The city contains more than 258 concerns engaged in manufacturing and employing about 26,636 wage-earners and producing annually over $60,000,000 worth of goods.
The city is situated on a narrow alluvial plain, extending north and south along the river front for six and one-half miles. From the plain, and paralleling the river, a range of hills arises, in some places to a height of 500 feet. While most of the city is confined to the level ground, the finest residential part is on the hills, of which the most prominent is Mount Ida. On a spur of this hill, jutting out boldly into the centre of the city, stands Prospect Park. The waterworks reservoirs are located on the hills east and northeast of the city. A new gravity system has been installed with a daily capacity of 18,000,000 gallons and the old gravity systems supplement this with 9,000,000 gallons.
There are a number of cemeteries in Troy, but Oakwood, containing 400 acres, crowns one of the hills east of the city, overlooking the valley of the Hudson opposite the delta of the Mohawk The cemetery plateau is 300 feet above the plain, to which it inclines with precipitous sides. The Hudson is in sight for miles, while the Mohawk breaks through the hills to the west, tumbles over a rocky preci pice 60 feet in height, then passes peacefully through its four mouths into the Hudson. Oak wood cemetery is a resting place for three dis tinguished national heroes.—Gen. John E. Wool, the commander-in-chief of the American forces in the Mexican War, Gen. George H. Thomas, the rock of and Gen. J. B. Carr of Civil War fame. General Wool's monument is a monolith 60 feet high, and weighing more than 100 tons. The Earl Crematory, a promi nent object in Oakwood, is a memorial building erected at great cost, and contains, aside from a perfect incinerating apparatus, some fine mosaics, rare marbles and rich stained glass. The streets of Troy are regularly laid out until the river front is reached, when the streets are intersected by River street, which follows the curvatures of the Hudson River. These irregu lar intersections form triangles misnamed squares. In one of these stands the Soldiers' and Sailors' monument, 93 feet high, costing over $50,000. On the lower sides of the stone work are bronze bas-reliefs representing battle scenes; one of them being a representation of the engagement between the Monitor and the Merrimac. This is a particularly appropriate
scene because most of the armor plate of the Monitor was rolled in Troy. There are 100 miles of streets in Troy, of which 65.22 miles are paved.
Buildings.— Troy has public buildings of note and many of its citizens have built beautiful and substantial memorials for chari table and educational work. Troy has de veloped as an educational centre during recent years through the endowments of Mrs. Russell Sage, the widow of the noted financier, Russell Sage, who was a former resident of Troy. The gifts of Mrs. Sage have given an impetus to old institutions and enabled them to add ex tensions. The Emma Willard School has been removed from the central section of Troy and located in a new group of fine buildings, in the eastern section of Troy on the hills, over looking the Hudson Valley and the Berkshires. The former home of the Emma Willard School has been converted into a women's college of applied arts and has an enrolment exceeding 300. Another educational enterprise which has done much to make Troy famous is the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (q.v.), an excellent school of civil engineering. Its graduates have designed some of the greatest engineering works of modern times. Extensive additions have been made to the Rensse laer Polytechnic Institute through the aid of Mrs. Sage. It enrolls about 1,000 students. The post office, a fine granite structure; the savings bank building, which cost about $600,000, and which contains a fine Music Hall with seating capacity of 1,300; the public library, white marble in the Italian Renaissance style, cost about $300,000; the courthouse, city hall, Rowe Memorial, Young Men's Christian Association, Young Women's Christian Associa tion; R. P. I Alumni, Ilium and other commer cial buildings, the Union station, a high school and the Rensselaer Hotel are among the city's notable structures. The leading charitable and religious institutions are the Troy Orphan Asylum, a group of buildings of the Eliza bethan style of architecture; three Roman Catholic orphanages, a reformatory, a home for the aged, three hospitals, several very fine churches, and the Salvation Army Temple. The public and parish school buildings recently erected are all models of completeness and beautiful architecture.