Saturday April 5, 2008 TroyRecord Article 100years ago Sunday April 5, 1908 “Union College students and faculty demand ‘Summary Justice after accusing RPI students of vandalizing the Schenectady campus. The vandals have dumped a coat of paint on a statue dubbed’ the campus idol” and smashed the glass front of a campus bulletin board, using a revolver to shoot out the glass front. They remove the notices and scrawl”RENSSELAER” in pencil on their bare board. They also paint’rensselaer” on several campus buildings. Although there is a fierce rivalry this is unusual. The former home of St Mary’s orphan Asylum on Hill Street now houses some 200 Italian immigrants. The Record reporter describes in his article in 1908”Men and women alike are attired in their provincial way, having been in America too short a time to adopt our customs or perhaps taking pride in their native garb. Men wear slouch hats, corduroy coats and trousers, the bottoms of which disappear in high top shoes. Around their necks they display kerchiefs conspicuous on account of their bright colors. The women, always bareheaded, except when they employ little shawls to protect them from the storm, are also partial to gaudy colors. And their calico dresses are seldom of a delicate hue. Their bronze smiling faces bespeak contentment and happiness. While the women are employed caring for the numerous small children, or in washing clothes or attending to other household duties, the men who are at home may be seen on a pleasant day amusing themselves by pitching quoits in the alley in the rear of the big tenement or playing some other game which is more savory of the old country’s out door sports. They chatter like magpies in their excitement over their fun, and gesticulate quite as they would if they were in the midst of a heated dispute. Theirs is a life without worry or care, and apparently without ambition for anything further than a squalid room in which both to eat & sleep and some coarse brown bread and a pail of beer to put upon the table... **************Wondering what's for Dinner Tonight? Get new twists on family favorites at AOL Food. (http://food.aol.com/dinner-tonight?NCID=aolfod00030000000001)