William Kennedy's Albany
South End Walking Tour and Discussion

NYS Writers Institute, Sunday, October 1, 2006
1:00 p.m. Discussion with William Kennedy and John McEneny | Albany Institute of History and Art, 125 Washington Ave., Albany

Followed by South End Walking Tour
A free walking tour guide of Albany's South End will be available for participants to follow immediately after the discussion. The free 16-page guide, O Albany's South End: A Walking Tour, is divided into three sections: the South End/Groesbeckville Historic District, the Pastures Preservation Historic District, and the Mansion Historic District. The self-guided tour is about three-quarters of a mile in length and (with frequent stops) takes about an hour and fifteen minutes to complete.

On this walking tour you will learn a part of Albany's story not by reading a book, but by "reading the human landscape."

Copies of the walking guide can be downloaded at Walking Guide Booklet.

Albany's bard, novelist William Kennedy, and local historian and State Assemblyman John McEneny will discuss the historic districts, people, and events that figure so prominently in Kennedy's work.

William Kennedy's fiction, steeped in Albany's long history, has helped to establish the city as a capital of the literary imagination. In addition to eight novels, Kennedy is also the author of the acclaimed nonfiction book, O Albany! (1983), which is based in part on a series of Pulitzer Prize-nominated articles about the city that Kennedy wrote for the Times Union. The text of the walking tour guide, O Albany's South End: A Walking Tour, is partly excerpted from the text of O Albany!

State Assemblyman Jack McEneny has represented New York's 104th Assembly District, which includes the City of Albany, for the past 13 years. He is a former Albany County Historian, former chair of the Albany Historic Sites Commission, and became the first full-time director of State Urban Cultural Parks Program under then-governor Mario Cuomo. McEneny wrote and narrated WMHT Public Television's Tercentennial Documentary on Albany and authored Albany, Capital City on the Hudson (1998), the definitive text on the city's four centuries of history.

The event is sponsored in conjunction with Encounter UAlbany's Architecture, a year-long exploration of the built environment at the University at Albany and its surrounding community.

Related Link: Gazette Article

For additional information, visit the New York Writers Institute on Facebook, online at https://www.albany.edu/writers-inst or contact us at [email protected], or call 518-442-5620.