Saratoga Springs – Weekend escape to the Queen of Spas

Nearly ruined by a racy past

 Canfield Casino, now the town’s history museum a sober-looking, elegant brick building beside the park, was anything but sober in its heyday. The Casino exemplified the free and easy attitude toward illegal gambling that was nearly the town’s downfall.

It began  as a private club where illegal gambling by visitors was tolerated though Saratogians themselves were banned. At first the club welcomed a gentlemanly elite. Later, it attracted a new class of summer visitors — Prohibition gangsters.

Discouraged by the flashy new crowd, polite society stayed away. Out at Saratoga Lake nightclubs, cabarets and “private” gaming establishments aimed at the new clientele, flourished .

Then, in 1951, after Sen. Estes Kefauver’s televised hearings on organised crime pinpointed gambling as the main source of mob income, the authorities cracked down. The clubs around the lake shut down, their clientele disappeared and Saratoga slid into urban decline. The wreckers had already begun to move in when a series of local initiatives saved what was left.

History to the rescue

That urban decline actually saved the town. If funds are too short to tear down and replace old buildings sometimes they stay standing long enough to to attract restorers and become living history. That’s what happened here.

Today, hundreds of properties are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Strict planning requirements for new buildings ensure  that the ambiance of the downtown historic districts are maintained. Even post millennial hotels chains give their local branches a Saratoga look. The Marriott Courtyard, with its airy, cast iron entrance and two-toned brickwork, look more like a turn of the century apartment building than a member of a hotel group.

The Casino, where Gilded Age celebrities like Diamond Jim Brady and John Philip Sousa played roulette and blackjack, now houses the Historical Society Museum. There, among the exhibits I found the story of George Crum, a Native American/African American chef who, in 1853, invented the potato chip at Moon’s Lake House near Saratoga Lake. Crum never made a fortune from his creation, but he and his sister did open a restaurant of their own.

With restaurants on my mind, I collected recommendations at the Visitor’s Center, near Congress Park, and opted for light snacks with with live music, downtown  at The Cellar on Caroline Street, followed by more live music at the intimate, historic Caffè Lena on Phila Street. It opened in 1960. Now a non-profit venue, it’s the oldest continuously operating coffee house in America. Bob Dylan performed here on his first tour; it’s where Don McLean introduced American Pie, and it has been the launching pad for dozens of folk and acoustic musicians. For a reasonably priced entrance fee, I spent the rest of the evening listening to acoustic folk/jazz fusion from Sloan Wainwright (sister of Loudon and aunt of Rufus).  Later, walking back to my hotel, mid-week in the so called “off season”, I could hear live music pouring out of at least half a dozen wine bars and restaurants.

The people’s spa

Next morning, I left the world of Victorian high society for Saratoga Spa State Park and the “peoples’ spa”.

At the turn of the 20th century, soda makers endangered the springs by extracting gas from them and discarding the water. Even the U.S. Navy got in on the act, collecting the gas to propel torpedoes.

To prevent the springs from disappearing altogether, the state government bought and capped about 100 of them, restored and maintained the rest. With the support of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, first as New York Governor and then as President, a publicly owned health spa along European lines was built. Opening In 1935, the ten-building, $3.2 million spa was the first major program finished under the New Deal.

Some of the original buildings are now gone but those that remain, including the Roosevelt Baths, the Gideon Putnam Hotel and the Hall of Springs, give a sense of the ambitious project. The Civilian Conservation Corps, sometimes called “Roosevelt’s Tree Army”, surrounded the complex with thousands of white pines. Now a forest of these mast-straight trees, mingled with red pines and 200-year-old hemlocks, rises 80 to 100 feet tall and positively sings with warblers.

Pictures of the Spa State Park