"I never lived in Ballston Spa," Andy Rooney told Saratoga Living in an interview first published in 2003. "My parents moved to Albany before I was born . . . but we frequently came up from Albany, and always spent Thanksgiving there." You can read the full piece, which Ballston Spa Living republished, and it describes the village better than most travel writing does. It names the house and barn at 23 Church Avenue. It names his Uncle Bill's law office upstairs at 22 Front Street. It names a dry goods store on Front Street and a butternut tree up the block.
On Thursday, October 29, at 7:30 p.m., biographer Paul Grondahl brings those streets back into the village at the Saratoga County History Center at Brookside Museum. His talk is about Rooney's life and his ties to Ballston Spa. Before you circle that one date, though, look at the rest of the season. It's a short list, and almost all of it happens in one building.
Wiswall Park Is Done for the Year. Fairground Avenue Is Just Getting Busy.
The outdoor season in the village is over. The 2026 Ballston Spa Farmers' Market ran Saturdays in Wiswall Park from June 13 through October 3. Autumn Fest took over the same park that same Saturday morning. The 24th "The Way We Were" Car Show filled Wiswall Park this past Sunday, October 11. As of this week, the Ballston Spa Business & Professional Association events calendar lists one November item, a networking breakfast. It has no holiday parade or tree lighting posted yet.
Brookside's calendar covers the same weeks and lists ten programs at its Ballston Spa building between October 15 and November 13. The museum says its programs are free and open to the public unless a listing says otherwise. Each one asks you to register through the museum's events page. Two programs do charge. The History Center's October newsletter lists the curator's tours as free for members and $5 for non-members, and tickets for the October 30 film premiere are $5.
So from now until mid-November, the village's public calendar is mostly one address, 21 Fairground Ave.
A Resort Hotel From 1792, Showing a Hotelier's Forest
The building is part of the reason the programs work. The History Center says Brookside opened as a resort hotel in 1792. Since then it has been a boys' school, a private home, a boarding house, a sanitarium and apartments. The History Center bought it in 1970 and opened it as a museum. The museum calls it "among the oldest hotel buildings still standing in the United States," and it is on the National Register of Historic Places.
This fall, that old hotel holds an exhibit about another hotel owner. Luther Forest: A Family, A Woodland, A Legacy opened with a reception on May 2. According to the exhibition page, Thomas Clements Luther owned a popular resort hotel on Saratoga Lake. Around 1900 he began planting the forest that carries his name. It eventually covered 7,000 acres in Malta and Stillwater and became the largest private reforestation project in New York. Five generations of the Luther-Mackay family have looked after it since, despite growing development and government intervention.
The exhibit draws on archives the Luther-Mackay family donated. Dr. Anne Hollmuller, the History Center's director, curated it, and Field Horne and Marianne Bez helped install it. A grant from the GlobalFoundries/Town of Malta Foundation supported it as part of the museum's Spotlight on Malta History series.
The exhibit runs until November 16. November 16 is a Monday, and the museum's current hours are Wednesday through Sunday. That makes Sunday, November 15, the last afternoon you can actually walk in. Hollmuller is leading three small-group curator's tours before then. She will talk about how the forest changed over time, the family archive, and how the exhibit was put together.
The Full Calendar, Oldest Date First
| Date | Time | Program | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thu., Oct. 15 | 2 p.m. | Luther Forest curator's tour | Small group; $5 for non-members |
| Sun., Oct. 18 | 2 p.m. | Leaves and Trees story time and craft | Ages 3 to 8 |
| Sat., Oct. 24 | 3 p.m. | The Epilogue Trio | Flute, harp and viola |
| Thu., Oct. 29 | 7:30 p.m. | Andy Rooney: A Lucky Life, with Paul Grondahl | Rooney's Ballston Spa ties |
| Fri., Oct. 30 | 6 p.m. | Horror short premiere | Filmed entirely at Brookside; $5 tickets |
| Thu., Nov. 5 | 2 p.m. | Luther Forest curator's tour | Second of three |
| Sat., Nov. 7 | 10 a.m. | Rockets 101 with MISCI | Free with registration |
| Sat., Nov. 7 | 2 p.m. | Saratoga County Stories Three signing | 30+ local historians and researchers contributed |
| Thu., Nov. 12 | 6 p.m. | SCHC Reads book club | Schuyler sisters title |
| Fri., Nov. 13 | 2 p.m. | Luther Forest curator's tour | Last tour before the Nov. 16 close |
Some details from the listings help you choose. For the October 18 story time, the museum's new education manager, Meaghan, will read "Fletcher and the Falling Leaves" by Julia Rawlinson and "A Tree for All Seasons" by Robin Bernard. Leaf painting follows. The Epilogue Trio plays flute, harp and viola, with Capital Region flutist Melanie Chirignan on flute. The newsletter says the program includes music you might hear at a circus, including Astor Piazzolla's Libertango, and that seating is limited. The book club is reading titles about the American Revolution this year in honor of America's 250th. November's pick is Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution.
