Albany

Railroad Station: Union Station, 547 Broadway, for New York Central System, Boston & Albany R.R., Delaware & Hudson R.R.

Bus Stations: 350 Broadway for Greyhound, Mountain View Coach, Champlain Coach and Hudson Transit Lines; 504 Broadway for Arrow Line, L.B.K. Line, Vermont Transit Co.; 426 Broadway for Interstate Busses Corp., Adirondack Trailways, Hudson Transit Lines; Plaza, Broadway & State St., for interurban busses.

Airport: 7.5 m. NW. on State 155. Local flights $1, $1.50; time 15 min.

Piers: S. Broadway, one block S. of Plaza, for Hudson River Day Line, May 25–Sept. 30; Port of Albany, S. city limits, freight service.

Streetcars and Busses: Fare 10¢; 13 tokens for $1.

Taxis: 25¢ up; zone rates.

Accommodations: 12 hotels; boarding houses, tourist homes.

Information Service: Tourist and Convention Bureau, Chamber of Commerce, 74 Chapel St.; Travel Bureau, Hotel Ten Eyck, 87 State St.; Albany Auto Club, Wellington Hotel, 136 State St.; De Witt Clinton Travel Bureau, De Witt Clinton Hotel, State and Eagle Sts.

Radio Stations: WOKO (1430 kc.); WABY (1370 kc.).

Theaters and Motion Picture Houses: Legitimate plays occasionally; 13 motion picture houses.

Swimming: Lincoln Park, Morton Ave. between Delaware Ave. and Eagle St.; locker 10¢.

Boating: Washington Park, Madison Ave. between Willett St. and Lake Ave., 25¢ per hr.

Golf: Municipal Golf Course, New Scotland Ave. and Whitehall Rd., 18 holes, 50¢.

Baseball: Hawkins Stadium, Broadway, Menands (State 32), Albany Senators of Eastern League, adm. 50¢–$1.10, night games.

Tennis: City parks, free.

Annual Event: Albany-New York outboard motorboat race, first week in June.

ALBANY (18 alt., 130,447 pop.), capital of New York State, inland seaport and port of entry on the west bank of the Hudson River, is built along the edge of a plateau that extends 18 miles northwest to the Mohawk Valley. Docks, railroad terminals, and factories occupy the narrow shelf at the water’s edge. The Union Station, a massive rectangular building of late French Renaissance design, occupies an entire city block on Broadway between Steuben and Columbia Streets. The business section rises up the steep slope of the hill—a cluster of tall bank, hotel, office, and department store buildings: the main shopping area is in the Broadway, Pearl, and lower State Street section. The hill is crowned by the Capitol, the towering State Office Building, and the colonnaded State Education Building; other governmental structures border Academy Park. From this center spread the prim, tree-shaded streets of brownstone and brick homes of Victorian Albany, interspersed with modern apartment buildings and occasional new residences. In the Pine Hills section, along Western and Madison Avenue, are pretentious homes built by wealthy residents in the 1890’s and early 1900’s. The Whitehall, New Scotland, and West Albany sections were built up later. Beyond, the city spreads out in boulevard developments and suburban bungalows. Twenty-five parks, with an aggregate area of almost 300 acres, provide for playgrounds and recreation.

Although Albany is an important manufacturing and wholesale distributing center, its personality is determined by its function as the capital of the State. For the 5,000 State employees, politics is the consuming interest. During political campaigns, and in the early months of the year when the legislature meets, the corridors of State buildings and hotel lobbies hum with politics. It is this large group of office workers that gives Albany an essentially ‘white-collar’ appearance.

Albany’s population is a composite of Dutch, English, Scots, Irish, and Germans, with more recent immigrant elements including Italians, Poles, and Russians. There is a small percentage of Negroes. The city’s churches are distributed among 16 denominations. Included in the public school system are 24 grammar and four high schools. There are 18 parochial schools, five degree-granting colleges, and several private schools and academies.

Aboriginal Indian trails running north and south along the Hudson Valley and east and west between Massachusetts and Niagara crossed at the site of Albany. Near by were one or two small Indian villages but the plateau was used principally for campsites and the cultivation of maize. On September 19, 1609, Henry Hudson anchored the Half Moon in the shallows off the site of the present city—the farthest point north the ship reached—and spent several days making friends with the Indians. In 1613 two vessels commanded by Captain Adrian Block and Hendrick Christiansen spent the winter near the head of navigation. In 1614, on Castle Island (Van Rensselaer Island), now part of the Port of Albany, Christiansen built Fort Nassau, which was used as a trading post for four years; and sporadic trade was thereafter continued by individual merchants. The friendly relations maintained with the Indians during this early period had a lasting influence on Albany’s Colonial history.

The first permanent settlers, who came in 1624, were 18 families, mostly Walloons from Holland. They built a second fort on the site of the present river steamer landing and called it Fort Orange in honor of the ruling house of Holland.

