Funding for historic views of the Spa City has been provided by membership support and by the MT Endowment Fund by Stuart Shops.

They are closer to you with a history of commitment to enhance each local stewardship community by the Adirondack Trust Company, offering a full range of services to meet your financial needs.

The Bank of Saratoga and by Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Celebrating 75 years of excellence in the liberal arts and sciences.

And they're off!

In the 1890s, the original source of Saratoga's fame was in danger.

The springs were drying up.

What began to happen in the 1890s, roughly, was that companies were discovering that you could take the gas out of the water.

You could pump that gas out of the water, and it could be sold.

Ironically, the carbon dioxide gas that was extracted from the springs was being used in soda fountains so they could make their own carbonated beverages.

Soda fountains had become very popular in the 1890s, and there were a number of gas companies that exploited Saratoga's famous natural resource.

The Saratoga people became very distressed because they realized what was happening.

They were ruining the springs honestly into gas and letting them want to run a total waste.

One of the people who was influential in the efforts to save the springs was Spencer Trask, a wealthy financier.

Trask and his wife, Katrina lived on the auto estate, which has been an artist retreat since 1924, when Trask died in a tragic train accident.

A memorial was built to acknowledge his role in the fight to save the springs.

The memorial is located in Congress Park.

It's called the Spirit of Life.

The bronze sculpture is by Daniel Chester French, who created the famous statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial.

French considered this female figure to be one of his best pieces.

She holds a bowl of perpetually flowing water which represents the springs at Saratoga.

In 1909, the State of New York passed legislation which established the state reservation at Saratoga Springs.

The state bought all the springs and acquired the property that was owned by the gas companies.

Some of the springs were capped.

Water pressure was restored and the springs revived.

One of the gas company buildings was converted into the first Lincoln Bathhouse.

In time, the project grew more and more ambitious.

The idea was to create a health spa for the public that would rival the great spas of Europe.

Doctor Walter McClellan became the first medical director in 1932.

Doctor Grace McGuire, Swaner, was McClellan's assistant.

Many patients said they spent the summer here taking the baths and getting the treatments.

If they had arthritis that was improved and the cardiovascular system was improved, they breathe better.

They were better.

I will hear such reports is I'm never going to miss another summer at the spa.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was no stranger to this type of therapy, and when he saw what the group here was trying to do, he saw real potential in it.

Under his sponsorship as governor, the place just abounded in terms of the planning.

Everything in what they knew as the spa is health oriented.

The golf course.

The original golf course was designed by a doctor from Germany as a cardiac golf course.

Every inch of it was virtually measured out.

It was to be an extensive, center for all kinds of therapy, whatever could be associated with the waters.

And even the Gideon Putnam Hotel was to be exclusively for patients that were participating in the curative effects of these waters and the wonderful arcades that are so beautiful architecturally for a specifically conceived of for rolling wheelchairs.

The Avenue of the Pines was built as the grand and monumental entrance to the spa.

The length was carefully calculated based on the theories of a German physician, so that if you got off the trolley on Broadway and walked to the Roosevelt dance, you would be in the perfect aerobic state to receive the healthful benefits of the waters.

And.

The spa was completed in 1935.

The design drew inspiration from an Italian Renaissance villa and from colonial Williamsburg.

The facades of the main buildings are reminiscent of Greek temples.

All of the buildings were laid out in a grand design.

Normally we think of such impressive architecture as devoted to government buildings of great significance, or art museums, or libraries, particularly in this period.

But to have all those grandiose effect devoted to spring waters, bathing, drinking waters, is it rather astonishing when you think about it?

Of course, the other side of it is that all this immensely costly construction, all this is pumping money back into a weakened economy.

And it's it's functioning in a WPA kind of, way in supporting the surrounding area.

And so probably a lot of this grandiose effect might not have been here if we weren't in the midst of a depression.

And if Roosevelt wasn't president and if Roosevelt didn't use his influence to steer 3 million some dollars here from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.

The spa did very, very well through the 30s, despite the depression years, enjoyed the best year of its history.

In 1946, the war was over.

The gambling wheels were flourishing.

Everything was spinning.

You're getting to be a habit with me.

Can't shake it.

You're getting to be a habit with me.

The wheels were spinning at the Arrowhead in piping Rock, Newman's lake house and Riley's on Lake lonely.

These places provided quality food and classy entertainment.

Gambling went on in a separate section.

One of the Swankiest nightclubs during prohibition was the Brook.