The October 30 premiere is the most local item on the list. Her Self-Inflicted Decapitation, directed by local filmmaker Noah Manglapus, was shot entirely inside the History Center. The museum describes it as "a ghostly, behind-the-scenes view of Brookside Museum." If you go, you'll watch a film about the building while sitting inside it.
The Rooney Talk Covers Streets Residents Already Walk
Grondahl's biography, Andy Rooney: A Lucky Life, is from SUNY Press under its Excelsior Editions imprint. It came out October 1. According to the History Center's October newsletter, the book covers Rooney's Ballston Spa family history, Albany Academy, his World War II reporting for Stars and Stripes and his years as a 60 Minutes commentator.
The village chapter of that family history is very specific. The 2003 Saratoga Living interview says Rooney's paternal grandparents, Charles P. Rooney and Annie Aitken Rooney, bought the Church Avenue house and barn in 1905. Before that, Rooney's father, Walter, and his brothers lived on Ballston Avenue and Malta Avenue. Rooney was born in 1919. By then his Uncle Bill, attorney William C. Rooney, and his Auntie Belle lived on Church Avenue. Rooney remembered Uncle Bill walking him up Church Avenue to see a friend's butternut tree. He also described Front Street, where Frank Winney's dry goods store sat between Joe Sweeney's drug store and his uncle's law office at 22 Front Street.
The newsletter says Grondahl will also show rare photographs during the talk. Admission is free with registration.
Front Street Has a New Stop on the Way
You still eat on Front Street. Kim's Place, a pizzeria and deli, opened this summer at 39 Front St. The Saratogian covered its chamber ribbon-cutting on August 8. Owner Kim Tribley also runs Coffee Planet Café, and WNYT reported the opening on August 12. Kim's Place is the newest address on the street Rooney described, and you'll pass it on the way from the village center to Fairground Avenue.
How Saturday, November 7, Lines Up
November 7 is the only date on Brookside's fall calendar with two programs at the village building. It's built for families:
- 10 a.m., Rockets 101. The History Center and MISCI put on a free STEM program for young audiences. It draws on the history of the Malta Rocket Test Station. Kids learn about rocketry and then build a rocket to lift the heaviest payload they can.
- Midday, lunch on Front Street. Kim's Place is an easy stop between sessions.
- 2 p.m., Saratoga County Stories Three. Meet the authors of the third book in the History Center's county-history series, which includes work from more than thirty local historians and researchers. The October newsletter printed a 10 a.m. time for this signing. The museum's events page, updated later, lists 2 p.m., so check it before you go.
- Before 4 p.m., the Luther Forest galleries. By then the exhibit has about a week left.
If that Saturday doesn't work, the book signing happens again on Tuesday, November 10, at 6 p.m. That session is at the Malta Community Center, not in the village. Two other History Center events this fall are outside the village as well. The October 14 Dunning Street Cemetery tour is in Malta and already sold out. The October 25 Old Champlain Canal Lantern Festival is at the Champlain Canal Region Gateway Visitors Center in Schuylerville.
The museum is open Wednesday through Sunday, noon to 4 p.m., and the research library is by appointment. During the colder months, the Visit page tells visitors to check the museum's Facebook page for weather closures. The exhibit page lists admission as always free.
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