In 1630 Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, with two partners, purchased from the the Indians land on both sides of the Hudson River with Fort Orange the approximate center, and established the patroonship of Rensselaerswyck. The patroon, who never came to the Colony, sent Dutch, Norwegians, Danes, Germans, and Scots to settle on the land; he built sawmills, gristmills, homes, and barns for them; supplied foodstuffs and cattle; set up laws regulating trade, hunting, and fishing; and collected rentals.

Father Isaac Jogues, the Jesuit martyr, described the settlement in 1643 as ‘composed of about one hundred persons who reside in some twenty-five or thirty houses built along the river as each found most convenient . . . All their houses are of boards and thatched, with no mason work except the chimneys.’

Friction developed early between the patroonship and the Dutch West India Company, each claiming jurisdiction over the land on which Fort Orange was built. In 1652, Peter Stuyvesant, sent out by the West India Company as director general of New Netherland, set up a court and laid out space around Fort Orange for a new village called Beverwyck (Dutch, town of the beaver), and forbade the patroon to erect buildings near the fort. The Van Rensselaer agent tore down the proclamation and posted another maintaining the rights of the patroon. When the English threatened New Amsterdam (now New York City) in August–September 1664, Stuyvesant called on Rensselaerswyck for aid, but was refused. Under the new English rule the Van Rensselaers still claimed Beverwyck as part of their manor, but relinquished their claim to the village in 1685. Governor Dongan converted their patroonship into an English manor.

The British permitted the Dutch to retain their own language, customs, religion, local courts, and institutions, and admitted them to the governor’s council. Their leaders, represented by such names as Van Rensselaer, Schuyler, Hendrick, and Winne, were joined by British tradesmen and officials, led by the Clintons, Yateses, Livingstons, and other families prominent in the Nation’s history. In 1686 Albany, chief fur trading center of the English Colonies, was given a charter by Governor Dongan. For a quitrent of one beaver skin a year the king granted the city control of the fur trade to ‘the eastward, northward, and westward as far as His Majesty’s dominion may extend.’

The fur trade made Albany traders wealthy and intensified friction with the French. Control by the English of the interior and of the fur trade of the Great Lakes area depended on their alliance with the Iroquois and the defense of the Colonial frontier, of which Albany was the key. In 1690 the Massachusetts Council, concerned for the safety of Albany after the Schenectady massacre, wrote: ‘Albany is the dam, which should it through neglect be broken down by the weight of the Enemy, we dread to think of the Inundation of Calamities that would quickly follow thereupon.’

The four Colonial wars kept the city in a state of anxiety from 1689 to 1763. During the early conflicts, when it bore the brunt of the defense, Albany protested the building of French forts to the west as a potential source of interference with the fur trade. In 1701, during a temporary cessation of hostilities, a substantial trade in Indian goods grew up between Albany and Montreal. To protect the trade, Albany agreed to remain neutral in case of another war, and the French agreed that Albany should not be attacked. Indians under French domination purchased arms in Albany to use against the New England colonies.

The Iroquois resented this trade with their commercial rivals, and their allegiance to the English cause was further weakened by French military successes. In 1754 the British Lords of Trade finally awoke to the danger and called a congress of all the colonies at Albany to make a treaty with the Indians and to consider colonial defense. The Indians were slow in arriving; their temper was expressed by King Hendrick, chief of the Mohawk, when he thundered, ‘Look at the French; they are men, they are fortifying everywhere—but, we are ashamed to say it, you are all like women . . .’ Benjamin Franklin’s plan of union was adopted by the congress but was rejected by the colonies because it unduly limited their independence and by Britain because it impaired the royal prerogative.

During the French and Indian War, Albany served as point of departure for Colonial and British forces under William Johnson, Abercrombie, Bradstreet, and Lord Amherst on their way north and west against the French. After the Anglo-French treaty of 1763 the city was ready for peace, but farmers were disgruntled by taxes, merchants and lawyers were gauging anew the possibilities of Franklin’s 1754 proposal, and young men back from the wars were restive under British rule. The break came with Stamp Act riots, the organization of the Sons of Liberty, and the burning of the city mail sleigh. Philip Schuyler proposed a censure of George III in the 1775 session of the Provincial Assembly, which carried 7 to 2 after the Loyalists had left the chamber.

Shortly before the Battle of Lexington a Committee of Safety was organized, which voted sums of money to Boston, patrolled the streets with its own militia, supervised defense operations, and erected gallows (near the present site of the State Capitol) to hang Tories who had tried to escape jail.

Capture of Albany was the objective of the British campaign of 1777. Mrs. Schuyler rode north in her carriage and burned the grain on the family estate at Old Saratoga (Schuylerville) to prevent its falling into the hands of the British. After the surrender of his army at Old Saratoga, Burgoyne became a prisoner-guest in her home in Albany. Lafayette spent part of 1778 in the city, preparing to lead an expedition against Canada. St. Peter’s and the Dutch Reformed Church were turned into hospitals. Second to General Philip Schuyler as the city’s hero was Colonel Peter Gansevoort, who commanded Fort Stanwix (now Rome), the western outpost, and with the aid of General Herkimer blocked St. Leger’s advance down the Mohawk Valley. In 1779 local residents of the Second New York Continentals, under Colonel Goose Van Schaick, cut into the central wilderness to destroy the villages of the Onondaga. George Washington was made a freeman (i.e. voter) of the city during a visit in 1782; the following year, with Governor Clinton, he made a second visit.

