Is it time for the city of Troy to redesign its flag? Some locals say the insignia could use some inspiration.
At a recent city council meeting, resident Mark Schaefer used the public comment period to express his shock over the lack of city flags on Troy flagpoles. Schaefer says council chambers, located on the 3rd floor of the Hedley Building in downtown, is one of the only places he has seen it.
“With all due respect, not the most interesting flag that we might have as a city, and my thought was having lived in Washington, DC, where the DC flag is an icon that is everywhere in town, the way that the Texas flag is in Texas, or the Chicago flag is in Chicago, that this can serve as a really interesting and powerful community unifying icon,” Schaefer said.
Shaefer designed a potential option.
“The design that I came up with is this blue, this sort of, this red field with a blue stripe and a gold cog. The symbols would represent a number of different things,” Schaefer said.
The symbols, Schaefer says, could represent the Schaghticoke and Mohican tribes that lived in Troy. Additionally, he says the blue stripe symbolizes the Hudson River, a source of the Collar City’s historical commercial strength.
Rensselaer County and City of Troy Historian and Executive Director of the Hart Cluett Museum Kathy Sheehan says a municipality’s flag is meant to demonstrate pride of place.
“It's pride of our city and recognizing, honoring its heritage, and then hopefully looking to the future to see where we are, where we've gone, where we're going to go,” Sheehan said.
Mayor Carmella Mantello, a lifelong Trojan, says she isn’t against flying more flags, but:
“Without knowing the history of it and the origin of it, I would say, first, let's find that out, and then we can take it from there,” Mantello said.
The Republican says she isn’t even sure of the meaning behind symbols on the Rensselaer County city’s current flag. Sheehan explains:
“Ilium Fuit Troja Est. The ilium was Troy is, which is a throwback to when Troy was named because originally, before 1789, Troy was Vanderheyden, was the Village of Vanderheyden, or sometimes it was known as Ashley's Ferry. And it wasn't until January of 1789, that the name was changed to Troy,” Sheehan said. “And they're following all the Greek mythology, and that's why you see Troy, New York, and Syracuse and Ilion and Utica, all those Greek names, early classical names, as you're going out through the Erie Canal. And so, they wanted Troy to have a more imposing name than to just be poor Vanderheyden. Which is kind of a shame because he owned all of the land the city was built on.”
The current flag also adorns a coat of arms with a layer image of a sky and field with factories along the Hudson River.
The city's charter states "the coat of arms of the City shall be composed of a shield, whereon will be shown the emblem of commerce, i.e., barrels and bales and sheaf of wheat; the emblem of navigation; a Hudson River steamboat, behind which shall be the factories of the City, backed by the hills, the whole surmounted by the four spires. The crest shall be the emblem of the United States, the eagle. The supports shall be: to the right, higher education for women represented in a figure of an Emma Willard graduate in her cap and gown; on the left, a figure of a man representing a graduate of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The motto to be on a ribbon under the shield and to read "Illium Fuit Troja Est" ("Ilium Was, Troy Is")."
Sheehan says municipalities rarely change their flags, except for when major anniversaries come up.
“I don't think there's anything consistent necessarily with them changing,” Sheehan said. “Having said that, this is in the city code at the moment about, you know, how we do have our kind of, our coat of arms, which in essence, is the flag.”
The city’s last major anniversary was its bicentennial in 2016.
Sheehan says it could be fun to get the community involved in the creation of a new flag.
“What do you think,” Sheehan said. “What do you think the flag should look like, or the or the city seal and things like that? I know every once while the county (Rensselaer) talks about changing the county seal, and you know, what would that look like to reflect our legacy?”
