2019 Albany Pop-Up Tour

NORTH PEARL STREET, part of the Downtown Albany National Register Historic District, was once the major retail street of both the city and the region. With the decline of central cities nationwide, the street hit upon hard times in the 1960s and ’70s. A revival of sorts is going on today, although current retail sales are aimed at the large population of weekday office workers. What remains from the 1920s and Depression Era are:

EAST GREENBUSH, this town is one of the fastest-growing suburban towns east of Albany. Once a rural settlement along the Columbia Turnpike, it has become a bedroom community for Albany. Prior to construction of the Massachusetts Turnpike and the Berkshire Spur of the New York State Thruway, Columbia Turnpike–now part of U.S. Route 20–was the major highway connecting the capital District with New England. As a result, the typical assortment of highway businesses sprouted along the road. Among the most important are:

CENTRAL AVENEUE begins a few blocks above the capitol and is the next leg in Route 5. The history of this street is truly the history of transportation in Albany. It was built as the first turnpike in New York State, (the Mohawk and Hudson or Albany and Schenectady), begun in 1797 and Completed to Schenectady by 1803. Its fifteen-mile distance is characterized by a perfectly straight line from one end to the other.

The former turnpike is known as Central Avenue in Albany County and State Street in Schenectady County. Despite the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, this road remained as the preferred mode of travel between Albany and Schenectady throughout the nineteenth century, since the canal trip between the two cities took one whole day. Twenty-five of the entire canal’s 77 locks were located in this 20-mile section.

With the establishment of the West Albany railyards and stockyards just north of Central Avenue in the 1850s, the street took on nore importance as a route for shipment of cattle. It was not unusual in the mid-19th century for whole herds of cattle to be driven down Central Avenue!

As the main east-west route through Albany and the major route to Schenectady, Central Avenue quickly developed into the principal access to western development. As such it was the logical location for one of the city’s first horsecar lines. In 1864, the Albany Railway was chartered and its first line travelled along Central Avenue, eventually reaching the rail and stockyards. By 1901, the entire length of the former turnpike was served by electric streetcars when the Schenectady Railway constructed a line from the end of the Albany line to downtown Schenectady.

As transportation modes changed following World War I, Central Avenue became the area where this phenomenon was reflected most clearly. The first two miles of the Avenue became the location of most of Albany’s early auto dealerships, and parts and service retailers.

As we continue our journey west on Central Avenue, notice the following:

ERIE BOULEVARD, like so many streets in New York State with this name, was the path of the Erie Canal through Schenectady, thus explaining its extraordinary width. The canal was rerouted and renamed the New York State Barge Canal in the 1910s, and the old section was filled and developed as a street in this area.

STATE STREET is the name of the former Albany and Schenectady Turnpike in Schenectady County and is also New York State Route 5. At the eastern end of Schenectady’s downtown (Nott Terrace), the perfectly straight 1803 turnpike joins the former King’s Road, the original main road between Albany and Schenectady, dating from 1661. This has been the principal shopping street in “The Electric City” since the nineteenth century.