Mansion Historic District
Coordinates: 42 ° 38 '46 " N , 73 ° 45' 23" W.
The Mansion Historic District , sometimes referred to as Mansion Hill , is a historic district south of Empire State Plaza in Albany , New York . It takes its name from the nearby seat of New York government, the New York State Executive Mansion, and covers an area of 16 blocks or around 45 acres . Most of the 476 Contributing Properties within its boundaries are townhouses and townhouses that were built between the mid and late 19th centuries and are largely intact.
The area was first developed at the beginning of the 19th century when a small group of wealthy citizens built their homes here. The country was later divided and many immigrants took up their first residence here, mostly Italian-American . In the middle of the 20th century, the city began to decline because the area was cut off from the center by the construction of the Empire State Plaza, which had a negative impact on the district. A neighborhood committee was established at that time. This was instrumental in ensuring that the quarter developed again at the beginning of the 21st century into a quarter in which people wanted to live. In 1982 the area was designated a Historic District by the city's Historic Resources Commission and added to the National Register of Historic Places .
geography
The historic district is on land that rises about twenty feet to the west from the flat bank along the Hudson River on its east side, where the Pastures Historic District is adjacent. The South Mall Expressway, which carries traffic from the Dunn Memorial Bridge to Empire State Plaza, separates the district from the Times Union Center and the Downtown Albany Historic District to the north and northeast.
Erastus Corning Tower and the other modern skyscrapers of Empire State Plaza tower over the district to the northwest. On the west side lies a strip of land with the seat of the governor, the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and the New York State Library . Lincoln Park is located in the southwest and begins the South End of the city, in which industrial and commercial buildings alternate more strongly.
The actual boundaries of the district are essentially only to the east along a single street, South Pearl Street ( NY 32 ). The district boundaries are less clear on the other sides. While the corners of the north side are on Madison Avenue ( US 20 ), most of Van Zandt Street and most of the south side of Hamilton Street are within the district boundaries that run along Philip Street and the property's rear parcel line at the intersection with Van Zandt Street returns to Madison Avenue. It then heads west to Eagle Street but excludes the buildings across from the cathedral.
Along the east side of Eagle Street, the border then runs south to the corner with Park Avenue, then runs along that street, with the houses on the south side in the middle section and some on Philip Street south of it being within the district boundaries. It runs along the property line to Charles Street, but does not include a large commercial property on Park Avenue between Philip and Grand Streets. At the latter, the border runs along some properties to the north. To the north of an old factory, it cuts through the street block between Grand Street and Trinity Place to the east, from where it leads some properties to the south and finally, excluding another industrial property, returns to South Pearl Street.
Charles, Elm, Myrtle and Wilbur Streets are entirely within the district boundaries, as is Ash Grove, Bleecker and Madison Place. There are 475 buildings within the district boundaries, of which only 20 are considered non-contributing to historical value. Most of the buildings are two or three story row houses. A few larger, but similar commercial structures are scattered around the district. Within the district, in which there are two church buildings, the development is dense and urban in character, a few parcels are vacant.
Open spaces exist in the form of three parks on Philip Street, the two larger of which are opposite one another between Elm and Myrtle Street; in the west of it there is a basketball field.
history
18th century
At the time when Albany was settled in the 17th century, the city was concentrated behind palisades . These roughly covered the area of today's downtown. The area of the later part of the city on Mansion Hill was on the other side of a later filled in cut and was therefore not particularly inviting for settlement. The first recorded settler in the area was a farmer named Hendri Hallenbake. When he died in 1766, his family divided up the land and sold the parcels to wealthy Albany residents who had large houses built for themselves.
After the American Revolution , one of these new residents was Peter W. Yates , a successful lawyer and militia colonel during the war. He is known to have lived there in 1791, in a house at what is now the intersection of Ashgrove and Trinity Place. In 1807, three years before he left Albany for Montgomery County , he sold the house to James Kane.
19th century
Kane, a successful merchant who had made his fortune trading further west in the Mohawk Valley , eventually became the landowner who had the greatest influence on the future neighborhood. In a series of acquisitions, he expanded his property to include most of what is now the historic district, with the exception of the areas north of Madison Avenue and west of Grand Street, but also land further south to Arch Street. After Kane lost his fortune in the panic of 1819 , his land was taken over by his creditors.
The first land development began outside his estate. A federal style house was built at 146 Madison Avenue in 1828; it is the oldest building still in existence in today's historic district. Five years later, 143 Madison was built nearby, also in Federal style, but the facade of this house was changed later in the 19th century. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 sparked economic growth and the need for new land for housing. While most of it was built north and west of the center, Trinity Place opened in 1836 (as Broad Street). Between 1839 and 1840 the first row houses were built in the future Mansion Historic District, 16-24 and 39-45a Trinity Place and 2 Ashgrove Street nearby. David Orr, one of the richest men in town at the time, had the 57-65 Grand Street row built around the same time. These were the last houses to be built in the district in the classic style. These buildings mark the beginning of the mansion district as we know it today.
Archibald McIntyre and Henry Yates bought the former property of Kanes in 1834. His house was at least used as the seat of government by William H. Seward , and successors may have also used it. Yates spent his old age in the house selling some of the land north of Ashgrove and Westerlo Streets around the time the row houses were being built on Trinity Place. After Yates' death in 1854 the house became the Albany Female Academy . Eleven years later, the academy moved to its present location and Kane's residence was demolished to make way for a church.