The war at an end and the Indian treaties voided, Albany found itself at the crossroad of a free Nation in the making. Lands in the central and western parts of the State were opened to settlement; and the principal route from the New England States lay down the Hoosick Valley to the Hudson, south to Albany, and across the pine plains to Schenectady and the Mohawk Valley. The main stream of emigration poured westward through Albany; in 1795, five hundred vehicles a day pushed up State Street hill.

In 1785 Captain Stewart Dean, sailing from Albany to Canton, China, was the second Yankee skipper to reach that port. A stagecoach line between Albany and New York was chartered in 1785. From 1783 to 1790 Duncan Phyfe, who later won fame as a furniture craftsman in New York City, served his apprenticeship with a local coachmaker. Sailmakers and chandlers opened shops along the city’s three quays. Clothing, hat, and glass factories were established. Within a few years glass manufacturers developed an annual business of $380,000 in black bottles for the ‘rum-to-slaves-to-sugar-to-rum’ trade of New England shippers. Lumberyards at the northern end of the city absorbed the output of Adirondack forests. After wandering from New York City to White Plains, Kingston, and Poughkeepsie, the State legislature moved to Albany in 1797 and rented a home for Governor John Jay.

In the closing years of the century, migration forced the first road improvements and the development of a number of turnpikes radiating from the city. At the height of turnpike travel, 20 stagecoaches left Albany daily over the Cherry Valley route (now US 20). The first steamboat to make regular trips, the Clermont, built by Robert Fulton, steamed into the Albany harbor on August 19, 1807.

The Champlain Canal was opened in 1822, the trans-State Erie was completed in 1825. Albany built a pier 4,000 feet long, at which hundreds of canal boats could be handled at one time. Wheat from the Genesee Valley, salt and waterproof cement from Onondaga, butter, glass, and potash were unloaded on the Albany wharves. Packet lines carried pioneers to Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Illinois. From 1820 to 1830 the population of the city doubled. In 1831, 15,000 canal boats tied up at city wharves and 500 sailing ships in the coastal and West India trade cleared from Albany.

Within a few years after the appearance of the first canal boat came the first railroad. The diminutive De Witt Clinton made the first trip over the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad to Schenectady on September 24, 1831. The Hudson River Railroad, connecting New York City with Greenbush (now Rensselaer) across the river, was completed in 1851. The first steam-driven printing press in the country was operated here in 1828; the second telegraph instrument in the United States was installed here in 1845; the American Express Company was formed here in 1841. Cattleyards, developed at West Albany, at their peak handled 2,000,000 animals a year from midwestern ranges.

In the twenties, thirties, and forties Albany was an important political and journalistic center. The Albany Argus, founded in 1813, become famous as the mouthpiece of the political circle known as the Albany Regency, with Martin Van Buren its guiding spirit. The Albany Evening Journal, founded in 1830 and edited for 35 years by Thurlow Weed, early political boss, bolstered first the Whigs and then the Republican party.

The lumber industry reached its maximum development during the Civil War years. Early in the nineteenth century log drives originating on the upper Hudson made Albany a dominant lumber center. In 1872 the lumber district extended for one-and-three-quarter miles along the canal north of the city, with docks 1,000 feet long. The annual intake was 680,000,000 feet of timber. Destruction of the forests and the demand for conservation curtailed the lumber industry, and the 3,963 sawmills operating in the Albany district in 1865 dwindled to 150 in 1900.

The unleashing of energy and the spurt of industrialization that followed the Civil War, together with increased immigration, turned Albany into the path that led to its twentieth-century industrial and commercial importance. Groups of Irish settled in the city at various periods in the nineteenth century. Some Germans settled after the revolution of 1848, and many more came about 1870 to escape conscription in their homeland. In 1880 the population exceeded 90,000. During the last decades of the century Italians were attracted by labor opportunities.

Several of the city’s largest manufacturing plants were established in the seventies and eighties. Early in the present century interest centered again on the canal system, and Albany profited from the construction of the Barge Canal. The seaboard returned to the city again, half a century after the disappearance of the clipper ship, when the Port of Albany was opened in 1932 and became a contributing factor to the city’s growing commercial importance.

Together with its industrial neighbor, Rensselaer, Albany today has large factories making, among other products, checkers, dominoes, billiard balls, toilet paper and paper towels, papermakers’ felts, drugs, textiles, woolens, carbonic acid gas, and electric car heaters. It is the third largest express transfer and sixth largest mail transfer station in the United States. It clears 148 passenger trains and 88 freight trains daily. Chain stores and mail-order houses maintain divisional warehouses in or near the city. In 1939 the Port handled the cargoes of 250 ocean-going vessels, consisting principally of petroleum, grain, and lumber.

The increasing importance of New York State in national politics after 1900 brought prominence to the State’s capital city. The careers of Theodore Roosevelt, Charles Evans Hughes, Alfred E. Smith, and Franklin D. Roosevelt centered national interest on Albany.

