Center Square/Hudson–Park Historic District

Center Square/Hudson–Park
Historic District

An urban street with cars parked along either side. On the left is a group of ornate three-story brick rowhouses in various colors. In the background is a tall modernist office tower, with smaller versions on its flanks.

Row houses on Hamilton Street with Empire State Plaza in background, 2009
Location Roughly bounded by Park Ave., State, Lark and S. Swan Sts., Albany, NY
Coordinates 42°39′8″N 73°45′55″W / 42.65222°N 73.76528°W / 42.65222; -73.76528Coordinates: 42°39′8″N 73°45′55″W / 42.65222°N 73.76528°W / 42.65222; -73.76528
Area 99 acres (40 ha)
Built 1825–1932
Architect Multiple
Architectural style Mid 19th Century Revival, Late 19th And 20th Century Revivals, Late Victorian
NRHP Reference # 80002578[1]
Added to NRHP March 18, 1980

The Center Square/Hudson–Park Historic District is located between Empire State Plaza and Washington Park in Albany, New York, United States. It is a 27-block area taking in both the Center Square and Hudson/Park neighborhoods, and Lark Street on the west. In 1980 it was recognized as a historic district and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Most of its buildings were constructed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with some dating as far back as the 1830s, in a diverse array of architectural styles of the era. Many prominent architects, including Marcus T. Reynolds and Russell Sturgis, have extant work in the district. Only 22 buildings are more modern, non-contributing properties. While 80% of its buildings are attached rowhouses, giving it a predominantly residential character even today, it also includes churches, two small parks and the Alfred E. Smith State Office Building.[2] Among those are the city's oldest black church and the firehouse that housed its last volunteer fire department. One of Albany's legendary figures, longtime mayor Erastus Corning 2nd, was born in a house on Chestnut Street; another, gangster Legs Diamond, was murdered in one on Dove Street.

Development of the neighborhood began in the 1840s, when the Ruttenkill Creek ravine was filled in. In those early years, houses built there reflected the socioeconomic diversity of the residents. Some were large, high style buildings, the homes of wealthy city residents; others were smaller, more vernacular interpretations built in groups for lower-income buyers. Later, in the last decades of the 19th century, it became a more desirable neighborhood after the current state capitol and Washington Park were built. It continues to remain so, although it did not get its current names until two neighborhood associations were formed to resist urban renewal in the 1960s and '70s.[3]

Geography

The district is a roughly rectangular area with a regular boundary on the east and an irregular one on the west. Center Square, the northern section, is considered to be those six blocks between Lark, State, South Swan and Jay streets.[4] South of that is Hudson–Park.[5]

Its boundary begins at the intersection of Washington Avenue (New York State Route 5) and South Swan Street. On the intersection's southwest corner is the Aflred Smith building, the district's largest, near the New York State Capitol, a National Historic Landmark, and the State Education Department Building, also on the Register. From there the district's eastern boundary runs straight south along South Swan for one-half mile (1 km), past the modern buildings of Empire State Plaza and the New York State Museum, to Park Avenue at the north edge of Lincoln Park.[2]

It continues two blocks west to Delaware Avenue (U.S. Route 9W) where it turns north along that street for one block. Then it turns west at Myrtle Avenue, avoiding a large modern building on the intersection's southwest corner, to follow it west for one block. It then turns north along Lark Street, for two blocks, turning west again at Dana Avenue. After taking in two lots on the north side of the street, it follows the lot lines off the street to the middle of the block, turning west to take in all the buildings on the south side of Madison Avenue (U.S. Route 20) to just opposite the intersection with Willet Street, at the southeast corner of Washington Park.[2]

The buildings on Willet are part of the Washington Park Historic District, so the boundary turns east again, excluding the two lots just east of the intersection. It then follows rear lot lines through the middle of the next three blocks to Spring Street, where it turns east. From there it follows Spring east for a thousand feet (300 m), putting two more Register-listed properties, the Walter Merchant House and Harmanus Bleecker Library, just outside the district, to Dove Street. It continues along the lot lines to the west side of the Smith Building lot, where it turns to Washington to take in that building.[2]

Topographically the district reflects the proximity of the Hudson River a half-mile (1 km) to the east. It generally slopes slightly in that direction. There is a more pronounced dip centered on Hudson Avenue in the eastern (Center Square) portion, where one of the ravines that characterized the area before the city was developed was filled in. A similar depression occurs, for the same reason, in the district's southeast corner next to Lincoln Park.[2]

