Lower Central Avenue

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…

East Greenbush

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…

Broadway

BROADWAY, once the easternmost street of the stockaded city was always a center of commercial activity. As the city expanded northward after the American Revolution, Broadway became the southern end of the Watervliet Turnpike, which paralleled the Hudson River for about eight miles to its northern terminus in present-day Watervliet. About one mile north of…