Posts Tagged: chimney

Albany Impala

Red Cadillac

Red Cadillac

Red Cadillac (click to view large)

I recently noticed this red Caddy in the area near my work. This is the first shot I’ve managed to get because either the location has not been good, or because I’ve been in too much of a hurry to get to work. This doesn’t really do it justice. I’m hoping to try some other approaches with it. Stay tuned for that.

Chimneys of Albany

Albany Chimney #8

Albany Chimney #8

The leaning, the straight. The clean and symmetrical, the organic mess. Squared, rounded, rock, brick, plastered. These are the fireplace chimneys of Albany.

I would hate to apply a misleading name to something. Looking on the web and within Flickr, “fireplace” seemed like it would be more misleading than “chimney” which is also a little snappier. If there is a better word for referring to the exterior structure of the fireplace and chimney on a residential home, please let me know.

In any case, it seems that these houses, like most of the houses in Albany, were built by a builder named Charles M. MacGregor. Around here, a necessary and sufficient condition for dubbing a house “a MacGregor” is that it has the following floor plan: split level with garage at grade, main living area up about 8 steps, and two bedrooms and a bath above the garage. The master bedroom is right over the garage looking out towards the street, followed by a bathroom , followed by another bedroom overlooking the back. I suspect this can’t be a correct definition, but it works well with the rest of the local MacGregor mythology. Me, I look for whimsical chimneys.

I’ll try to dig more on the man and the myth soon.