A map of the district with its boundary outlined in red, showing highway designations and points of interest
Map of the district

The 99 acres (40 ha) of the district is urban and densely developed. The majority of buildings are two-to-four-story attached brick rowhouses, or similar detached townhouses, usually three bays built in the late 19th or early 20th centuries, in a range of architectural styles from late Federal to Colonial Revival, high and low. They are often grouped in similar clusters due to simultaneous development, although no one style predominates over a single street or block. There are a few older timber frame houses, mainly in the south end on Myrtle and Park avenues. Many properties have detached garages in the rear, either converted carriage houses or built as garages in the 20th century.[2]

Scattered around the district are other building types, primarily institutional. They range from the 34-story Smith Building at the northeast corner and the brick structures of the former Hinckle Brewery on Park Avenue to the six churches, most notably the Wilborn Temple on Lancaster Street, whose tower is a secondary focal point of the district after the Smith Building. Although most commercial use in the district is of mixed-use character, occurring in the basements and at street level of otherwise residential rowhouses, there are some historic commercial buildings, as well as larger modern, non-contributing development like supermarkets and gas stations.[2]

Formal open space in the district is limited to the small Hudson–Jay Park between those two streets near South Swan and the loop at the aborted stub end of the South Mall Arterial, and the very small Dana Park on Delaware Square where Delaware Avenue and Lark merge at Madison. However, many of the houses in the district have large backyards. Vacant lots, not all of which have been converted into parking lots, also provide breaks in development. Many streets have been lined with mature trees to further provide shade and calm traffic. Some retain their original cobblestone or brick pavement, and crosswalks have been paved that way in other areas.[2]

History

Center Square and Hudson–Park have four distinct historical periods. During the city's colonial period and even after the opening of the Erie Canal, it was little-used and remote from downtown. Development took off after the filling of the Ruttenkill Creek ravine in 1845. By the end of the century the area was one of the city's most prestigious addresses, but change began slowly in the early 20th century, with more non-residential use creeping in.[2] Later in the century, the neighborhood associations formed to preserve the area finally gave their name to both neighborhoods,[6] as well as guiding their development into, once again, an affluent and desirable area of Albany to live in.[7]

1664–1845: Pre-development

For most of the colonial era, Albany had been confined by a defensive wooden stockade to its present downtown. It had come down after British victory in the French and Indian War ended any threat from the French, but the tensions that led to the Revolutionary War a decade later, and its aftermath, had limited the city's growth. The land where the district would later stand was known as Pinkster Hill, since the annual spring festival held by the area's African Americans, both slave and free, was held there until 1822.[7]

Even when the city began to grow again significantly after becoming the eastern terminus of the Erie Canal in 1825, its expansion was primarily north and south along the Hudson River, where the land was level. A few residents ventured to the west. Several houses were built on State and Lydius (today's Madison Avenue) streets during the 1830s. These were generally small timber frame buildings, a few of which remain, mostly small cottages. The 1837 house at 321 State Street is the oldest intact property in the district, and it is predated by the 1827 Alfred Conckling House at 353 Madison Avenue, which had a third story added in the 1920s.[2] In 1842 the Israel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the oldest black church in the city, bought land at its present site at 381 Hamilton Street. It built a church there which burned down two years later.[8]

1845–1899: Growth and development

Just to the west of the city rose sharp bluffs penetrated by ravines that had been carved by the small local tributaries of the Hudson. To better connect the growing city's neighborhoods, they were filled in over time. One such filling, the Ruttenkill Creek, made possible the development of the future historic district in 1845. The new area, between Hawk, State, Lark and Madison, attracted builders very quickly.[2] Fire Station No. 6, home to the city's last company of volunteers, was built at South Swan and Jefferson streets in the 1860s.[9] In 1867 Lydius Street was renamed Madison Avenue after former U.S. President James Madison, a move that was attacked as an effort to further cleanse Albany of its Dutch colonial past.[10] Horsecar service, later replaced by electrified streetcar service, was introduced along a route following Hamilton Street to Lark and then south to Madison Avenue in the 1860s. An 1890s-vintage electric pole for the system, one of two left in the city, is in front of 401 Hamilton.[8]

Builders almost exclusively put up groups of attached brick rowhouses, often demolishing any earlier structures on the property, changing the character of the district. Many were builders or other local businessmen. Their models ranged from simple buildings for working-class families to high-end houses for affluent buyers. Judge William Learned commissioned Russell Sturgis to design homes for his family at 298–300 State Street in 1873, one of only two buildings he designed in the city.[11] Originally architects and builders worked in the Italianate style, but later projects used contemporary styles like the Second Empire and Queen Anne modes.[2]