A percentage of the profits reportedly went to local political campaigns.

Out on a tour of historic Saratoga would be incomplete without a visit to Cafe Lena on Phila Street.

It opened in 1960 and is the oldest continuously running coffeehouse in America.

Oh, Going down south, where it's warm the whole year round.

Oh, Going down south, where it's warm the whole year round.

I'll be so pleased when my train pulls up in town.

Dave Van Ronk has been a regular at Lena's since it first opened.

Originally, Philomena sponsor had the idea that it would be a coffee house with music and theater.

All the, singers who were working down and in the village who do sort of a conveyor belt between MacDougal Street and Fila Street, and, Bob Dylan worked here, once or twice.

Bill had to, climb up on the stage in the middle of Bobby show and shut the audience up.

I mean, he was so outraged.

Outrage you people.

You don't know what you're listening to.

Why don't you shut up and listen?

That.

I thought about that.

I don't remember if they did.

And I probably not, because the city fathers were appalled by the place and people of at the school were, you know.

Oh, well, it was, you know, self-evident that drugs, free love, free sex, you know, free beer, you know, the whole thing was going on and they were they were convinced that this was a hotbed of communism.

And lechery.

Unfortunately, they were wrong.

But there was a lot of petty harassment.

Yeah.

For the first 2 or 3 years.

Once she had committed herself to the rights, there was nothing that was all right to take her around.

She would just tough it out.

She kept this place going because it was her place, and she simply was not going to admit defeat.

And consequently, she wasn't defeated.

Let her go.

Let her go.

God bless her.

Wherever she may be.

She made sense this wide world over there.

Her fathers need me.

Like me.

De de de de de de de de de de de de de de de de de de de.

Thank you.

There's such a warmth here.

And there is such a closeness between performer and audience that you feel as though you're in your living room.

That is the reason why the cafe has to continue to go on.

Rosalee Clark helps out at the cafe, even if it means working the door in subfreezing temperatures on the city's first night.

Rosalee was one of the founding members of Cafe Lena, Inc., the not for profit group that kept the cafe going after Lena Spencer died.

Not once did we get together here to work.

That we don't say.

How did Lena do it?

But I think that's folk music and the nature of the beast.

There are times when we're doing well and there are times when we're struggling by.

But we always manage to keep the doors open.

Right next door to Café Lena is another famous spot in Saratoga.

Hades has been on Phila Street since 1970.

Before that, it was on the west side of town.

Hattie Moseley Austin ran the restaurant and called it the Chicken Shack.

Myra Young Armstead, a professor of African-American history, talked to Hattie before she retired.

When did you first open up your chicken shack?

I opened up the chicken Shack in 1938.

Down at ten seven Federal Street.

And a half of fried chicken was a half a dollar.

Oh my goodness.

And they'd wait till the biscuit get down and wait till the chicken get in.

And I would just put the biscuits into when I run the chicken I didn't keep biscuits good enough.

So I got so I had to keep them cooked perfectly with so many coming.

Yeah.

So was this crowd a mixed crowd.

Was it mainly by age.

It was a mixed crowd.

I listen mixed crowd and then begin.

If we don't until I come up down here.

It always was a mixed crowd.

So you started off by yourself all alone?

Yeah.

And I only had $4 when I hit Saratoga coming out of Miami.

When Hattie opened her place on the west side, it was right around the corner from Congress Street, which was the main artery of the African-American neighborhood.

Congress Street was Gay K Street, but we were forbidden to go over there and it was called Red Light District.

But we used to sneak over some time just to see what was happening.

And of course, it was, the next big cabaret there.

And they had, houses in red light houses.

And the well was like prostitution.

But, I mean, it was legal, I guess, because the street was from one end to the other.

Everything was all wild and wide open.

Then the gambling was going on, prostitution, and it felt like a weekend pass in Paris.

Saratoga was.

And they had a lot of different clubs and bars on Congress Street, which was the, Seventh Avenue and Harlem of Saratoga.

Really done that dream, a dream each night.

You say you love me and you hold me tight.

But when I'm with you, none of them.

Oh, God, not me.

The Jewish community has been part of Saratoga Springs since the 1870s.

Jewish families that settled here chartered their first synagogue in 1911.

These Lyons of Judah were called for the synagogue by a summer guest at one of the Jewish boarding houses.

It was part of an exhibit that celebrated the city's rich Jewish heritage.

I wanted to recapture the feeling of a neighborhood in a world that seemed to be gone.

