Students from Christian Brothers Academy march through Washington Park during the Albany tricentennial parade in 1924.

It's a downer when everybody forgets your birthday. It's worse when your loved ones remember but don't bother to celebrate.

So offer sympathies to poor Albany, one of the nation's oldest cities. Founded in 1624, she turns 400 this year. You would hardly know it.

The quiet contrasts with the celebration that gripped the city for the 300th anniversary, celebrated, of course, 100 years ago.

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As the Times Union's C.J. Lais noted in June, that occasion was marked by a four-day, citywide celebration that culminated in the world’s first helium-filled rigid airship hovering over a docked replica of the Half Moon before traveling above State Street to the Capitol.

There, under throngs of proud Albany residents, it served as the radio transmitter for a message from President Calvin Coolidge to Al Smith, then the state's governor.

"Accept my heartiest congratulations on the 300th anniversary of the city of Albany," Coolidge said from Washington. "It is eminently fitting that this historic city, which has witnessed the first steamboat voyage, the opening of the........

© Times Union