POINTS OF INTEREST

1. The PARKER DUNN MEMORIAL BRIDGE, Broadway and Madison Ave., opened in 1933, the only toll-free bridge across the Hudson River between New York City and Troy, was named in honor of Parker F. Dunn (1890–1918), Albany war hero and recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. The elevating center span is the heaviest ever installed in this country.

2. The DELAWARE & HUDSON BUILDING, at the Plaza, Broadway at the foot of State St., a large granite structure designed in the Flemish Gothic style by Marcus T. Reynolds, has steep slate roofs and many ornamented dormer windows. Completed in 1918, it is four stories high with a 13-story central tower surmounted by a large bronze weather vane modeled after Hudson’s Half Moon. A one-story vaulted arcade runs across the entire front of the building.

3. The FEDERAL BUILDING (POST OFFICE), SE. corner of Broadway and Maiden Lane, completed in 1936, is a five-story building of modern design with slight Greek influence, built of white Vermont marble on a white granite base. The simplicity of its design is relieved by the vertical setbacks around the doors and windows and a carved frieze depicting the story of the United States mail. A feature of the interior decoration is a series of nine indirectly illuminated ceiling maps which portray the nations of the world. The architects were Gander, Gander, and Gander.

4. The JOHN V.L. PRUYN LIBRARY (open 9–9 weekdays; 2–6 Sun. for reading only), SE. corner of N. Pearl St. and Clinton Ave., is of modified Dutch Renaissance architecture, with brick and stone walls, carvings, high stepped gables, steep roofs, tower, iron work, narrow mullioned windows, and richly decorated interior. Its imported fireplace tiles are Holland Dutch of 1580, and several pieces in the children’s room are from churches and chateaux in France. The building was designed by Marcus T. Reynolds and constructed in 1901 on the site of the birthplace of John V.L. Pruyn (1811–77), lawyer, congressman, and Chancellor of the University of the State of New York.

5. The FIRST DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH (the North Dutch Church), SW. corner of N. Pearl and Orange Sts., begun in 1797, is the fourth building of the congregation, organized in 1642 and therefore the second oldest Protestant church body in America that has had a continuous existence. Philip Hooker not only furnished the design for the structure but also acted with Elisha Putnam as ‘undertaker’ (contractor). Hooker’s original design, based on the Hollis Street Church in Boston by Charles Bulfinch, called for a fine pedimented portico with four brick Roman Doric columns, the whole flanked by twin baroque towers. The interior was severely plain. In 1858 the building underwent extensive alterations: the entrance portico was replaced by a projecting Romanesque block, and the steeples were covered with slate; within, the flat ceiling was masked by plaster groined vaults, windows received stained glass, and the walls were covered with medieval ornament.

The unusually wide central aisle is due to the retention of a seventeenth-century Communion service in which the whole congregation is seated at a long table placed in the aisle. The oaken pulpit was carved in Holland in 1656. The box pew used by Theodore Roosevelt while governor of the State is marked with a bronze tablet.

KEY FOR ALBANY MAP

1. Parker Dunn Memorial Bridge 2. Delaware & Hudson Building 3. Federal Building 4. John V.L. Pruyn Library 5. First Dutch Reformed Church 6. St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church 7. Ten Broeck Mansion 8. St. Peter’s Episcopal Church 9. City Hall 10. New York State Court of Appeals Building 11. Albany County Courthouse 12. Schuyler Monument 13. Lafayette Park and Academy Park 14. State Capitol 15. New York State Education Building 16. Cathedral of All Saints 17. New York State Office Building 18. Albany Institute of History and Art 19. Albany Academy for Girls 20. New York State College for Teachers 21. Bleecker Stadium 22. College of Saint Rose 23. Vincentian Institute Building 24. Bender Hygienic Laboratory 25. Dudley Observatory 26. Albany Academy 27. Albany College of Pharmacy 28. Albany Law School 29. Albany Hospital 30. Academy of the Holy Names 31. Washington Park 32. Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception 33. State Executive Mansion 34. Lincoln Park 35. Schuyler Mansion 36. Port of Albany 37. New York State Bank Building

6. ST. JOSEPH’S ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, Ten Broeck St. between First and Second Sts., completed in 1860, except for the spire which was added about 1910, is in a parklike setting. It is constructed of blue stone in a modified Gothic Revival style; the trim was originally of French Caen stone, which, because it disintegrated in the severe climate, was replaced by Indiana buff limestone. The plan is cruciform, with high clerestory, nave, and transepts, and wide side aisles. The arched main entrance is through a square, buttressed, four-story tower surmounted by a high, dormered spire.

7. The TEN BROECK MANSION (private), 9 Ten Broeck Place, a solid, well-preserved brick building in the post-Colonial style, is two-and-one-half-stories high, with two prominent chimneys on each end. The ornamental hand-wrought iron beam anchors form the initials E and ATB and the date 1798. The house was built by Abraham Ten Broeck (1734–1810), Revolutionary patriot, member of the Albany Committee of Safety, 1775–7, member of the convention that framed the first State constitution, brigadier general in the Revolution, and mayor of Albany.

