The Capital City

You probably know by now that Albany is the capital city of the state of New York. The state's legislature has met here since 1797, and it was Governor Theodore Roosevelt who dedicated the state capitol building on its completion in 1899.

The East Front of the state capitol, completed in 1899.

Benjamin Franklin spent time here working here in the Albany Congress, the revolutionary body that drafted the Albany Plan, a precursor to the United States Constitution. Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton worked here when they fell out, resulting in that famous duel. The city was an important strategic location during the Revolutionary and French and Indian wars.

The capitol's West Front.

Albany's primary industry and major employer is the State of New York. My first full-time job back in 1977 was as a file clerk in a state agency. Many state agencies were located in the Harriman State Office Building Campus on the western edge of town. The sprawling, automobile-oriented campus was not attractive to me as a work location. I had three job offers back then, and I chose the job I took only because it was located in the sparkling new high-rise office development downtown (I'm getting to that later).

The Governor Alfred E. Smith State Office Building, completed in 1928, built in the Art Deco style.

Below, a full shot of the A.E. Smith State Office Building.

There were still many state offices downtown: in the capitol itself, in various smaller office buildings and converted townhouses, and in some rather impressive large buildings that date from the early 1900s. There was also City Hall, the state and federal courts, and hundreds of law offices scattered around.

Albany City Hall, designed by Henry Hobson Richardson and completed in 1883, boasts a 60-bell carillon at the top of the tower that is played regularly.

More From Downtown

This is not meant to be an inventory of Albany's building stock, but I can't resist taking pictures of the buildings around town. Many of them are pretty, others are the backdrops of memories. Albany was the first city in my life and while it's not the biggest, brightest, or most beautiful of the cities I've come to know, it will always have a special place in my heart.

The Home Savings Bank building, erected in 1927.

I suppose home towns are like that. You either can't imagine being anywhere else or you can't wait to get out. I'm somewhere in the middle. I couldn't wait to get out, either, but I've always come back to visit. And I visit as much with the place as I do with the people I come to see.

A window washer at work.

Whenever I'm here, I have to go downtown and walk around. I will drive to certain neighborhoods just to see them, how they've changed or how they haven't. I'll walk into building lobbies if I can, go into churches that I've never set foot in (which is harder and harder to do because they're mostly locked up against vandals these days).

A downtown corner deli.

I like getting off the freeways and taking the old roads through the former industrial areas of Albany and the neighboring cities like Watervliet, Cohoes, and Troy. Many of the old factories, armories, and mills are still standing. Some are empty, others are in use. And the old brick houses still stand and serve. Apartments, row houses, mansions. All in various states of repair or ruin, most still lived in by somebody.

The old and the (relatively) new.

My training in architecture and city planning probably have a lot to do with the way I look at buildings and cities. It's been my observation that a bad economy can be good for a city, at least in the short term. Fast development will wreak havoc with an urban place. In the rush to build, a city can lose its identity. Buildings, streets, and neighborhoods can change drastically or even disappear altogether.

Contrasting window styles.

It's happened here, but to a much lesser extent than larger eastern and southern cities (we'll talk about the big downtown state office building project from the 60s and 70s later). Maybe one day these older, smaller cities will have their renaissance. Maybe one day climate change and the changing energy situation will make these northeastern river towns viable again. They're still here, waiting.

Friends And Family

On Wednesday I had two meals planned. The first was lunch downtown with fellow bloggers Walt and Sean. I met Sean last Saturday at the Miss Albany Diner. I was meeting Walt for the first time at lunch. The first thing he said to me when we met was, "You're short." Well, I am. But he's very tall.

Walt (not me) and Sean at lunch.

We met at the Albany Pump Station, a micro brewery that's been set up inside a former pump house that used to take water from the river and pump it up to a reservoir west of downtown. The building was built in the late 1800s. The pumps closed down in 1932, but the historic building escaped the wrecking ball.

Inside the Albany Pump Station.

Today it is home to the C.H. Evans brewing company which makes a variety of award winning beers, and a restaurant serving great burgers and other amazing sandwiches. I had a hamburger with fries and a couple of Evans' Quackenbush Blonde beers. Very tasty.

Quackenbush Blonde.

My dinner that evening was at my grandmother's place with my aunt. Gram baked a ham, made home made cole slaw, carrots, and baked sweet potatoes. She knows I love her ham, and still likes to make it when I come for a visit. It's very special, as Gram is now ninety years old. She can still cook up a storm!

Gram and me.

After dinner I came back to my friends' house in Delmar and we watched the Yankees win the world series. Great fun!

The Old City

Albany was first seen by Europeans in 1609 when Henry Hudson sailed the Dutch ship Half Moon up the river. Of course, the Mohegans and the Iroquois lived around the area for centuries before the white guys showed up.

Jack's Oyster House, established in 1913.

The city was officially chartered in 1686, making Albany one of the oldest cities in the nation. As the city grew around its river port, it was mostly huddled close to the waterfront and the fort that stood there. A steep river bank rises westward from there, and the city expanded up the hill in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Maiden Lane looking east toward the river.

The streets in this older part of town are short, forming a loose grid around the main streets that parallel the river: Quay, Broadway, and Pearl Streets. Unfortunately, not much remains of Quay Street; what is left is now a freeway ramp. State Street rises westward up the river bank, beginning at what was known until recently as the Plaza, a large "square" that is framed by the D&H Railroad building. The Plaza was where all the city's trolleys (now gone) started their runs. After the trolleys were replaced by motorized buses, the Plaza was the terminus for most of the lines.

