Granville (New York) Daily Photo

  The architectural detail on this house in the village appeals to me.

Depending on your perspective, it's a modern convenience or the Devil's handiwork, or maybe both. I read that when Amazon converted a former lumber yard building in Granville into a warehouse/distribution center in 2023, they promised 200 jobs, but it's unclear whether there are currently more than 100 employees there. (I am going to call them to ask.) That's still a decent number for our small town. I am not out of the habit of using Amazon; there are products which are easier to order, and usually less expensive, than driving at least 45 minutes to an hour to a retail center to buy. I read a lot of books on my iPhone Kindle app. But I fully acknowledge Amazon's reputation for terrible, dangerous working conditions, its animosity toward unions, and the damage to our country and the world that Bezos and his ilk do.  Here I go getting political again. And I need prettier pictures. Coming up soon, I promise! Happy one-week Daily Photo bloggiversary to me!!

Telescope Casual Furniture is one of the largest employers, possibly the largest, in Granville. It makes outdoor patio and poolside furniture and employs around 300 people (according to one source). The extensive mural on the front of the headquarters complex stretches for a city block and includes patriotic images and references to the company's and town's history.

Here are some photos I took today that tell you some things about me. (These are once again outside of Granville, this time in Bennington, Vermont, but I promise I'll get back to Granville tomorrow!) I currently work at Bennington College, a small liberal arts college with an excellent pedigree. In particular, many writers, dancers, actors, and artists have attended Bennington, including the famed 20th-century Abstract Expressionist painter Helen Frankenthaler and, in more recent decades, the actor Peter Dinklage. Martha Graham spent her formative years in the 30s in residence here. On my office wall hangs an Audubon clock that tweets a bird song every hour on the hour. There's only one volume setting -- loud -- so it often startles guests in my office, and sometime me! I worked for the National Audubon Society, a leading bird protection organization, for 20 years in a variety of capacities.  Also on my wall are two framed posters of "The Gates," a legendary public ar...

I'm venturing a little outside my hometown for today's post. Granville is almost exactly halfway between the two nearest cities: Rutland, Vermont, to the northeast (population ~16,000) and Glens Falls, New York, to the southwest (~14,000).  Yesterday I was in Rutland with my partner to attend a curling match. There's been an uptick of interest in curling, I suspect, owing to the recently-concluded Winter Olympic Games -- especially after the Norwegian team accused the Canadian team of cheating, and the Canadians uncharacteristically cursed at the Norwegians in return! My social media feed was filled with funny home videos of people sweeping around a moving object; my favorite used a Roomba as the "stone." I learned a lot of new things, such as the fact that curling was invented in Scotland (I thought it was Canada) and that most (or all?) curling stones are produced on a Scottish island called Alisa Craig of a special kind of granite and can cost as much as $16,00...

  There's an uncomfortable road sign that you see from every direction you enter the village of Granville: "Welcome to the Colored Slate Capital of the World." The first time I saw it, I did a triple take. In 2026, seeing that c-word, as innocent as it may have been in origin, induces a cringe. While I have yet to delve deeply into the town's history, there's little doubt that its wealth was built on the mining and manufacturing of slate for roofs and other uses -- and Granville is most famous for its red slate. (As an aside, I played softball during the summer on a rough, badly-maintained field. When I got home, my clothes were always covered in bright-red clay.) Houses such as this one in the village's "downtown" surely belonged to the captains of the slate industry. This is a beautiful example of Victorian architecture sprinkled with elements of Neoclassical (columns, Palladian windows) and the spectacular ironwork of the fence. Plus slate roofing...

It was another dreary day outdoors. I woke up to two inches more of slush and ice. Well, I chose to move north, so here I am. Spring will be a welcome relief this year. This is the front of the house I live in. My apartment is in the back. It's nice enough. My neighbors are good folks. One couple has an 11-year-old boy who was out shoveling and chopping ice at the same time I was. We had a nice chat, and I pulled him out of the snow when we got stuck. (You can see from the mound in front how much snow has been shoveled and plowed this winter!)  The landlord, who lives in Vermont, is nice enough, too. I assume it's his choice to fly the large American flag in front. I'm not a big fan, especially of what we're doing elsewhere in the world, but it's hardly an unusal choice on his part. These being rural parts, the town is pretty "dark red," as we say here (i.e., conservative and Republican-leaning). Our U.S. representative is a Trump lackey; she was slated to...

I live on quiet street just a few blocks from the main village of Granville. This scene out my backdoor is typical of this winter. We have had plenty of snow and cold. The groundhog was correct this year! The view is facing east-southeast. On the other side of the farther row of trees is Vermont. The fence on the left holds in my neighbor's two dogs, Bentley and Mercedes. I am a birder, so I'm always watching and listening for things. I've seen hawks, tanagers, finches, and other birds in their seasons in the beautiful maple at the right. Soon phoebes and blackbirds and other early spring arrivals will show up.

 March 3, 2026 Welcome to Granville, New York, Daily Photo!  Quoting from Wikipedia: Granville is a town on the eastern border of Washington County, New York, United States, abutting Rutland County, Vermont. It is part of the Glens Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area. The town population was 6,215 at the 2020 census. The town of Granville contains a village that also bears the name Granville. Granville is properly part of "upstate New York" and is on the Route 22 corridor that stretches east of the Hudson River from the Bronx all the way to the Canadian border. Granville is a historic center of the slate industry, producing colorful slate for roofs, walkways, and other uses. There are still active mines and slate producing factories. Some beautiful homes in the village of Granville attest to the area's former wealth. The region as a whole is agricultural. A major employer in the village is Telescope, a fabricator of patio furniture. I've lived in the town for a little...