8. ST. PETER’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH, NW. corner of State and Lodge Sts., Gothic Revival in style, was designed in the French medieval tradition in 1859 by Richard Upjohn, the architect of Trinity Church in New York City. The square memorial tower, terminating in four pinnacles, the outside one higher than the rest and supporting an ornamented cross, was designed by Upjohn’s son, Richard M. Upjohn, in 1876. The second rear east window was designed by Sir Edward Burne-Jones and made under his supervision by the William Morris Company, London, in 1880. The pulpit was designed by Robert W. Gibson in 1886; the figures in the reredos were sculptured by Louis Saint-Gaudens in the studio of his brother Augustus. The church body was organized in 1716. The grave of George Augustus, Lord Howe, killed in the attack on Ticonderoga in 1758, is believed to be beneath the vestibule floor.

9. The CITY HALL, Eagle St. between Maiden Lane and Pine St., erected in 1882, was designed by Henry H. Richardson in his characteristic modified French Romanesque style. The pyramidal-roofed tower houses the city carillon of 60 bells, the largest of which weighs 11,200 pounds. In the mayor’s office is a portrait of the first mayor, Peter Schuyler, painted in London in 1710 by Sir Godfrey Kneller.

10. The NEW YORK STATE COURT OF APPEALS BUILDING, Eagle St. between Pine and Columbia Sts., constructed of white Sing Sing marble in 1835–42, Henry Rector architect, is Greek Revival in design, with a six-columned Ionic portico. Since it was originally built to house State offices, no expense was spared to make this building as fire-resistant as possible; therefore all the floors are composed of heavy masonry vaults. The thick rectangular mass has a central rotunda decorated with excellently executed superposed Greek orders and lighted from a skylighted dome. The two principal floors have 22-foot ceilings.

The stair to the left of the entrance is a notable example of self-supporting masonry. In a rear addition has been installed the Appellate Courtroom designed by H.H. Richardson in 1881. The room is paneled in light brown oak. Richardson’s luxuriant Byzantinesque ornament is seen around the inglenook of the fireplace, which is faced with Siena marble and Mexican onyx, and in the old clockcase close by.

11. The ALBANY COUNTY COURTHOUSE, Eagle St. between Pine and Columbia Sts., erected in 1916, is a granite and limestone building in the neoclassic style, with engaged Ionic columns at the upper stories. The interior contains an open court from the roof to below the second floor ceiling, where it is covered by a large vaulted ceiling light. The lower court is striking with its columns and cream-colored Caen-stone walls.

12. The SCHUYLER MONUMENT, standing on a circular plot in front of the city hall, is the work of J. Massey Rhind. Philip Schuyler (1733–1804), born in Albany, supported the Revolutionary cause. He commanded the defenses of the northern frontier from 1775 until he was replaced by General Horatio Gates just before the Battle of Saratoga. Burgoyne and ranking British officers were his guests at the Schuyler Mansion for a week after the surrender. He played an important part in the earliest efforts to make the State’s waterways navigable between the Hudson and the Great Lakes and in the chartering of Union College. Daniel Webster said Schuyler ‘was second only to Washington in the services he performed for his country.’

13. LAFAYETTE PARK and ACADEMY PARK comprise a single stretch of greensward bounded by Washington Ave., and Hawk, Eagle, and Elk Sts. The western part is named in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette, who lived in Albany in 1778. The eastern part takes its name from the old Albany Academy building, erected in 1815, now called the JOSEPH HENRY MEMORIAL and occupied by the Albany Department of Education. The interior was remodeled in 1935 as a PWA project with Marcus T. Reynolds as architect. The two-story structure, designed by Philip Hooker and considered his masterpiece, is of formal post-Colonial architecture, constructed of brownstone, with Ionic pilasters, balustraded parapet, and a tall and graceful classical cupola. It was in this building that Joseph Henry (1797–1878), a quarter-century before Morse’s telegraph, succeeded in ringing a bell over a circuit of wire strung around one of the rooms. A statue of Henry stands in front of the building.

14. The STATE CAPITOL (open regularly 9–5 weekdays, 9–12 Sat.; June–Sept., 9–5 Sat., 10–5 Sun. for visitors), in Capitol Park, bounded by Eagle, State, and Swan Sts. and Washington Ave., is an imposing, massive granite building crowning the hill. The exterior suggests a giant French chateau, with pyramidal red tile corner roofs and long, connecting gray slate roofs, high dormers, chimneys, and balustrades, and monumental eastern staircase extending 166 feet from the building.

The New York State legislature has met in Albany since 1797. Work was started on the present building in 1867. When it was formally occupied by the legislature in 1879, it was not yet complete; and even in 1898 Governor Black was able to say only that the building was ‘practically completed.’ It covers three acres and cost about $25,000,000.

