Newsletter - An advocacy success at 41 Ten Broeck, a 'Capitol' donation, & online reading options for our The Turn of the Screw Virtual Book Club

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A Capitol Donation

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I'm still doing no-contact "leave it on the side of the house and I'll pick it up and wave toward the house" pick ups when I can. Check out these great floor tiles from the Capitol and the story of how they were saved, written by the woman who donated them:

"About 30 years ago, my husband and I attended a tile lecture presented by an expert from L'esperance Tile Works hosted by the Historic Albany Foundation. One of the many interesting things we learned was that beautiful English Minton floor tiles cover many floors in the NYS Capital. Over the years, some floor areas became damaged. In one area of the Capital, the floor tiles were removed, because someone decided it would be too expensive to repair the area. A huge number of tiles were brutally scraped up and unceremoniously left in a dumpster. Many tiles were damaged in the process, but many others survived intact, of various designs and shapes.

Distraught State workers in the area noticed these dumped treasures, and decided to take action to rescue a small portion of these Minton tiles by taking some home. One such person was my dad. About 15 years ago, he proudly showed us his stash of rescued tiles, stored in several dusty milk crates in his garage. When I saw the tiles, I became very excited. I remembered the tile lecture I had attended many years prior at the Albany Historic Foundation, details of which were confirmed by my dad's story. Eventually, my dad reluctantly agreed to give the tiles to me (to my mother's delight). My husband and I had just bought a house in Albany, and were sure we could use these interesting floor tiles somehow. We loved the tiles not only because of their beauty, but because they represented a piece of history, almost lost.

After all these years, we've only used a portion of the tiles. Recently, we took a hard look at our limited storage space, and concluded that, realistically, we could not use any more of these beautiful Minton floor tiles. We immediately thought of donating the remaining tiles to the Historic Albany Foundation Architectural Parts Warehouse - maybe somebody else could use them? As I recall from the tile lecture, many homeowners in the Albany area used these precious rescued tiles for various projects in their homes, such as entranceways. So, it is possible that some of those folks may now need a few replacement tiles, or a few extra ones to finish a project. There's not enough tiles to cover a large area, but there is an assortment of various shapes (especially the plain ones) that could be used for repairs. The patterned ones are gorgeous, though."
L'esperance Tile Works