Town of the Week, August 15, 1998

Take a visit to Amsterdam, New York; listen in.

Amsterdam, New York
(rebroadcast from 1/14/95)

Straddling the Mohawk River at Chucktanunda Creek is the former carpet capitol of the world, Amsterdam, New York. It was here in east central New York State, in the 1840s where the ancestors of present-day Bigelow, Sanford, and Mohawk carpets were spun from Amsterdam's 30 or so knitting mills.

But, in 1955 the carpeting industry shut down and moved south, and the mills went dark. Today, this town of 20,000 is a bedroom community for Albany, a half-hour drive southeast on the new York State throughway, I-90.

Amsterdam has a number of diversified industries including Playskool, a division of Hasbro; Fiberglass Industries and Ward Products. The high school Rams and Lady Rams enjoy hanging out in the Amsterdam Mall, the shopping linchpin for Montgomery County.

This is the home town of Isadore Dempsky, also known as Kirk Douglas; and of Ed Sullivan. It's just a short drive to the Guy Park Mansion, and to the National Shrine of North American Martyrs. The town is sometimes known as the "Litterbag Capitol of the World," and it's our Town of the Week, Amsterdam, New York.