A large brick building, five stories on the right, three in the middle and four on the right, seen from across a cobblestone street. On the pediment atop the left, the words "Hinckel Brewing Company" can be seen.
Hinckel Brewery complex

In the early 1850s the Israel AME Church finally rebuilt, allegedly from a design by its pastor, The Rev. Thomas Jackson. It is the oldest church building in the district.[8] The State Street Presbyterian Church at 260 State Street, today the Westminster Presbyterian Church, was next in 1862, followed by the Emanuel Baptist Church at 275 State seven years later.[12] Other socially prominent residents who moved into the area at that time include Anthony Bleecker Banks, who served as state legislator and mayor,[13] and James Eaton, supervising architect of the new state capitol,[14] who developed many of the homes in the area as well.[2] In 1889 the Richardsonian Romanesque Temple Beth Emeth (today known as the Wilborn Temple, and used as a church), formed from the merger of two synagogues that had once been bitter rivals, was completed at the corner of South Swan and Lancaster.[15] The nearby blocks soon attracted the city's wealthiest Jewish families.[16]

While the rest of the neighborhood grew, the blocks south of Elm Street remained largely undeveloped during this early period. The Hinckel brewery had been located at Park and South Swan since 1855.[17] But for residents, those blocks were too far from downtown Albany and the riverfront to walk to work there, and no streetcar lines reached them. In 1886 the ravine to the south was filled and Lincoln Park created. Development there remained slow, however.[2]

Another park helped transform the district into a more upscale enclave. Over the course of the 1870s and 80s, Washington Park was gradually acquired and developed. The streets around it became the city's newest desirable address, with their wealthy residents building houses larger than the rowhouses they had previously called home. The spillover effect on property values on the streets to the east was enhanced when the new state capitol was just to the east. By 1896, two years before the capitol was complete, every street in the district had at least one address on Albany's Social List.[2]

1900–1956: Consolidation

A tall white blocky stone building seen from across a square with trees and a walkway leading to the arched main entrance. Just below the top are three similar long narrow arched windows; the building has two wings on either side, about two-thirds its height, which themselves have wings about half their height from which American flags fly on poles on top.
The Alfred E. Smith Building

In the first decades of the 20th century the neighborhood began to change slightly. Large apartment houses were built,[2] such as the buildings at 352 and 355 State Street. The latter, designed by Marcus T. Reynolds, architect of many of the city's prominent buildings from this era, would become popular with the district's longtime residents as they aged.[18] Nine years after its 1915 construction, in one of the city's greatest engineering feats, the Fort Frederick was moved, intact and with furnishings, to its present location at 248 State from Washington and Swan, in order to make way for what was eventually built as the Alfred E. Smith State Office Building.[19] Existing houses were subdivided into apartments as well.[2] In 1913, with Prohibition appearing more and more likely, the former Amsdell Brewery at 175 Jay Street was also converted into apartments.[20] The vacant Albany Card and Paper Company plant at 270–76 Hudson Street was converted into a movie theater in 1916.[21]

This trend toward larger buildings and greater density culminated with the completion of the Smith Building in 1928. The 34-story Art Deco skyscraper instantly became the district's largest building. As subsequent office buildings in the district were not architecturally sympathetic with the rowhouses around them, it is considered the district's youngest contributing property.[2]

Elsewhere in the district during the first three decades of the new century, in 1903 a memorial fountain to geologist James Dwight Dana was erected in the small park now named after him where Lark Street and Delaware Avenue merge at Madison Avenue. Nearby, at 25 Delaware Avenue 14 years later, in 1917, the city's fire department built the Dutch Colonial Revival fire signaling building.[22]

A one-story brick building with gabled roof and stepped parapet at the end and a large tree in front of its right side
Central Fire Alarm Signaling Building

As Prohibition had been anticipated by the conversion of a brewery into apartments, Repeal was heralded one of the most notorious events in the district's history. In the early hours of December 12, 1931, gangster Legs Diamond, who had grown rich partly through sales of illegal liquor, was shot dead in his hideout on the upper floor of 67 Dove Street as he slept off a party the night before. The killing officially remains unsolved.[20]