Because of the many years of building, 1867–98, the influences of prevailing and passing styles of architecture, political personalities, and individual architects all found expression in the building, leaving it a mixture of styles and tastes. The exterior of the lower three floors is designed in the manner of the French Second Empire with Doric and Corinthian columns, arched windows, and rusticated stone work. The fourth floor is Romanesque: the columns are stubby in comparison with those of the second floor, the windows have a noticeably lower arch, the stone carvings are of natural objects—birds, trees, and flowers. On the fifth floor the towers, cornices, and dormers suggest the style of Francis I, the windows lacking the arches of the lower floors. The pedestals and balustrades of the monumental front staircase and the many chimneys are French Renaissance; the chimneys are adorned with clustered columns, bases, and capitals.

The plan, exterior decorations, and general massing of the building were the work of Thomas W. Fuller. The tower which he included in the original design and partly built was eliminated because the soil and the foundations would not safely carry it. The original plans were modified and added to by Leopold Eidlitz and H.H. Richardson in the prevailing styles of their day. To Isaac G. Perry as State Architect fell the duty of completing the designs of the other architects according to his own interpretation and subject to the needs of the State governmental departments. Eidlitz and Richardson were responsible for the Executive Chamber and the Court of Claims room; Eidlitz designed the Assembly Chamber and Richardson the Senate Chamber. The great western staircase and the main, eastern approach, with its corbels and arches, were designed by Richardson. Much of the exterior and interior stone carving and marble and wood paneling and carving was done by Perry.

The front staircase leads into the memorial rooms on the second floor, which contain Civil, Spanish-American, and World War mementos. The frescoes on the ceiling of the inner room depict military conflicts from the time of the Indian wars to the World War. The Executive Chambers are on this floor; the walls of the main room are wainscoted with mahogany and hung with portraits of Lafayette, Washington, and former governors of the State.

On the third floor are the Senate and Assembly chambers and the legislative library. The walls of the Senate Chamber are of Knoxville marble; the ceiling has massive carved oak beams. Two enormous fireplaces stand at one side of the room, with andirons more than four feet high. The walls of the Assembly Chamber are of sandstone, covered with sound-absorbing material; the ceiling is supported by four huge columns of Tennessee marble.

The building contains three notable staircases. The Senate staircase in the southeast corner is in the Gothic style; the Assembly staircase in the northeast corner is of simpler Gothic; the famous western staircase, the most ornate, is constructed of brownstone and lighted by an immense glazed dome and many clusters of lights.

The SHERIDAN STATUE, on the grounds E. of the Capitol, is a heroic equestrian statue of General Philip Sheridan (1831–88), native of Albany, cavalry commander under General U.S. Grant in the Civil War, and hero of Thomas B. Read’s poem, Sheridan’s Ride. The bronze monument on a base of polished granite was designed by J.Q.A. Ward and completed by his pupil, Daniel Chester French.

15. The NEW YORK STATE EDUCATION BUILDING, Washington Ave. between Hawk and Swan Sts., designed by Palmer, Hornbostel, and Jones, erected at a cost of $4,000,000, and dedicated in 1912, houses Chancellor’s Hall, the State Library, the State Museum, and the offices of the State Education Department. The architecture is neoclassic, with modified Greek ornament. A colonnade of 36 Corinthian columns extends along the entire front.

Inside, to the right of the main entrance, is a broad staircase leading to the rotunda. Set in panels along the walls adjacent to the rotunda are 32 murals on the theme of education, designed and executed by Will H. Low.

On the second floor is the NEW YORK STATE LIBRARY (open 8:30 a.m.–10 p.m. weekdays except holidays, Oct.–May; 8:30–6, June–Sept.), founded in 1818. It possesses outstanding collections in New York State history and rare early American books. The manuscript collection includes the original drafts of Washington’s Farewell Address and Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. The reading room is modeled on that of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.

On the top floor is the NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM (open 9–5 Mon.–Fri., 9–12 Sat. except holidays, Oct.–May; 9–5 weekdays, 10–5 Sun., June–Sept.), which houses one of the largest collections of invertebrate fossils in the country. One group exhibit restores the tree fossils found at Gilboa, New York. In the Hall of Vertebrates is a specimen of the American mastodon, flanked by a restoration executed in plaster and coarse grass. On the west mezzanine are six dioramas of Iroquois Indians, grouped in realistic attitudes, depicting the daily activities of the Six Nations.

16. The CATHEDRAL OF ALL SAINTS, SE. corner of Elk and Swan Sts., seat of the Episcopal diocese of Albany, an unfinished edifice designed in the English Gothic style by Robert W. Gibson, is overshadowed by the higher, classical Education Building, which partly surrounds it. The exterior of the east portion, with its flying buttresses, and the aisles are constructed of rock-cut brownstone. The front, nave, and both transepts are of common brick without the stone facings; and the towers and lantern of the original plan are lacking, though there is a small flêche over the crossing.

The interior has been sufficiently completed to provide a cathedrallike atmosphere. Two rows of stone piers and arches, flanking the nave, accentuate the spaciousness of the building and draw the eye to the high altar, reredos, and large window of the east end. A delicate iron and brass rood screen separates the nave from the chancel. The stalls, imported from a church in Bruges, Belgium, are of carved oak, the carving dating back to 1655. The chancel and the south transept have elaborate stone carvings. The large stained-glass window in the west end is by John La Farge; the rose window in the north transept is by Maitland Armstrong; most of the others, including the east window above the altar, are by British designers.