And I thought if I could just match the stories to the pictures, we could revive this corner of Saratoga history that's been pretty well lost.

For Amy Godin, matching the stories to the pictures meant researching family histories and getting interviews with native Saratoga ins.

People like Nate Goldsmith, who was born in Saratoga in 1915.

His father started out as a peddler when these new immigrants came.

The first thing what happened is many of the Jews who were here would chip in and buy them a horse and wagons and go out and peddle junk from there.

And they matriculated really to rooming houses and then to boarding houses and hotels.

It's an American story, and really, it's the melting pot.

Saratoga once had numerous hotels and boarding houses that catered to Jewish clientele.

Most came from New York City, where Yiddish newspapers advertised the spas and listed the Jewish hotels that were available.

Many of the tourists came from an Eastern European tradition that valued the benefits of mineral springs, so they were naturally drawn here for the baths and the waters.

And they wanted to stay at places where they could observe the Sabbath and have kosher food.

Rooming houses or the coffee land.

So the cook alone, because you cook for yourself, were another category altogether.

They were a step below the boarding house.

They didn't have a common dining room.

These families made their own food and cook for themselves.

The Jewish resort industry flourished in Saratoga Springs in part because of the hotels that discriminated.

Places like the Hotel Russell he had on South Broadway a big sign.

Oh, it was about maybe five foot high by eight feet long, white with all black letters.

Hotel Russell.

And it gave the address.

No Jews or dogs allowed.

And that was your entrance into Saratoga Springs that people thought at that time was only about nine.

In spite of an undercurrent of anti-Semitism, Jewish families generally got along with their neighbors.

You must remember that they all were at that time, immigrants at age 11.

And as such, they all know what it was like to be harassed and to be persecuted.

If there was a problem with harassment, the local chapter of Binay B'rith would deal with it.

And there were other Jewish organizations like the Aladdin Club.

It provided low interest or no interest loans for the startup costs of new businesses.

Then there was the Jewish Athletic Club, which had its own basketball team, and the Young People's Club, which had dances.

Sam Siegel met his wife there.

Older Saratoga fans may still remember some of the thriving Jewish businesses that were in town.

Dorothy and Lou's Ski ran a souvenir and gift shop at the Grand Union Hotel.

Max Katz ran Katz's newsroom on Broadway.

And on Congress, there was a bakery run by Max phallic.

He called himself the grandson of the grandson of the son of the Bagel King and inventor of the bagel of Romania.

And here we have him in Saratoga Springs, the descendant of the great inventor of the bagel, according to Max.

And he made bagels and rye bread and pumpernickel for a long, long time, which people still miss.

Saratoga was what this exhibit is showing.

I mean, I said they should be playing memories.

Memories.

You know, this is nice.

For Nate Goldsmith, the opening of this exhibit was a chance to recapture the nostalgia of a time gone by in 1939.

I opened a mother goldsmith.

I'm the mother.

You probably know.

It was an era gone by.

There, there.

No, mother.

Goldsmith left.

Everything changes.

And that's as it should be.

Oh, my.

Walk with Ruth.

Folks, watch the cars coming out of the gate, please.

Yeah.

Correct.

And the wrong.

Another summer season comes to an end.

The visitors leave.

The horses move on.

It's the end of another cycle.

Saratoga really is a unique place.

People here sometimes talk about it as having a sense of place, but it's really a lot more than that.

I mean, it's a state of mind, really.

It's it's indefinable.

You can't really capture Saratoga.

I don't think, almost in any art form, because it is a it is a kind of a state of mind if you walk around the streets.

It's really more than walking around an old Victorian town.

It's more than walking around a college town, a young town.

It's more than walking around a historic place, or a sports center or a resort.

It's all of these things put together.

With that extra magic that is Saratoga.

You.

You can purchase a copy of Historic Views of the Spa City, or any program in the historic View series from Shop WMT.

The program, which contains additional material not seen in this broadcast, is 1995 plus shipping and can be ordered by calling 1-800-950-9648 or visit us online at WW bookshop.org.

Please mention item code Spa City when ordering.

For.

Funding for historic views of the Spa City has been provided by membership support and by the WMT endowment fund by Stuart Shops.

They are closer to you with a history of commitment to enhance each local stewardship community by the Adirondack Trust Company, offering a full range of services to meet your financial needs.

The Bank of Saratoga and by Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Celebrating 75 years of excellence in the liberal arts and sciences.