The name Cucumber Alley, like the wild cucumber vine for which it is named, has sprouted quite naturally on the little lane that leads from Washington Avenue in the Schenectady Stockade down to the Mohawk River and Binnekill creek. Like the plant, the unusual name has been seen as pesky and unwanted by some, while being treasured by most others for its humble charms. Thankfully, both name and plant have been almost impossible to banish. Although the alley is short and straight, the path to its current name is surprisingly long, bumpy and twisted. The outcome was never inevitable and the rules never clear, but history and the Stockade neighborhood have clearly won the Cucumber Alley Name Game (for now).
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– corner of Cucumber Alley and Washington Ave. –
– click on this collage for views of the river end of Cucumber Alley . . 
Location: [click for Google Map and street view] Cucumber Alley is located in Schenectady, NY, USA, in the City’s Stockade Historic District, starting at the corner of Washington Avenue across from its intersection with Front Street, and running about 300 feet westward to the Mohawk River. Its geographical coordinates are: 42.8177665 and -73.9490356.
See our companion posting “celebrating Cucumber Alley” for over 100 photos (including more than a dozen loosely-themed collages) taken of and from Cucumber Alley.
The Name:
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One of my favorite things about Cucumber Alley is its name. The lane is called “Cucumber Alley,” because of the wild cucumbers (scientific name: Echinocystis lobata), that have long been found along the river bank at the end of the alley. (The USDA sketch of the plant is shown at the head of this paragraph, as is a photograph by Brian Johnston in Micscape Magazine.). According to “Wild Cucumber and Bur Cucumber“, by Beth R. Jarvis for the University of Minnesota Extension, the wild cucumber weed is often found along river bottoms, swamps and other low areas, and has smooth, branching vines that can reach lengths of 15-25 feet, and which can “climb and almost engulf trees.” When ripe, the wild cucumber’s 2-inch-long, spine-covered, oval, pulpy seed pods burst open and eject four seeds.
I’ve always assumed that the wild cucumber was considered to be solely an annoyance by our forbearers, because of its tenacious trailing, twining and climbing. (see photo on the right) For example, the fictitious, grumpy Stockade elder “Van Goober” is featured in a May 16, 1933 Schenectady Gazette column in which he complains about the proposal to change the name from Cucumber Alley to West Front Street. Van Goober explains in a segment captioned ” ‘Cukes’ Untamable”:
“The name, of course, comes from the wild cucumbers that used to grow along there. They were cucumbers gone wild–or rather, never tamed–and that’s all there is to it. . . .
“Heavy wagons smashed over them, year after year, and portly, waddling merchants swished at them with their canes, to and from their offices. But the cucumbers grew on–and definitely placed the street.”
In one of his Tales of Old Dorp columns for the Schenectady Gazette (February 23, 1982), historian Larry Hart also stressed the hardiness of the wild vines:
“As for Cucumber Alley, the story that comes down to us from pre-Revolutionary days is that the main thoroughfare from Washington Avenue (then Lion Street) down to the docks and boat construction buildings on the riverfront was a lane that was profuse with wild cucumber vines. It was said that no matter how heavy the wagon or pedestrian traffic, the vines continue to grow. Hence, the lane was called Cucumber Alley.”
I was surprised, therefore, when I found former City archivist William Efner’s brief explanation of the Alley’s name. Efner discussed the alley in a notation included in a binder of Washington Avenue photographs housed in the City Archives, which are now named for him. Efner notes that the lane was the entry route to Ann Street, which was long ago washed away by flooding, but had been the “great forwarding center of the 17-18th centuries”. Ann St. was lined by “forwarding houses”, which organized the shipping of articles for the producer to its markets, and whose employees were known as “forwards”. Efner wrote, “Oh, the name:
“Forwards driving in had their hearts warmed by a profusion of cucumber blossoms covering a north-side stone fence.” [Efner Center (AC 6421)]
And see the wonderful burning (forsythia) bush in the Slideshow 
suns along the Mohawk 
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