Broadway–Livingston Avenue Historic District

42.657777777778 - 73.748055555556Koordinaten: 42 ° 39 ' 28 " N, 73 ° 44' 53 " W

The Broadway Livingston Avenue Historic District is a monument zone at the intersection of these two streets in Albany in the State of New York. It includes 20 buildings, which are all considered contributing as well as a railway bridge with Warren Truss truss. In 1988 the area was designated as a Historic District and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

This is the only intact concentration of residential and commercial architecture from the 19th century on Broadway north of the development of the Downtown Albany Historic District. Most of these buildings are two - or three -storey terraced houses, between which brick business houses are of comparable size. The buildings were built in 1829-1876, a period in which the district prospered greatly as the eastern end point of the Erie Canal. The railway bridge was built in 1900 to carry on the Colonie Street, the New York Central Railroad on Broadway.

As a result of programs for urban renewal, much of the area was demolished before the historic district was reported. Many of the buildings in the district were at that time in poor condition, and some of them have since been torn down also, so that some plots are unused. The remaining buildings have traces of urban decay.

History

From the time of its founding in 1686 and through most of the 18th century, the city of Albany occupied only a small area, which was consistent with the present-day Downtown and surrounded by a palisade. After the founding document of the city, the city stretched north one mile ( 1609 meters) to the point where today the Clinton Avenue on the city's fortifications beyond. The country north of it was owned by the Van Rensselaer family, which in the area called the shots since the Dutch colonization.

1764 was Stephen van Rensselaer II, the area north of Albany measure and define a grid on which the future lined up streets. The land was parceled out and sold. It was originally established as the Town of Colonie. Within two decades, thousands of residents had settled there, and in 1815 convinced you the City of Albany to Colonie annex. Colony became the Fifth Ward of Albany.

For the next ten years, this was the only change. 1825 the Erie Canal was completed, and the eastern terminus of the approximately 580 long waterway was there where the Colonie Street meets the Hudson River. The city was built on the site of a major port district and the district on North Broadway began to grow. It was referred to as lumber district, because timber, whose strike was carried out in the Adirondacks and in Western New York, a large amount of freight accounted for, which was shipped across the channel to Albany. New construction included both saw mills, where the antransportierte wood was processed, as well as the homes of those who became wealthy through the sawmills and ship transport. The defunct town house 788 Broadway was built in this early period, and soon opened a shop for food and grocery on the ground floor of the house.

The beginning of the railway passenger transport

The advent of the railway traffic, which followed the construction of the canal, also had an impact on the area. 1831 the first passenger transport connection of a steam railway in the United States was recorded between Albany and Schenectady. In the first decade of the passenger cars that were up on the river had been transported to Albany, managed the steep hill on State Street and placed there on the tracks to Schenectady. In 1844 the railway line was moved to its present route along the flatter Gorge at Patroon Creek. A large Verladekomplex was built near to reload cargo from trains to boats and ferries and loaded into trains again on the eastern shore. The necessary workers settled in the quarter down, and small businesses that served the care of the residents, opened in buildings such as 802 Broadway.

One of these early houses built, which no longer existing house 799 Broadway was in 1863 converted into a police station, reflecting the growth of the district. After the Civil War, a bridge was built, what the economic importance of the area declined slightly, although about that time the commercial building 810-812 Broadway was built. The traffic on the Erie Canal was supplanted by improvements in rail transport. In 1900, the truss bridge was built from iron. The bridge was part of a project, with the railway system of the city has been completely redesigned. A new bridge over the Hudson River replaced the former, and in the Downtown Union Station was built. The demolition of the station on Broadway to make room for the new station and the filling of the channel was moved to accommodate larger ships can, the district took its economic center.

The area has undergone in the course of the 20th century economic decline, and most of the buildings outside the historic district today were demolished as part of an urban renewal program in the 1960s and 1970s. Since its inclusion in the National Register more buildings were lost.

Geography

The historic district is a 3.5 acre ( 1.3 hectare) large, irregularly shaped area that land on both sides of the two streets that gave the historic district the name, north and west of their common intersection, including the north side of Colonie Street at the railroad bridge, but without this intersection itself the district is located north of Downtown Albany, ie roughly where the densely built-up urban district to be replaced with their big business, residential and administrative buildings through the neighborhood with their two-story buildings. To the east the land drops down to the shore of about 500 m distant Hudson River.

To the west, the land rises gently toward Pearl Street (New York State Route 32 ), where the Church of Holy Innocents, which is also entered in the National Register, is adjacent to the junction with the Colonie Street in the historic district. To the west of it is the extended Arbor Hill Historic District Ten Broeck Triangle. On the other side of Pearl Street, a modern residential building complex with two high-rise buildings and numerous two -storey apartment buildings. A block further south is the Broadway Row, consisting of four brick townhouses, which is also on the National Register.

At the southern end of the historic district includes the four estates of the Livingston Steet just west of a junction with Broadway. Also located on the west side of Broadway plots up to and including the second parcel south of the junction with the Colonie Street belong to the district. Then the boundary runs along the Abzweigungsspur that receives the same level Linksabbiegeverkehr in the Colonie Street, while the Broadway leads down itself, under the bridge, a little north of the course of the former railway line. From here it has an irregular course along a parking lot, then bends to the south and crosses the Colonie Street and follow it to the west again and then on Broadway to the south. Once here, some of the plots were enclosed on the east side of the road, the district boundary changes the side of the road and returns to its starting point.

Within the historic district, the west side of Broadway and the south side of Livingston Street are built, mostly by train stone buildings ( with the exception of 69 Livingston Street, whose professional work dates from the time of the historic significance of the district, but a facade cladding aluminum has ). The eastern part of the historic district now consists of undeveloped land, as the area around the railway bridge. A row of trees flanking the railway line.

Significant Buildings

Of the original 20 buildings of the historic district are only eleven available. Then there is the railway bridge.

• 70 and 72 Livingston Avenue. These two identical two and a half storey neo-classical building once formed a row of houses made ​​up of four buildings and are the oldest existing houses in the district. They date from the period around 1840.
• 810-812 Broadway. The three-story building in the Italianate style, was constructed in 1872 and is the most lavishly decorated of the remaining buildings of the district. From a cornice above the storefront on the ground floor, two Backsteinpilaster rise above the two upper floors. They flank the middle of the five yokes having façade of the building. Corbels support the elaborately shaped cornice at the eaves.
• Railroad Bridge, on Broadway at the Colonie Street. These built of metal truss bridge originally carried four tracks, three of which are today still available. The building is composed of three riveted Warren gratings resting on stone abutments. The carriers are below the deck on which run the derailed. Today operate passenger trains operated by the Amtrak Empire Service and freight trains from CSX Transportation over the bridge, which is owned by CSX. As the bridge was taken up in the district with, she was Conrail. Conrail had made objections to the recording law.

Among the demolished buildings of the historic district, the neoclassical town house was 788 Broadway because of its fluted Doric columns in antis remarkable. There was a Gesiems and a frieze with Mäandermotiven On its roof eaves. The house was built in 1829 until its demolition the oldest building within the historic district. On the other side of the street stood 799 Broadway at today's wasteland. This building was substantially altered in 1863, when it was converted into a police station. Although the underlying building with three storeys and four bays from 1835 in the classical style remained, however, received a supplement in the Italianate style. The arch of the main entrance was originally, but the iron window sills, the panels of the frieze and the three-part cornice with elaborate corbels were added at the time. A parapet of brick and slate roof were added a decade later. Still later, in the early years of the 20th century, the front steps were removed and replaced by an entrance at street level and installed large windows on the ground floor.