Broadway-Livingston Avenue Historic District

The Broadway-Livingston Avenue Historic District is historically and architecturally significant as a rare surviving enclave of residential and commercial buildings that reflects the development of north Albany's Hudson River environs during the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Developed in close proximity to the Erie Canal terminus, the city's busy riverfront and the New York Central Railroad right-of-way, north Broadway became a hub of commercial activity in which business establishments were interspersed with townhouses and row-houses built for Albany's growing middle-class population. Built between 1829-1876, the buildings of the Broadway-Livingston Avenue Historic District include significant, intact examples of multi-story Greek Revival and Italianate style urban residences, as well as notable examples of Italianate style brick commercial architecture. The district also includes an imposing metal Warren truss railroad bridge and cut-stone viaduct built by the New York Central to span Broadway in 1900. The intersection of Broadway and Livingston Avenue began as a small commercial district serving the surrounding neighborhood in the 1830's, a role which continued through the period of significance. District buildings exhibit the design and decorative features popular during their period of construction. Isolated by extensive demolition during recent decades, the Broadway Livingston Avenue Historic District evokes the historic character of north Albany during the nineteenth century.

The city of Albany was incorporated in 1686. In that year a charter from British authorities granted city fathers corporate jurisdiction over a one mile-long strip of riverfront extending from Gansevoort Street on the south to Patroon Street (now Clinton Avenue) on the north. Land along Broadway north of the city's corporate limits, including the intersection of Broadway and Livingston Avenue, was owned by the Van Rensselaers, a wealthy Dutch merchant family that had acquired the land from the Mohican Indians in 1629. It was part of a vast estate or "patroonship" that extended along the Hudson River twelve miles north and south of the settlement of Albany.

Perhaps hoping to encourage increased property sales of portions of the family estate, Patroon Stephen Van Rensselaer in 1764 surveyed a large tract of land abutting the city's northern boundary. He superimposed a grid pattern of streets and blocks over an area extending from Clinton Avenue on the south to North Ferry Street on the north and from the Hudson River west to Northern Boulevard. Broadway, which for over a century had served as the major road north out of the city, was the axial avenue used in developing the overall street plan of this large, and as yet undeveloped, rural district. In 1795 the entire area was officially incorporated as the "Town of Colonie." By 1815, more than one thousand property owners were scattered throughout the newly designated town. In that year residents petitioned for annexation to the city of Albany and succeeded in their goal. The annexed territory was at that time re-established as the fifth ward of the city of Albany.

Despite its new political status, little development occurred in the fifth ward over the ensuing decade. After 1825, however, dramatic changes occurred within this quiet, rural suburb. of major importance to the early development of Broadway was the completion of the Erie Canal in 1825. The canal extended for 360 miles west from Albany to Buffalo. the easternmost terminus of the canal was at Albany and the inlet to the canal penetrated the Hudson River shoreline at the foot of Colonie Street, immediately east of the Broadway-Livingston Avenue Historic District.

Not only canal-related construction, but municipal improvements contributed to the transformation of Albany's north end riverfront in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. As the canal neared completion in 1825, the city undertook construction of a massive pier to enclose and protect both the canal inlet and a basin of thirty-two acres to provide moorings for up to 1,000 canal boats and fifty steamboats. The pier, the huge dry dock and storage facility extended 4,300 feet from the canal inlet south to the foot of Madison Avenue.

Albany's north end riverfront underwent dramatic commercial transformation in the years following construction of the Erie Canal and the Albany Basin. As the canal's easternmost terminus, the area around the Albany inlet was heavily traveled and land on either side of the canal was quickly appropriated for storage of huge quantities of lumber being transported daily from northern and western forests. Planing and saw mills were constructed, telegraph and streetcar lines linked the new "lumber district" with the rest of the city and services of all kinds grew up to accommodate workers and businessmen busily making their fortunes in this young but lucrative industry.

Commercial and transportation activity along the Albany riverfront east of Broadway was further intensified in 1844 when the city's major rail lines were rerouted from State Street hill to Patroon's Creek ravine. In 1831 the nation's first steam passenger train made its inaugural trip between Albany and Schenectady. For the next thirteen years railroad cars were hauled up the steep grade of State Street hill by horses and then on by steam engine west to Schenectady. In 1844 this route was shifted to follow the more gradual ascent of the Patroon's Creek ravine. This new route ran from a mass of rail yards east of Broadway, crossed that avenue by bridge at Colonie street and continued on through the ravine to points west. This has remained the route in use to the present day.

By the decade of the 1850's, continuous rail service was possible from the eastern seaboard via Albany to all points west. At Albany, however, there was no railroad bridge across the Hudson River until after the Civil War. Until that time it was necessary for hundreds of dockers and teamsters to unload freight trains on the east shore of the Hudson River, ferry the goods across the water, and warehouse or reload them on trains on the opposite bank. One of the major rail transfer points in Albany was the dock for the north ferry located adjacent to the canal inlet and only a few blocks east of the intersection of Broadway and Livingston Avenue.