The Great Depression, which followed, had an effect on the district. Since the 1890s the wealthy families that lived there had often merely rented their rowhouses while owning summer residences outside the city, in then-rural communities like Loudonville, Slingerlands, Altamont or Selkirk. In the 1930s, cash-strapped landlords began pressuring their city tenants to either buy the properties outright or move. With the advent of the automobile, commuting to work in the city from outlying locations had become easier, and many faced with that choice took the latter route, taking up full-time residence in what had up to then been their summer homes, and beginning the suburbanization of the Albany area, a process that accelerated after World War II.[19]

1957–present: Neighborhood associations

In 1957 residents of the six blocks between State, South Swan, Jay and Lark formed the Center Square Neighborhood Association (CSNA), Albany's oldest such organization,[23] which ultimately lent its name to their neighborhood.[6] By the late 1960s it had played a key role in the city's zoning overhaul. In the early 1970s it successfully opposed both a plan to demolish four buildings for a parking garage, and an attempt by McDonald's to open a restaurant in the neighborhood.[24] The later condemnation of the neighborhoods east of South Swan for Empire State Plaza, and the plans to extend the South Mall Arterial freeway west along Jay Street, spurred the creation of the Hudson/Park Neighborhood Association in the 1970s. It succeeded both in stopping the highway project, and giving a name to its neighborhood.[6]

As it had been when the area was first developed, Center Square and Hudson/Park were socioeconomically diverse at the time the neighborhood associations were established. Over the course of the 1980s, that changed in Center Square as the CSNA's success began to make that neighborhood a desirable place for the young professionals of the era to live. By 1990 it had the highest rents in the city.[25] The CSNA helped residents fight the city over a property tax reassessment in the late 1980s that many of them believed had singled out their neighborhood.[26] It also successfully opposed another parking garage proposal at that time.[25]

Several city blocks seen from above near a setting sun off-camera to the left, with snow on their roofs and some church spires sticking up
Center Square seen from the Smith Building

The neighborhood association's success in getting its way with city politicians has been attributed to its membership having many lawyers, civil servants and other well-connected present and former residents to draw upon.[27] It has sometimes drawn criticism as an elite group that represents the interests of only its members in preserving the neighborhood's high property values at the expense of the city as a whole.[28] Specifically, when organized opposition by the CSNA and other groups in the city prevented the construction of another proposed parking garage in the late 1980s, some residents of adjacent blocks complained that they had been open to the plan as long as it could be amended to show more sensitivity to the historic character of the neighborhood. They pointed out that residents often competed for parking with state workers in the buildings at Empire State Plaza, and that older residents and those with small children had considered moving out of the neighborhood for the suburbs due to the parking problem.[26] Others have complained that the CSNA's opposition to sidewalk cafes near residences, and some art galleries on the Lark Street end of the neighborhood, restricts the area's growth by keeping out businesses essential to a desirable urban setting.[29]

A row of attached brick three-story houses with pedimented roofs and elaborate decoration, painted in a variety of colors.
Restored houses on Lark Street

Historic preservation of the neighborhoods led the producers of the film adaptation of William Kennedy's novel Ironweed to use Lark Street as a location. The story takes place in Albany during the Depression, and it did not need to be recreated as many buildings from that era still stood. "The trolley came back to Lark Street in Albany," recalled Kennedy, "on a block where it had never run."[30]

In the 1990s the CSNA and the Lark Street Merchants Association began working together in response to early signs of urban decay brought on by that era's recession. They formed the Lark Street Revitalization Committee and were able to secure approximately half a million dollars in grants to restore and redevelop the area.[28] Eventually they formed a business improvement district. Lark Street has since become regionally noted for its arts community. It hosts several annual festivals, including Art on Lark, Winter WonderLark, its Champagne on the Park annual fundraiser and LarkFEST, the state's largest single-day open-air street festival.[31]

Stoops on some brick houses, seen looking along the sidewalk. One has balloons in the colors of the rainbow tied to its railing. Another has a purple ribbon.
Gay pride decorations on Lark Street, 2006

Since at least the 1970s the city's gay community had been centered on Lark Street.[32] As gay visibility increased in the 1990s, Lark became identified as Albany's gay village. The Pride Center of the Capital Region has its office on Hudson near Lark.[33] The city's annual gay pride parade is held along State[34] and Lark,[35] ending in a festival at Washington Park.[36]

Significant contributing properties

While no building in the district is currently listed individually on the National Register, many of its contributing properties are noteworthy within its context.

Properties known by their address

These were all built as single-family residences, although their use may changed over the years.

