[2] The founder was Hugh J. Hastings, a young immigrant from County Fermanagh, Ireland, who worked as a reporter for several local newspapers before striking out on his own as a publisher/editor in the newspaper-rich community.
)[2] Over the years, Hastings (who became politically influential before eventually selling his company and moving to Monmouth, New Jersey, where he worked as a publisher until his death in a carriage accident) and his successor owners purchased and absorbed numerous competitors, and for decades the publication had the highest daily circulation in New York's Capital Region.
albeit for a very brief period, was Harry M. Rosenfeld, who had been hired from the editorial staff of The Washington Post by the Hearst Corp. about a year earlier to be editor of that newspaper and its sister publication, the Albany Times Union.
Dowd, who previously had worked with newspapers belonging to the Brush-Moore, Gannett, and Thompson chains, also wrote an award-winning column that contributed to the publication winning more than 100 journalism awards under his supervision in its final decade.
When The Knickerbocker News staff and resources were folded into the Times Union, under corporate orders no layoffs were made, an unusual decision in an industry in which staffing reductions during mergers had become the norm to cut costs.