The existing massive railroad truss bridge spanning Broadway is a significant transportation structure representing the heavy railroad engineering design and construction characteristic of its period. A riveted metal Warren through skewed alignment, the bridge was built by the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad in 1900 as part of a multi-million dollar construction project that included the building of Albany's Union Station (NR, 1971) and a rail freight bridge across the Hudson River opposite Livingston Avenue and the filling of the Erie Canal Basin for expanded freight yards. Built in several phases to permit uninterrupted rail traffic on the main line during construction, the Warren truss structure was also designed to span Broadway above grade on a cut stone viaduct so that vehicular traffic on Albany's busy north-south artery would not be impeded. Designed by William J. Wilgus, chief engineer for the N.Y.C. & H.R.R.R. and erected by A. &.P. Roberts contractors, the Broadway/Colonie street bridge continues in use as a mainline span serving Conrail, Amtrak and Delaware and Hudson rail traffic. The structure was an important addition to the railroad's Albany operation at the time of its construction and embodies the design features (heavy members, riveted construction, Warren truss configuration) characteristic of standard railroad engineering practice at the beginning of the twentieth century. The railroad bridge is a key visual element in the historic district and evokes the historic connection of Broadway with adjacent rail and transfer industry.

The proximity of river, canal and rail transportation brought a wave of industrial, commercial and residential development to the area of Broadway and Livingston Avenue during the middle decades of the nineteenth century. Numerous breweries, foundries, flour mills, warehouses and workshops were established in the blocks between Broadway on the west and the Hudson River on the east. Residential construction accompanied this extensive boom along Albany's north end river corridor. Dwellings built by businessmen and manufacturers for themselves or as speculative housing crowded the Broadway-Livingston Avenue area by the 1850's, and this construction boom continued through the third quarter of the nineteenth century. Owners of the large and stylish Greek Revival style brick townhouse at 788 Broadway operated a successful dry goods and grocery business in the basement story during the period 1830-1855.

Josiah Root, owner of the satinette factory on nearby Tivoli Street, resided at 802 Broadway. Other early occupants of the district included small-scale manufacturers, merchants, railroad agents and, among the working classes on Livingston Avenue, wheelwrights, boilermakers, and general laborers.

By the decade of the 1840's, small businesses had begun to appear throughout the riverfront district to serve the area's growing population. At this time, a small enclave of local retailers established stores along Broadway at its intersection with Livingston Avenue. Druggists set up businesses at 795-797 and 799 Broadway perhaps as early as the 1830's, and a "fancy baker" operated from 798 Broadway, also before mid-century. Many of the residential buildings on this block of Broadway were converted to commercial use as well. The residents of 796 Broadway established a grocery in the building. An art supply dealer constructed the large, elaborate Italianate building at #810-812 Broadway soon after the Civil War. Through the mid twentieth century, dozens of local businesses came and went as the needs of the surrounding neighborhood changed over a period of more than a century.

Today, the bed of the Erie Canal has been filled and paved and most of the industrial and transportation related structures, at one time adjacent to the Broadway-Livingston Avenue Historic District, have been demolished. The metal truss railroad bridge at the foot of Colonie Street, built as part of the Union Station redevelopment at the turn of the century, is among the exceptions, as are a number of industrial buildings north of the present district. All but a few early and mid-nineteenth century Greek Revival and Italianate residences have been demolished as well. Buildings at 744-750 Broadway, a scattered few on North Pearl Street, and those at the intersection of Broadway and Livingston Avenue are all that remain of this early era of intensive urban development in this section of Albany.

Collectively the buildings of the Broadway-Livingston Avenue Historic District reflect a range of architectural treatment characteristic of their nineteenth-century urban setting in Albany: Moreover, they are the only concentration of mixed residential/commercial buildings surviving that convey the scale, density and setting of north Albany during the period of significance. The simple brackets, cornices, moldings and numerous storefronts of the brick row houses and commercial buildings reflect the application of Greek Revival and Italianate decorative elements to otherwise utilitarian urban structures in the period 1830-1876. The refined detail of the Greek Revival style townhouse at 788 Broadway also recalls the numerous elegant residences of middle and upper-middle class families once located along this section of Broadway. This building is the only extant example of its type in the district.

During the twentieth century, extensive alterations have greatly changed the character of north Broadway and its surroundings. The bed of the former Erie Canal and the Albany Basin have been filled and paved; the city's former Hudson River orientation has been largely compromised by construction of the Interstate 787 arterial highway; and vast numbers of industrial, commercial and residential buildings have been demolished in the past two decades. Along with a group of four brick rowhouses at 744-750 Broadway (NR nomination pending, 1987), the Broadway Livingston Avenue Historic District is the last enclave of buildings remaining to illustrate the historical and architectural character and development of north Broadway as it evolved during the early and mid-nineteenth century.