The building was begun under the Right Reverend William Croswell Doane, first Bishop of Albany and author of the well-known hymn, Ancient of Days, whose tomb is directly under the high altar. The cornerstone was laid in 1884. The last major construction was done in 1902–4.

17. The NEW YORK STATE OFFICE BUILDING, Swan St. between Washington Ave. and State St., 33 stories in height, was completed in 1930 at a cost of $6,500,000. The massive exterior, of limestone and granite, is of modern design, built in a series of setbacks; the two lower floors are designed in the neoclassic manner. The TOWER (open weekdays all year; Sun. June–Sept.) affords a bird’s-eye view of Albany and the surrounding countryside.

18. The ALBANY INSTITUTE OF HISTORY AND ART (open 10–5 weekdays, 2–5 Sun.), 125 Washington Ave., a two-story gray brick building set back from the street, contains collections of American, English, and Dutch paintings, mostly of the nineteenth century, and period furniture. Special exhibits are held frequently.

19. The ALBANY ACADEMY FOR GIRLS, 155 Washington Ave., a private, nonsectarian institution, consists of three brick buildings, the main one in the Second Empire style with mansard roofs. The school gives elementary and college preparatory training to 250 girls. It was founded in 1814 and incorporated as the Albany Female Academy in 1821.

20. The NEW YORK STATE COLLEGE FOR TEACHERS, Western Ave. between Robin St. and S. Lake Ave., consists of a group of red brick buildings in Georgian Colonial and neoclassic style. Draper Hall, the administration building, built in 1908, is connected by colonnades with Hawley Hall on the left and Huested Hall on the right. The college, with a registration of 1,000 students, men and women, prepares teachers for secondary schools.

21. BLEECKER STADIUM, Clinton Ave. between Swinburne Park and Ontario St., with a field house of Georgian Colonial design, was built by the WPA. It seats 10,000 and has two baseball fields, a football field, a quarter-mile track, jumping and vaulting pits, and tennis courts.

22. The COLLEGE OF SAINT ROSE is on Madison Ave. between Main Ave. and Partridge St. Of particular note are Saint Joseph Hall on Madison Avenue, a red brick building with limestone trim, in modified Georgian style with a Corinthian colonnade on the upper story; and Science Hall, facing Western Avenue, a three-story brick and limestone structure. Chartered in 1924, the college, under the direction of the Sisters of Saint Joseph, has a student body of 300 girls, and grants baccalaureate degrees in liberal arts, science, music, and nursing.

23. In the VINCENTIAN INSTITUTE BUILDING (open 7–6 daily), N.E. corner of Ontario and Yates Sts., is the CHAPEL OF OUR LADY OF LOURDES, the sanctuary of which is designed in the manner of the Grotto of Lourdes, France. The stonework gives the appearance of a cave, an effect enhanced by a cascade, the murmur of which resounds throughout the chapel. The altar is embellished with colored marble mosaics. The cave is illuminated by hidden lights.

24. The BENDER HYGIENIC LABORATORY (private), 136 S. Lake Ave., is a narrow, three-story-and-basement neoclassic building constructed of brick on a stone foundation. The laboratory was founded by a group of public-minded citizens in 1895, when the building was presented by Nathan W. Bender in memory of his wife. It carries on bacteriological examinations for the hospitals of Albany and vicinity, conducts scientific research, and holds classes in pathology.

25. The DUDLEY OBSERVATORY (open 7–10 p.m. Tues.), S. Lake Ave. N. of New Scotland Ave., founded in 1846, is part of Union University; the present building was erected in 1893. The refracting telescope is in the dome. A five-volume catalogue charting the movements of 33,000 stars, compiled by the observatory staff under the direction of Benjamin Boss, serves as a reference guide in all observatories. Visitors are allowed to look through the telescope when visibility is good.

26. The ALBANY ACADEMY, NW. corner of Academy Rd. and Hackett Blvd., a nonsectarian boys’ preparatory school organized in 1813, is best known for the accomplishments of its distinguished professor, Joseph Henry. The present brick and marble building, completed in 1931, was designed in modified Georgian style by Marcus T. Reynolds.

27. The ALBANY COLLEGE OF PHARMACY (open 9–5 Mon.–Fri., 9–12 Sat., except holidays), 106 New Scotland Ave., a three-story building of modified Georgian design, is constructed of tapestry brick and limestone. Established in 1881, the college is part of Union University. The reconstructed O.B. Troop drugstore, which flourished in Schoharie in 1800, is on permanent exhibition in the building.

28. The ALBANY LAW SCHOOL, SW. corner of New Scotland and Holland Aves., erected in 1928, is a seam-faced granite structure designed in the Tudor Gothic style. The school was founded as a branch of the University of Albany in 1851 through the efforts of Ira Harris, Amasa J. Parker, and Amos Dean. In 1873 the University united with Union College, Schenectady, to form Union University. William McKinley, President of the United States, 1898–1901, graduated from the Albany Law School in the class of 1867.

