A new exhibit centered around the time capsule unearthed from the base of the Philip Schuyler statue that long stood in front of Albany City Hall opens today.
“Obviously they anticipated that this statue wouldn't stay here forever, because they buried a time capsule in it," said Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan.
In June, three years after Sheehan signed an executive order directing its removal, city workers took down the statue of Revolutionary War General Philip Schuyler from outside city hall.
Part of a famed Colonial Albany family, the general in the Continental Army who later served as a U.S. Senator from New York was a slaveowner. The statue was dedicated in 1925.
Sheehan announced that the effigy would be taken down in 2020 during the national racial reckoning following the death of George Floyd.
One the statue was gone, workers unearthed a time capsule. In the box was a deed placing the contents in the mayor’s ownership. Sheehan read from the document: “This box and its contents are hereby given to the mayor or chief executive officer of the city of Albany, New York to be placed by him, how cute, in the custody of a historical society of the city of Albany which in his judgement shall be best fitted to use and preserve the same,” said Sheehan.
Curator Diane Shewchuk displayed items from the capsule that were not sealed including an American flag with 48 stars, currency, and a much-anticipated full 10-volume set of the annals of Albany. “Included in here are a little bit of biographical information about Philip Schuyler. Also letters to Mayor Hackett suggesting the gift of the statue,” Shewchuk said.
The contents of the capsule comprise a new exhibit at the Albany Institute of History and Art.
Sheehan says the exhibition includes all the objects found in the box as well as a sample of the documents, photographs, and publications that were enclosed. She adds there will definitely be some surprises. "And some things that we had not disclosed for what will be understandable reasons. But we are very excited. And reading some of the letters and the sentiments of the day has been fascinating is a real slice of a view into 1924, 1925. The business community mainly, you know most of the letters are written by men, most of them are written by business leaders. But it really demonstrates sort of where the Chamber of Commerce, what they were thinking about with respect to Albany and a lot of the themes that the Chamber of Commerce of 1925 stressed about Albany and the Capital Region remain true today," said Sheehan.
Not everyone cheered the Schuyler statue’s removal. Former State Assemblyman Jack McEneny says removing it was a mistake.
"It is not fair to our veterans. It is not fair to our heritage. No one supports slavery, certainly not in this day and age. But the 1700s were a cruel period everywhere in the world, regardless of whether you were in Africa or in Europe, or here or elsewhere in the world," McEneny said.
Albany County legislator Jeff Perlee, a Republican from Altamont, called it "a shortsighted erasure of the city’s history." He pointed out that Schuyler was a Revolutionary War hero, a U.S. Senator, and father-in-law to Alexander Hamilton.
The statue has been in storage pending relocation.
