

“[W]hen the Albany and Schenectady Turnpike was established, it was big news, having replaced the old and terrible road or path used since the 1600s called Kings Road or Kings Highway between those two communities.”

s

— Kevin Franklin, Town of Colonie Historian buildings in the path of the “safety zone” of the north/ south runway of Albany International Airport. The area of Verdoy today is hardly recognizable from what it looked like right up into the 1970s and 1980s.

In other historical terms, the connections between Albany and

The above view shows a network of rails and road, near where Delatour Road is located today.

today’s Broadway between North Albany to Watervliet through Menands. It too was serviced by the Schenectady Railway Company and in later years by the United Traction Company Trolleys and all three roads today by the Capital District Transportation Authority.

s

was then called Yearsley’s Corners. In later years, the intersection took the name of “Latham’s Corners.” The original Latham’s Corners intersection remains just east of today’s Latham traffic circle and New Loudon Road, which was created in the 1930s to relieve some of the increased traffic along Old Loudon Road.

West of Latham’s Corners on Troy Schenectady Road was an area called Seven Oaks.

This is where the old Wade family farm sat and where present-day Forts Ferry Road meets Route 7 west of the Northway. As you continued west on Route 7, the old Vogt family farm was to your left; it is now the location of the New NYS Police Troop G. Headquarters. Across the road from Troop G were the old Burns and Whitney farms, where present-day Burns-Whitney Estates was constructed just after WWII.

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A fence surrounds an orchard at the Wade Family home near what’s now the intersection of Route 7 and Forts Ferry Road.

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12 COLONIE SPOTLIGHT | March 10 - 16, 2021

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From page 5 ...

The 10-pin still stands fireplace that Kruger’s mother had been dreaming about adding to their new house.

As it turns out, he wins the $1,500.

“That felt like such a lot of money back then,” said Kruger, noting that her mom got her fireplace and the family got their home.

While he didn’t get the perfect game in those instances, he did eventually go on to bowl a 300.

It was about a decade ago that Kruger’s father passed away and she was helping to move her mom out.

Kruger, who still has fond memories of the Bowlers Club qualifiers, asked about the “299” pin which had been locked in a closet in the family’s house.

So, with no immediate plans for the pin, Kruger took it as a memento of her father and that day.

A few years later, Kruger

was at a turning point where she was closing the doors on an establishment she had owned for about eight years.

Developer Richard Rosetti knew Tina’s business and life partner, John LaPosta, and reached out to John. At that time, Tina had no interest in any more restaurant ventures and was not interested to hear Rosetti’s proposal. In fact, she was so disenchanted with the restaurant industry, she didn’t even pass along Rosetti’s first message that he left at their establishment, Maestro’s in Saratoga Springs.

Kruger was not at all initially interested in the space and passed on doing a tour. But John, now Innovo’s executive chef and general manager, went to check the space out.

“John came back and he says, ‘I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but the space used to be the Bowlers Club,’” Kruger said.

As she informed LaPosta,

she was very familiar with the space and, because of this interesting coincidence, she was now very interested in the site. She said she was “intrigued” after she realized where the restaurant space was.

“I felt it was a message from my father at a very difficult time in my life,” Kruger said. “It was at that point that I knew it was meant to be.”

She described how they were one of the first establishments in the plaza (and the entire plaza used to be the Bowlers Club). The Galleria 7 Market hadn’t opened yet. The Morgan Stanley building hadn’t been erected yet.

As it turned out, the developer had kept many of the bowling alleys with the intention of using them for tables and a bar.

The restaurant, which employs nearly 50 people, can seat 240 total people (under normal circumstances) and has a patio that seats 60.

Innovo got its name

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from wanting to create a new Innovative menu. “This restaurant was all about renewing our love for the restaurant business and returning to everything we lost sight of in our previous venture,” said Kruger.

The site has a lot of local history and personal history.

The Bowlers Club was the first alley with automatic scoring.

Thousands of people bowled

there over the years. And Kruger and her family have their own memories from the place. Kruer, who describes herself as being “not a very good bowler,” lives nearby in Niskayuna. She said she eventually plans to end her restaurant career at the site.

She said they still get people who come in and think they know exactly which alley a table is made from due to the unique wood, grooves, and color.

And Kruger’s family history is displayed front and center with the “299” pin in a case with a note at the hostess station.

Unlike many local restaurants, Innovo has not been impacted too severely by the pandemic. They took the challenge and created innovative take-out meals that became popular from the start of quarantine. They also added their own delivery which continues to be popular.

“It’s kinda symbolic,” she reflected. “The pin is like us — wobbled but never fell.”

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