29. The ALBANY HOSPITAL, New Scotland Ave. between Myrtle and S. Lake Aves., the oldest hospital in the city, was established in 1849. Its nurses’ home is one of the largest in the State. The central building of brick with white stone trim was reconstructed in 1928.

Adjoining and connected with the hospital is the ALBANY MEDICAL COLLEGE, which occupies a four-story brick structure. The college, founded in 1838, is part of Union University.

30. The ACADEMY OF THE HOLY NAMES, 628 Madison Ave., a private Catholic preparatory school for girls, was founded by the Sisters of the Holy Names in 1884. The present stone and brick building, erected in 1914, is English Collegiate Gothic in style, with projecting wings, bay windows, and porches. The curriculum includes elementary and college preparatory courses.

31. WASHINGTON PARK, bounded by State and Willett Sts. and S. Lake and Madison Aves., occupying 90 acres, dates from 1865 and is Albany’s largest park. It contains five miles of elm- and maple-shaded drives bordered by lawns landscaped with flower beds, flowering shrubs, and larch groves.

Near the Madison Avenue side of the park, facing the lake, is the KING FOUNTAIN, with figures in copper, by J. Massey Rhind, presented to the city in 1879 by Henry R. King in memory of his father. The figures represent Moses and his followers at the rock of Hebron.

East of the King Fountain stands the ROBERT BURNS STATUE, designed by Charles Calverly and erected in 1888. The seated figure is of bronze on a base of polished Scotch granite, set on a slightly elevated circular mound and overhung by maple and elm trees. At the northern end of the park, near the Northern Boulevard and State Street entrance, is the SOLDIERS AND SAILORS MEMORIAL, erected by the city in memory of its Civil War heroes.

32. The Roman Catholic CATHEDRAL OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION, SW. corner of Madison Ave. and Eagle St., was dedicated in 1852. The large Gothic Revival building of warm brownstone stands on the crest of a hill. The two graceful front spires suggest those of Cologne Cathedral in Germany. The impressive Gothic exterior admirably complements the somber and spacious interior, with its altars and elaborately carved oak pulpit. Many of the former bishops of the diocese are buried in the crypt under the sanctuary.

33. The STATE EXECUTIVE MANSION (private), SW. corner of Eagle and Elm Sts., a large red brick building of the Civil War period, stands well back in a landscaped setting. On the first floor are the governor’s office, the breakfast room, a large state dining room and kitchens, and the reception and check room. The second floor contains the living quarters of the governor and his family.

34. LINCOLN PARK, bounded by Eagle St. and Park, Morton, and Delaware Aves., is the second largest park in the city. In the southwest corner is the JAMES HALL BUILDING, erected by James Hall, State Geologist, 1836–98. This building served for 50 years as his residence, office, and laboratory, and was an active center of geological science. It was renovated in 1936 as a fresh-air school for undernourished children.

35. The SCHUYLER MANSION (open 10–12, 1:30–5 daily; adm. 25¢, children under 16 free), SW. corner of Clinton and Schuyler Sts., now a State-owned museum, was built by Philip Schuyler in 1762. The building, in its day called ‘The Pastures,’ is of Georgian Colonial architecture, with red brick walls, white trim, and a hipped gambrel roof set behind a delicate wood parapet railing and pierced by square chimneys and pedimented dormers. The octagonal vestibule is an early nineteenth-century addition. The interior is laid out in the typical Colonial plan with a wide center hall and central staircase and a fireplace in each room. In the room in the southeast corner of the first floor Elizabeth Schuyler was married to Alexander Hamilton. Much of the furniture now in the house belonged to the Schuyler family. Among the mementos in the second-floor collection are General Burgoyne’s shoe buckles, which the general gave to the Schuyler children on his visit after the defeat at Saratoga in 1777, and two pearl-encrusted lockets, one with a lock of George Washington’s hair, the other with a braided strand of the hair of Alexander Hamilton and his wife.

36. The PORT OF ALBANY (open), Hudson River, S. end of Church St., one of the largest inland seaports and ports of entry in the United States, was completed in 1932, costing $13,000,000. The port occupies 217 acres, with a dock frontage of 4,400 feet, accommodating craft up to 27-foot draft. It has the largest single-unit grain elevator in the world.

37. The NEW YORK STATE BANK BUILDING, NE. corner of State and Pearl Sts., is a 17-story red brick office structure with stores on the first floor. When the present building was built in 1927, with H.I. Cobb as architect, the original structure, erected in 1803 and designed by Philip Hooker, was removed, except for the State Street façade, which now forms the main entrance. This portion is in the post-Colonial style, showing a strong Adam influence. The windows of the first story were originally doorways with small entrance stoops, and the present doorway was formerly a central window.

POINTS OF INTEREST IN ENVIRONS

           John Boyd Thacher Park, 14 m. (see Tour 9). Fort Crailo and Beverwyck, 1 m.; Lindenwald, 22 m. (see Tour 21). Albany Rural Cemetery, 2 m. (see Tour 22).