The Athletic Annex Exhibition - 10/6 - 10/15

Squash Courts, Locker Rooms Will House Pop-Up Gallery During MoHu Art Festival

The University Club’s former fitness annex will gain new life as a “pop up art gallery” with an exhibit featuring some 20 local and regional artists.

The artwork will be installed throughout the building, located behind the National Register-listed University Club at 141 Washington Avenue at Dove Street. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, October 6th from 5:00 – 9:00 p.m., and the closing reception will take place on Friday, October 14th from 5:00 – 9:00 p.m. with special musical guests TN3 – The Todd Nelson Trio – performing in the Grille Room from 8:00 – 10:00 p.m.

The Athletic Annex Exhibition will be curated by Chip Fasciana – named by Metroland as the “Best Moveable Curator” in their July 2011 Best Of issue. A painter, sculptor and founder of Albany Underground Artists, Chip has a gift for “unifying his creative colleagues, and his shows have become a significant facet of the Capital Region arts scene.” He received the Masterpiece Award at the Albany Institute of History & Art’s 2010 exhibition, Tomorrow’s Masters Today.

The show has been scheduled to coincide with MoHu (http://www.mohufest.com/) – the Mohawk Hudson Art Festival. This 9-day-long arts festival will be held in Albany, Schenectady, Rensselaer and Saratoga Counties, and will feature theatre, dance, music, visual and random acts of art throughout the region.

Participating artists will include: Matthew Jay Landon, Jason Cosco, Jason Patrick Voegele, Michael Conlin, Christina Kincaid, Patrick Porter, Chip Fasciana and many more.

The University Club of Albany Foundation, Inc. is presenting this event with the Albany Underground Artists, and one need not be a member to attend. Sponsors include Metroland, Troy Web Consulting, High Voltage Electric Service, and the Terri Boor Cultural Programming Fund. For more information, call the University Club at 518-463-1151.

The University Club Foundation, a 501c3 corporation, was formed to recognize and maintain the unique historic and architectural significance of the University Club building and property, its historic neighborhood and the city of Albany, where it has been located since its inception in 1901.

Celebrate NYS Archives Month on 10/5 with Dutch Visiting Scholar

Dr. Eric Ruijssenaars to discuss archival research and discoveries
Dr. Eric Ruijssenaars, the New Netherland Research Center’s first Senior Scholar in Residence and founder of Dutch Archives, a historical research firm in Leiden, will discuss his research at a luncheon on Wednesday, October 5 at the National Register-listed University Club of Albany, 141 Washington Avenue at Dove Street. The buffet lunch will begin at 12:00 noon, with the presentation commencing at 12:30 p.m., followed by a question and answer period.

Although a specialist in the history of Russia and the Netherlands, he is also a scholar of the Brontë sisters’ time in Brussels and has published two books on the subject.

He is currently researching the life of Abraham Staats. In 1642, Staats arrived in the Dutch colony of New Netherland to serve as a surgeon on patroon Kiliaen van Rensselaer’s vast estate, Rensselaerswijck, which is now part of Albany and Rensselaer counties. Over the course of his life, Staats became a magistrate of the court, a captain of the burgher guard, the owner of a sloop that made regular trips to New Amsterdam (New York City), and an Indian language translator. Something of an oddity in rough-and-tumble New Netherland, he remained a very respectable man and was, for that reason, regularly called on to mediate disputes between his less respectable and more litigious neighbors.

The New Netherland Research Center is a partnership of the New Netherland Institute and the New York State Office of Cultural Education. It continues and extends the work of the New York State Library’s New Netherland Project, which since 1974 has preserved, transcribed, translated, and published 17th century documents in order to make the history of the Dutch colonial presence in North America more broadly accessible for study.

The University Club of Albany Foundation, Inc. is presenting this event, and one need not be a member of the University Club to attend. The cost for the luncheon and lecture is $25. Reservations are required and may be made by calling the University Club at 518-463-1151.

The University Club Foundation, a 501c3 corporation, was formed to recognize and maintain the unique historic and architectural significance of the University Club building and property, its historic neighborhood and the city of Albany, where it has been located since its inception in 1901.

Speakeasy Night - October 3

Speakeasy Night ~ Monday, October 3 ~ 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.

There is no period of time in Albany’s history richer in lore than Prohibition! Stop by the U. Club after work to wet your whistle, and relive the era of Bootleggers, Rumrunners and Moonshiners!

Brian Facquet, co-founder of Prohibition Distillery, will be on hand as we mix up special cocktails with Bootlegger 21 Vodka. This award-winning boutique vodka is made with 100% corn and distilled in small batches in Gardiner, NY.

Enter to win a free copy of “America Walks into a Bar: A Spirited History of Taverns and Saloons, Speakeasies and Grog Shops” (Oxford University Press, 2011).

Stay until 7:30 to watch the broadcast premiere of a 30-minute documentary on WHMT-TV titled “William Kennedy’s Prohibition Story” featuring gritty tales of New York’s Capital City from 1919-1933 from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author. The local film coincides with the launch of the multi-part PBS documentary PROHIBITION: A Film by Ken Burns.

Call 518-463-1151 to RSVP.

READ OUT! on 9/29 with the New York Civil Liberties Union, University Club Foundation

Public is Invited to Celebrate the Freedom to Read during Banned Books Week
Banned Books Week (Sept. 24 – Oct. 1, 2011) highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship. To mark this occasion, the University Club of Albany Foundation and the New York Civil Liberties Union, Capital Region Chapter will present ReadOut! on Thursday, September 29 at 6:00 p.m. at the National Register-listed University Club of Albany, 141 Washington Avenue at Dove Street.

Local actors, writers, poets, and community leaders will read brief excerpts from books that have been banned or challenged in America. This event is free and open to the public, light fare will be served, and drinks will be available. Readers will include community and environmental activist Reszin Adams; Sylvia Barnard, professor of Classics; Assemblymember John J. McEneny; musician Bob Resnick; Colleen Ryan, president of the Albany Roundtable; worker safety activist Janet Womatchka; actor and educator James Yeara and many others.

An additional ReadOut! program is slated for the Schenectady County Public Library, 99 Clinton Street, Schenectady on Sunday, September 25 at 2 p.m.

According to Joanna Palladino, a member of the NYCLU and an organizer of the event, “As Noam Chomsky said, ‘If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.’ Banned Books Week stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them.”

Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Booksellers Association; American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; the American Library Association; American Society of Journalists and Authors; Association of American Publishers; and the National Association of College Stores. It is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. In 2011, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, National Coalition Against Censorship, National Council of Teachers of English, and PEN American Center also signed on as sponsors.

The University Club of Albany Foundation, Inc. is presenting this event with the New York Civil Liberties Union, and one need not be a member of either organization attend. For more information, call the University Club at 518-463-1151.

The University Club Foundation, a 501c3 corporation, was formed to recognize and maintain the unique historic and architectural significance of the University Club building and property, its historic neighborhood and the city of Albany, where it has been located since its inception in 1901.

Preview the Program