At the beginning of the 1840s, construction activity was low as a result of the economic crisis of 1837 , only a short row of houses on Hamilton Street was raised. Construction activity increased towards the end of the decade, with a new row of houses being built on Bleecker Street and individual houses being built across the area. Orr had one of the most striking rows of houses in today's historic district built with 6–10 Madison; the 1845–1848 buildings were specially designed for wealthier home buyers. The pointed arch windows and neo-Gothic features suggest the influence of the architectural theories of Andrew Jackson Downing .
In the 1850s, the development of today's Mansion District began in full. The city's economy boomed due to the canal, the construction of the railways, and industrialization . New workers came to the city, many of them Irish immigrants. They needed houses to live in and the Pastures district was already largely built on. The building contractors therefore turned to the empty areas in the west. Orr built homes on Madison and Park Avenues and Myrtle and Grand Streets. The stonemasons Charles and Lewis Seymour built the row 44-50 Grand Street and possibly several more. Lewis Seymour's slightly unusual wooden frame house at 14 Wilbur Street is still standing.
Another prominent contractor in the Mansion District was James Eaton, who was temporarily superintendent in the construction of the New York State Capitol . The district owes a number of newer architectural styles to him, such as the Italianate-style row 46-68 Elm Street, with slightly protruding pavilions with gable roofs on each building that give the impression of an independent tower, more typical of stand-alone villas of this style from that time . He was also the builder of the neo-Gothic style houses 78-92 Grand Street, whose combined facade is symmetrical.
During this time the neighborhood became home to a large group of German immigrants , many of whom were Jews who fled after the collapse of the 1848 revolution . They developed South Pearl Street into a local center of commerce.
20th and 21st centuries
In 1876, Mansion Hill was almost completely built up, except for a few areas along Madison Avenue. The quarter also prospered in the last decades of the 19th century, not least due to the participation of another immigrant group, the immigrants who came over from Italy, who increasingly shaped the image of the quarter. In 1908 they built St. Anthony's Church, built in the Italian Neo-Renaissance style, at the intersection of Grand Street and Madison Avenue . At the next census two years later they were the fourth largest and ten years later, at the 1920 census , Italian Americans were the largest ethnic group in the City of Albany, displaced by the Irish from Park and Myrtle Avenue.
The quarter retained this character well into the 20th century. "Madison below South Pearl could go on until 1941," wrote William Kennedy in O Albany! , "considered a street in Italy" and attributed this to the many Italian names on the shops and restaurants on this street.
However, the establishment of the Empire State Plaza had a negative impact on Mansion Hill. The adjacent neighborhoods were torn down, and Mansion Hill itself was cut off from the city center, on the one hand by the plaza and on the other by the South Mall Expressway. Many residents moved out of the neighborhood to the suburbs as a result, and the Albany Diocese closed St. Anthony's Church in 1973 due to a lack of parishioners. Urban decay was felt, and house sales prices fell to $ 5,000.
New residents of the neighborhood bought houses at these low prices. Two of them founded the Mansion Neighborhood Association (MNA) in 1975 to stand up for the neighborhood and counter demolition plans. The organization was able to establish itself and was partly responsible for the recovery of the district at the beginning of the 21st century, even if in some areas the city's decline has not yet stopped and in 2007 several houses on Madison Place were destroyed by arson .
At the present time, the houses in the district are particularly good for sale because of their location within walking distance of the plaza and the city center; Newcomers especially praise the neighborhood community in the neighborhood. At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, another group bought St. Anthony's Church from the diocese, repaired the structure, and converted it into a cultural center . Similar to other historic districts in the city, new constructions and conversions are subject to approval from the city's Historic Resources Commission (HRC); this body of nine citizens with interests in architecture, history and monument protection is appointed by the mayor. The HRC also advises on the designation of buildings as city-recognized cultural monuments.
See also
supporting documents
- ↑ Lo Faber : Mansion Neighborhood ( English ) In: All About Albany . November-December 2004. Archived from the original on January 10, 2005. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 25, 2012.
- ↑ Frances Ingraham Heins: Mansion Neighborhood: Alive with Community Spirit (English) . In: Albany Times-Union , Hearst Corporation , January 16, 2005.
- ↑ http://www.nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com/ny/Albany/districts.html
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Neil Larson: National Register of Historic Places nomination, Mansion Historic District ( English ) New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation . July 13, 1982. Retrieved April 25, 2012.
- ^ A b Judith Botch: O Albany's South End: A Walking Tour ( English , PDF; 4.3 MB) New York State Writer's Institute. P. 13, 2006. Retrieved May 28, 2012.
- ↑ a b Botch, 14.
- ↑ William Kennedy : O Albany! . Penguin Books, New York, NY 1985, ISBN 9780140074161 , p. 234: “Madison below South Pearl, as late as 1941, could be taken for a street in Italy” , quoted in Botch, 12.
- ↑ a b Brian Nearing: Inside a church, a revival begins (English) . In: Albany Times-Union , Hearst Corporation , September 28, 2004. Retrieved April 25, 2012.
- ↑ a b Rhea Davis: Strong ties breathe life back into Mansion (English) . In: Albany Times-Union , Hearst Corporation , February 1, 2004.
- ↑ Scott Waldman: Albany's Mansion District residents withstand the heat (English) . In: Albany Times-Union , Hearst Corporation , October 1, 2007.
- ^ Marshall Miller: Getting in step (English) . In: Albany Times-Union , Hearst Corporation , January 25, 2004. Retrieved April 25, 2012. "The day we closed on our house in the Mansion neighborhood, our new neighbors invited us for dinner with three others from the block. People welcomed us with unbelievable warmth, inviting us to holiday parties even before we'd moved in, shoveling and salting our steps so they'd be ice-free when we finally arrived with our U-Haul, even helping us unload the truck. In a month, we've met more people here than we knew in six years in the suburbs. "
