Albany 1789
If I haven't stated this, I will now. They took Albany, put its Wild West Dutch Ass over a barrel and took the beating heart right out. There is no historic architecture left in Albany. Yes, Yes, some. But periphery, residential neighborhoods & a small amount of industrial, most of which dates post 1840. Sadly, wonderful Italianate brownstones don't constitute a historic building core for a 300 year old city. One of the oldest and most beautiful churches in Albany, 1 block from the Broeck Mansion decays St Josephs, a 3 steeple perch on Arbor Hil, boarded up since 1994 . Think of the old city of Quebec, but bigger, Dutch, and somehow frontier American. The farms, bricks, canal, and railroads. The dutch homes you see, & are described, below. All bulldozed. Hundreds of years of bad planning has taken the life from this town. Its still losing population. 2 hours north of nyc. Even Historic Albany, the one preservation advocacy organization (charged with stewardship of St Josephs) let its webpage expire in June. The following text and engraving are from 1789.
From the Albany 1756 census: "A List of the Inhabitants of the Citty of Albany in America with the Number of Troops they can Quarter conveniently within the Stockade and what they can Quarter in Case of necessity together with the fireplaces in Each house and Rooms without Fire, also what Rooms were occupied by the Respective Families as it appeared on a street Enquiry made in November 1756 . . . . . To which is added an Alphabetical List in Order more readily to find the peoples names, also an abstract of the number of Officers and men the Town can Quarter. N.B. Officers quarters are hearby understood to be Single Rooms.
Albany in 1828. House of the Dutch Governors.
