Alive at Five

It's Thursday, which in Albany, or at least on Lark Street, is the new Friday.  So this might not exactly be Drunk Urban Planning, but it's certainly not sober blogging.

Tonight was the last Alive at Five of the season, featuring Ed Kowalczyk and Mission Hill, playing mostly tunes by Live.  We didn't realize how many of their tunes were hits.  Whoops.

Alive at Five is a weekly event that takes places on Thursday evenings at Albany Riverfront Park, part of the Corning Preserve along the Hudson River.  The park has been upgraded and a pedestrian bridge, the Hudson River Way (according to Wikipedia) added in 2002.  Before that, the waterfront was entirely cut off from the city by, you guessed it, a highway.  I-787 to be exact.  If it's raining, the concerts are held underneath this highway at the northern end of the park. 

Ew! At least it gets better once you get to the other side.  Btw, this was taken on the way back near dusk.  The trip home will be featured in another post.

But the park itself is a really nice asset for the city.  The Corning Preserve goes between downtown Albany and Watervliet before continuing to Troy on Rt. 32 and ... some other way and Buffalo in the other direction.  It passes by streams, meadows, remnants of old piers, a barge that sells delicious food and spirits, a railroad bridge that spins to allow boats through and of course, lots and lots of chipmunks and squirrels.  There are the unfortunate aspects as well: you spend much of the time next to a highway and pass under the I-90 bridge.  However, if you forget what it represents, it's a pretty awesome sight from underneath.  Much better than the site of the rain date for the concerts.

Walkway along the river.

Looking north along the walkway.

The path to the docks.

When good environments for humans are created, attractive people just take their clothes off.

The Dunn Memorial Bridge between Albany and Rensselaer, south of Riverfront Park.

This dog bit my friend.  Her thoughts, a few minutes later:  "Well, I can see the dog's point."

Riverfront Park lawn with the SUNY Administration Building in the background, which used to be the Delaware and Hudson Railroad Building.

Ed Kowalczyk and Mission Hill

Dogs like this kind of place too.

Tomorrow, we'll take a look at the walk home.  I wanted to include all the pictures in one blog post, but there were about 60 or so of them and I'd rather stop writing captions and go to bed.