A narrow brick building with dark brown steps leading to the main entrance. Most of the upper two stories are obscured by a tree
67 Dove Street
A long row of two-story, three-bay rowhouses in different colors seen looking down a city side street with trees in autumn color
Rowhouses on Elm Street

Properties known by their names

A view down a city sidewalk with identical orange brick rowhouses, all with a projecting upper window
Brides' Row
A large stone block with "Dana Memorial" carved into the top and a water basin on the side facing the viewer. It is on a narrow strip of sidewalk in an urban area with a grassy area planted with trees behind it.
Dana Memorial Fountain
An ornate eight-story brick buildings with stone corners and trim. In the foreground is an intersection with traffic signals and some smaller buildings
Fort Frederick Apartments
A five-story gray building with blue trim and a mansard roof, seen from across the street and partially obscured by bare trees on the left
Knickerbocker Apartments
A black latticework metal needle-shaped tower in a city street with the leaves in autumn color
Trolley-wire tower
Westminster Presbyterian Church

See also

References

  1. ↑ National Park Service (2009-03-13). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 T. Robins Brown and E. Spencer-Ralph (1976). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Center Square/Hudson-Park Historic District". New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Retrieved 2010-10-18. See also: "Accompanying 49 photos".
  3. ↑ Gilder, Cornelia Brooke (1993). Diana Waite, ed. Albany Architecture: A Guide to the City. Albany, NY: Mount Ida Press. p. 125. ISBN 9780962536816.
  4. ↑ "HomePage". Center Square Neighborhood Association. May 18, 2012. Retrieved July 29, 2012.
  5. ↑ "About Us". Hudson/Park Neighborhood Association. 2012. Retrieved July 29, 2012.
  6. 1 2 3 Gilder, 125.
  7. 1 2 Rabrenovic, Gordana (1996). Community Builders: A Tale of Neighborhood Mobilization in Two Cities. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. pp. 65–66. ISBN 9781566394109. Retrieved July 23, 2012.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 Gilder, 144.
  9. 1 2 Gilder, 145.
  10. 1 2 Gilder, 146.
  11. 1 2 3 Gilder, 129.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Gilder, 127.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Gilder, 131.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Gilder, 132–33.
  15. 1 2 Gilder, 135.
  16. 1 2 Gilder, 136.
  17. 1 2 Gilder, 150.
  18. ↑ Gilder, 133.
  19. 1 2 3 4 Gilder, 126.
  20. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Gilder, 140.
  21. 1 2 3 4 5 Gilder, 141.
  22. 1 2 3 Gilder, 149.
  23. ↑ "Lark Street BID". Lark Street Business Improvement District. 2016. Retrieved June 20, 2016.
  24. ↑ Rabrenovic, 65
  25. 1 2 Rabrenovic, 66
  26. 1 2 Rabrenovic, 81
  27. ↑ Rabrenovic, 72–73
  28. 1 2 Rabrenovic, 91
  29. ↑ Rabrenovic, 78
  30. ↑ McGilligan, Patrick (1995). Jack's Life: A Biography of Jack Nicholson. W.W. Norton & Co. p. 356. ISBN 9780393313789.
  31. ↑ "Mission". Lark Street BID. 2016. Retrieved June 20, 2016.
  32. ↑ Casidy, Edward F. (2011). Looking Back on Tomorrow: A Life Story. AuthorHouse. pp. 166–67. ISBN 9781467054454.
  33. ↑ "Our Mission". Pride Center of the Capital Region. 2012. Retrieved July 27, 2012.
  34. ↑ "2012 Capital Pride Parade and Festival". Times Union. June 10, 2012. Retrieved July 27, 2012.
  35. ↑ "2012 Capital Pride Parade and Festival". Times Union. June 10, 2012. Retrieved July 27, 2012.
  36. ↑ "Capital Pride 2012 Events". Pride Center of the Capital Region. 2012. Retrieved July 27, 2012.
  37. 1 2 3 Gilder, 134.
  38. 1 2 Gilder, 137.
  39. 1 2 3 Gilder 138.
  40. 1 2 3 4 5 Gilder, 128.
  41. 1 2 3 Gilder, 130.
  42. ↑ "Home". New York State Republican Committee. Archived from the original on May 14, 2010. Retrieved July 29, 2012.
  43. ↑ Carleo-Evangelist, Jordan (September 8, 2011). "Ex-firehouse likely damaged by rains". Times Union. Retrieved August 1, 2012.
  44. ↑ Carleo-Evangelist, Jordan (October 25, 2011). "New owner, new vision for troubled firehouse". Times Union. Retrieved August 1, 2012.
  45. ↑ Rabrenovic, 88
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Center Square/Hudson–Park Historic District.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/28/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.