The Tenin Technique

Happy Anniversary to Eric Tenin at Paris Daily Photo! Eric is the spiritual father of all the City Daily Photo blogs. Without him, there'd be no CDP and without them, I wouldn't be here either. Bravo!

In honour of this anniversary, many of us are trying out what has come to be known as the Tenin technique. He places the camera very low - on the floor, even, and takes a photo from that perspective.

The photo today was taken a few steps away from Tuesday's photo. The sidewalks are made of large slabs of slate. They're very flat, and for all I know they're two hundred years old. The concrete sidewalks never last this long! If you look carefully, you can see Lawrence the Indian.

To see all of the photos honouring Eric's wonderful and enviable record (never missed a day in 5 years!) Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Low water

In the spring, the Mohawk River rises as the ice starts to break up. The loose ice jams up at the railroad bridge below this point and the water just builds up here. We're looking upstream here, toward Schenectady Community College and the Western Gateway Bridge.

As you can see, we're in no danger at the moment; the park where this is taken (Riverside Park) begins to flood at 223 feet, and starts getting into people's houses at 224.

The markings on the sign are height in feet above sea level. The National Weather Service has set the following guidelines for official flood stages:

Major Flood Stage:	227
Moderate Flood Stage:	225
Flood Stage:	223
Action Stage:	218
Normal Stage:	213

Historical Crests

(1) 232.90 ft on 28 Mar 1914

(2) 229.20 ft on 19 Mar 1936

(3) 228.90 ft on 28 Mar 1913

(4) 228.00 ft on 20 Jan 1996

(5) 227.70 ft on 15 Mar 1929

Lawrence the Indian

This is Lawrence the Indian. Well, not really. He is representative of a friendly Native American who lived here when Schenectady was burnt by the French and Indians in 1690. Although we don't know his actual name, this statue was raised in his memory in 1887. He was one of the very persistent trackers of the raiders and helped identify the culprits.

Although today we think of 'Indians' as a single, cohesive people, that wasn't the case at all. There were many different peoples, and they weren't necessarily friendly with all the others. 'Lawrence' was a Mohawk, a Dutch ally, and the raiders were Algonquin and Sault from Quebec along with the French, who wanted to disrupt the Dutch traders. The Indians came along to revenge Iroquois attacks on their lands, fueled by British ammunition. Schenectady was unlucky enough to be isolated and northerly enough to be a target.

The location of the statue marks one corner of the fort that was built in 1705 after the settlement was rebuilt.

Stockade

I imagine this looks much the same as it did when these houses were built in the 1700s. People didn't have grocery stores where they could buy ready-packed food - they ate what they grew, and that meant a garden.

Inside the stockade, space was limited, so a back yard garden would have been for small stuff one wouldn't want to go out to the fields to get: herbs, medicines and flowers.

This particular garden is currently nestled in among trees that are over a hundred years old, but in the days of the early Schenectady, this would have been wide open to the sky.

Stockade

In the 1680s, a wood stockade fence protected the settlement from attack. Although those wood walls are long gone, the area formerly enclosed by them is still known as the Stockade.

This is one of the typical homes located in the Stockade district. I forgot to write the date down, but I believe it was built in 1753.