The dome of an old bank building at State and Broadway.

When the D&H building was renovated to become S.U.N.Y. headquarters, the Plaza was turned into a grassy park. I think the city lost something there, but who am I to say. The park is pretty.

Albany rooftops pointing skyward.

I wandered around the streets for about an hour last week reacquainting myself with buildings and streets I grew up with, and some new buildings that have been built in the last ten or so years. It's nice to see the new buildings rising downtown; many of them are state offices that were once dispersed on the western edges of town. There is also a relatively new sports arena downtown that hosts the local ice hockey team and serves as a venue for concerts and other events.

St. Mary's church, founded in 1797. The current building dates from 1867.

The only thing missing from downtown is some serious residential neighborhoods. There are vestiges of the old neighborhoods on the fringes, and of course the poorer areas in the South End and on Arbor Hill. But, as I said before, the bulk of the middle class moved out of the downtown area to the suburbs long ago. Huge freeways move people from their spacious comfortable homes to the offices and back again. They shop in suburban malls and eat in big chain restaurants. They're like most Americans; can't blame them for that.

An older building, renovated for new life.

I've always wished that my little home town could bustle again, that people could find a way to be closer to the river, to live among the beautiful monumental architecture of the state's capital, and to preserve the little neighborhoods with their brownstone and brick row houses. And to build new neighborhoods and new buildings in the city center and bring back some of the urban vitality that the city lost so long ago. I think that's a tall order in this day and age. The suburbs are firmly established and many have developed their own charm. Not many would give that up for city living.

Some modern buildings and parking garages.

But I can still dream.

Along The Waterfront

Albany is the last navigable port on the Hudson River north of New York City. Ocean-going vessels dock in Albany: cargo and military. Passenger ships used to ply the waters between Albany and New York, but no more.

The Hudson, looking south from a public dock at the waterfront park.

The Erie Canal begins here and, when it was new, it was the gateway to the interior of the United States. Then the railroads came and the canal's importance diminished. There's not a lot left of the old waterfront, once bustling with ships heading south and lumber coming down from the north. In the 1960's, when the Hudson was polluted and nobody wanted anything to do with the river, a huge freeway was built along the waterfront effectively cutting the city off from the water.

Looking north toward the Adirondacks.

In recent years, as the Hudson became clean again, citizens renewed their interest in the shoreline. But the freeway is a huge scar and barrier, and it's not going anywhere. City leaders built a waterfront park and a big pedestrian bridge to cross the freeway. They added public docks and some tourist attractions. It's better than nothing and gives folks some limited access to the river right downtown.

The tower of the old Delaware & Hudson Railroad building, now headquarters of the State University of New York.

I enjoy walking around down there, around the tiny streets that once hustled and bustled in the nineteenth century city. It was a town of big politics, big commerce, gambling and gangsters, and all the glamor and grit that went with it. Albany was a big town back then, and growing. There's not much left to remind us of those days. It's a very different city now, older and worn, tired, quiet.

A glimpse of the state capitol on the left; a church spire on the right.

The old downtown train station was closed in 1968 and what little railroad activity that remained was relocated to the left bank of the Hudson. The historic turn-of-the-century building was subsequently saved and converted into a bank in the mid-1980s.

Albany Union Station (center) now cut off from the rails and the river by an interstate highway.

Suburbanization in the 1950s and 60s took a lot of the middle class population out of town. With them went the stores and the restaurants, the jobs and the offices, the hustle and the bustle. But the old town is not dead, and there are signs of life to be seen, if you look carefully.

Auntie Q's

Antiques. Junque. Salvage. After breakfast on Saturday, Sean and Jeffrey took me around the corner from the diner to one of their favorite places to shop for old stuff. It's mostly salvage stuff and some vintage stuff and some art.

A glass top table and some other furniture.

We wandered around ooohing and awwwing at all the furniture, lamps, photos, and other treasures. I saw several things that I would willingly take home if I had the means to carry and/or ship them. Thankfully, that's not possible.

Bus destinations.

There was a great glass top table that we all loved instantly. There were old traffic lights that could be really cool as fixtures in the house. I saw many old bus destination signs from the old days. And there were books and photos and paintings of places I remember from when I was a kid.

Sean modeling a hat.

And, more than anything else, there were odd things: broken dolls, novelty items from the seventies, the ugliest table lamps I've ever seen in my life, and more.  It was great fun just wandering around looking, fantasizing, and laughing about the things we were seeing.

 A book of sketches.

After a short time it was time to say "au revoir" to the guys and head off. But we made plans for dinner on Friday, so I'll see them again before I return to France.

Miss Albany Diner

Saturday morning I planned to meet up with some fellow bloggers in the Albany area. This fun lovin' group of guys gets together weekly for breakfast at an old downtown diner currently called the Miss Albany Diner.

Left to right: Sean, Dan, Roger, and Jeffrey.

The diner has been there since 1941 and has had various names over the years. It's featured in the film Ironweed, made back in the mid eighties.  The guys get there early each Saturday to be sure to get their regular table and their favorite waiter.

Inside the diner before we ordered.

It was great fun to be there to meet and get to know Sean & Jeffrey and a couple of their good friends. Of the four, only Sean is an Albany native. The others hail from further south on the East Coast and as far away as Mississippi.

Table 1, party of five.

Breakfast for me was two poached eggs on toast with a curried cream sauce and sliced scallions, served with a side of home fries. Very good, and accompanied by coffee and orange juice, terrific company, and fun conversation. What a great way to start the day!