If you are travelling through upstate New York you might want to take a trip into the small town of Ticonderoga to visit the Star Trek Original Series Set-Tour. You might ask why is it in Ticonderoga - and you'll need to go for yourself to find out! This is not just a place for Trekkies to visit it is a fascinating insight into TV history. its authenticity has been confirmed by members of the original cast, including William Shatner (Captain James T Kirk) who makes regular visits here.
North York: Albany – The last remaining giant Nipper
We stumbled upon this giant statue of a dog sitting atop a storage building in a neighbourhood of Albany, New York. It turned out to be a four-tonne, 28-foot tall steel and fibreglass statue of Nipper, the canine mascot of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), the now-defunct consumer electronics company.
According to the Albany Institute of History and Art, Nipper arrived here in 1958 following the renovation of the dilapidated concrete warehouse for use by RTA Corporation, an appliance distributor specialising in products by RCA. The statue was made in Chicago, shipped in five sections by rail, and attached to a metal frame on the roof with the aid of a 10-story crane.
Nipper is the largest of the four huge terriers that once sat atop RTA’s distribution centres, and is the last that exists on the building upon which he was originally installed. There were once enormous Nippers peering over the skylines of Chicago and Los Angeles, but those have since been demolished or removed.
Nipper is based on a real 19th-century terrier owned by Francis Barraud, a painter residing in Liverpool. The dog was named for his tendency to nip at visitors’ heels. One day Barraud saw the terrier listening intently to a windup cylinder phonograph and captured the moment in a painting. He then attempted to sell the rights to a number of companies, though none took any initial interest.
However, Barraud finally found an interested buyer. He was intending to borrow a brass horn from The Gramophone Company upon which to model a new version of the painting when the store’s manager mentioned that if he replaced the machine with a Berliner disc gramophone the company would purchase the rights. The image went on to become one of the most successful trademarks in merchandise history, known under the title, “His Master’s Voice.” It has since been used by a long succession of companies, including RCA.

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When the city of Syracuse, New York started installing traffic lights in the 1920s the Irish community didn't take kindly to the set of lights put up on a busy intersection on Tipperary Hill. They did not like the fact that the 'red light', which they associated with the British, was above the 'green light' - green being the colour of the Irish. So, some youths in the area threw stones, breaking the red lamp. The city replaced the lamp only for it to be smashed again. The city eventually gave up flipping the light so the green light was at the top. These upside-down lights remain until this day and have become a local attraction.

If you are in the Finger Lakes Region near Ithaca then you might want to check out Gourdlandia. This is the storefront and workshop of Graham Ottoson, a former mid-wife turned gourd artist. She takes gourds grown in her garden, dries them out and turns them into beautifully carved lamps, bowls and other gourd oddities.
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