Take the Tiny Houses in the Capital District Virtual and Driving Tour

Historic Albany Foundation’s “Tiny Houses in the Capital District”  is live now! The tour is hosted on Clio, a free mobile app and website that uses GPS to share local knowledge about historic and cultural sites around the United States. It will feature additional information about the houses from the original “Spite Houses & Tiny Houses” Blog post that highlighted the unique, smaller homes in the city of Albany - as well as additional, similarly-sized buildings in Schenectady. 

“Tiny Houses in the Capital District” adds two homes from the city of Schenectady to the tour. 216 ½ Union Street was built at some point in the mid 19th century, in the Victorian style, and is located in the Historic Stockade District. 135 ½ South Ferry Street is another historical home, built in 1803, that can be found right outside of the boundaries of the Stockade. The Stockade in Schenectady features historic homes built in the 18th, 19th, and 20th century, covering a vast array of architectural styles. The homes in Albany can be found in the Center Square & Hudson Park Historic Neighborhood, The Pastures Historic Neighborhood, The Washington Avenue Corridor Historic Neighborhood, and the Ten Broeck Triangle Historic Neighborhood in Arbor Hill. 

More about Clio

Clio is a website that allows museums, historical societies, colleges and universities, and other organizations to create walking or thematic tours that share local history. Clio, as of late, features 37,487 historical entries from around the United States. The site can be accessed online or through a mobile app, which provides the information on entries for self-guided tours. Each of the seven houses on the “Tiny Houses in the Capital District of New York State” has their own entries. All of the entries were created with research that includes documents that can be found in the National Register of Historic Places, CRIS (Cultural Resource Information Center,) and the HathiTrust Digital Library.

Read or take the tour here >>

By Andrea Lurie

#WhereinAlbany - 282 Lark Street

This week’s #WhereinAlbany was three sister buildings on Lark Street by Hamilton. You might recognize them from the distinct, eclectic wood window hoods. The modified Italianate buildings are three stories (including the basement) and were built in 1869.

From the inventory sheet on Criss:

“One of 3 rowhouses built in 1869 for Ezra L. Pasco. Pasco was a merchant listed in city directories as selling a variety of items including stoves (1857); boots and shoes (1865) and fancy goods (1866). he lived at 148 Washington Avenue until 1871 when he moved to 320 Hudson Avenue.

In the 1890s this house was owned by Max Schnurr, one of several Schnurr’s to own meat markets in Albany. His market was at 89 Beaver Street” (now Amo La Bella!)

Well done to everyone who guessed correctly!

Where in Albany - 62 Swan Street

Well done everyone who joined in this week’s #WhereinAlbany. We wanted to give you all a bit more information about the stunning 62 Swan.

See below the full blue sheet for the property,

'Albany's Mid-Century Modern: a driveable self-guided tour'

Download the Guide Here>>

We've been having tons of fun this week on our Facebook releasing snaps of mid-century modern architecture as part of #WhereinAlbany, joining in with DOCOMOMO US's #70sTurn50 month-long celebration.

Today we're happy to release 'Albany's Mid-Century Modern: a driveable self-guided tour' for everyone to enjoy. You can print it off, read it on your phone, visit the buildings, Google maps them, or just learn more about some of the sleek architecture that Albany is home to.

Want to help us continue our work making tours and saving buildings? Make a one-time donation (for any amount) here, or even better become a member ($45 for the year) of our organization. We’d love to have you!