Roads and highways were built and expanded to support the traffic that came through Main Street, Clifton Park.
Perhaps more importantly, people moved out, while businesses moved in.
"Clifton Park Village really lost its identity as a hamlet," Town Historian John Scherer said.
Clifton Park's crossroads
What visitors to Clifton Park now see - the malls, the plazas, the offices - began at this small crossroads, with one hotel.
As I-87 and Route 9 bring business to modern-day Clifton Park, the Waterford-Saratoga Turnpike brought potential customers to what is now the intersection of Old Route 146 and Route 9.
The turnpike, now Route 9, divided at this intersection to turn right, toward Mechanicville, or left, toward Jonesville and Ballston Spa.
In the 1820s, Ephriam Stevens, who would become the townÕs first supervisor in 1828, built a hotel on the busy corner. For a time, the area was known as Stevens' Corners.
"A community started to develop there around the hotel," Scherer said.
While the community that surrounded it is gone - save for a few small houses - the hotel remains.
It changed hands a half dozen times. A dance hall and stage were added. It was used at various times as a court house, concert hall, jail and roller skating rink.
In 1922, Joseph Kakulski bought the hotel. He later passed it on to his son, Casimer Kakulski, father of the current owner, Linda Kakulski.
Today, plans are slowly progressing to restore the hotel into offices.
Kakulski hired John G. Waite Associates in the 1990s to restore the hotel.
The company filed a report, a copy of which is in Shenendehowa Library's historical room, detailing what the restoration would entail.
The 1997 report shows that the rear dance hall wing had partially collapsed. Electrical, heat and plumbing are "obsolete and non-operational."
Photographs in the report show the building overgrown with vegetation, which the company said damages the structure with moisture and provides cover for vandals.
A representative from John G. Waite Associates said the company has tried to make the hotel "structurally sound."
He said the company stabilized the roof, put a new roof on the building and built a new back wall.
Linda Kakulski, who now lives in Braintree, Mass., did not return a call for comment.
In 1997, she told the Community News she lived in the hotel for the first 18 years of her life.
"I'm doing this as sort of a legacy to my family," she said.
Village lost to time
Just as the Northway created Clifton Park as we know it today, it destroyed the village as it once was.
The Northway separated Clifton Park Village from the western half of Clifton Park.
The widening of Route 9 cost the village its tree-lined streets and its small stores. The post office and general store show in old photographs were demolished with the widening, Scherer said. The road was widened in the late 1950s.
Route 146 was straightened, marooning Old Route 146, with half on one side of the Northway and half on the other.
Commercial properties became the only practical type of business along Route 9 in Clifton Park Village.
A proposal to rezone Route 9 on the Clifton Park side of Clifton Park Village is currently before the Town Board.
Town planning officials argued that the neighborhood business designation is no longer practical. If approved, this part of Route 9 would be zoned for highway business.
SnyderÕs Restaurant is one of the few holdouts of the neighborhood businesses at Stevens' Corners.
"Everything is homemade," said manager Kiva Coughlin. Signs throughout the restaurant advertise specials on home-cooked soups and sandwiches, as well as richer fare including macaroni and cheese and meatloaf.
Coughlin, whose father took over the restaurant about 24 years ago, said it will celebrate its 40th anniversary on Mother's Day.
A lot has changed at the Old Route 146 intersection since her family began working at Snyder's, Coughlin said. But the restaurant hasn't.
"It's a hometown place," she said. "Everybody knows your name."
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