Keep up to date with Historic Albany Foundation
Black Lives Matter - A Letter from our ED Pam Howard
/Historic Albany Foundation stands in support with the #BlackLivesMatter movement and with our community. Our country (and our city) has a complicated, difficult history when it comes to race, and it has broken our hearts to see the injustice and pain felt throughout our local communities and nationwide after the death of George Floyd and other violent acts.
We at Historic Albany Foundation have been deeply saddened by the rioting and looting we witnessed locally and across the country over the past weekend. It is deeply troubling in a City where there are so many already vacant buildings were forced to board up many storefronts in the Historic South End, Pearl Street and Central Avenue’s business districts. The Central Avenue business district is just a block away from our home on Lexington Avenue in the West Hill Neighborhood. Many of these businesses that are boarded up have already endured a world-wide pandemic. How many of these small businesses will be forced to close down for good? How many more livelihoods and buildings will be affected by these vacancies and closures?
Preservation as a field has a long history of inequality - HAF included. It is up to us as an organization to work with other agencies in our community to continue to take steps that move toward inclusion, equality, and justice. Our job is not only to save buildings, but to save and tell the stories of EVERY community.
Over the past decade HAF has been committed to advocating for and focusing much of our technical service efforts toward working with the Rapp Road community and the residents of Arbor Hill and the South End. Just this past year we featured programming that partnered with Rapp Road and Wilborn Temple, and held our Restoration Faire in the South End to promote homes that could be rehabilitated and re-occupied. We as an organization want to make sure our programming continues to seek to celebrate, assist, and recognize black communities in our city and beyond.
We do not condone Racism. We proudly stand with our community. We hear you.
6 Irving Street by Darryl McGrath
/My home renovation project started, as these projects so often do, with one modest goal: replace the seriously dangerous, way-off-code, rickety wooden fire escape on the back façade, which was so poorly constructed that it was simply nailed to the brick in several locations, and I was afraid if a bird landed on it, it might give way. I joke, but not by much.
“I was afraid if a bird landed on it, it might give way. I joke, but not by much....”
So, I started with the idea of building some simple way of getting out of my house once that fire escape, with its small, fake-porch landings, was gone. My house is on a hill, the back yard is a six-foot drop from the floor of the back room on the ground level, and I had to have a way to get out into my garden. I could have just built a staircase. Instead, I built an addition.
Thus began what I now call the Great Renovation Project. And it was a trip through time and space and a lot of money. My house was built in 1884. I knew it held many mysteries. The contractor solved some of them during this project, which expanded so far beyond the replacement of that fire escape that I cannot list everything here. Suffice to say that I now know what that strange, dark, 12-inch-diameter hole in the rear façade of the house was originally used for: It used to hold an early sewer lateral. In recent years it has held a pile of rubble and a dead rat, according to a plumber who once shot a high-powered flashlight beam in there to investigate.
“had it let go, I believe the landslide might have also carried away Myrtle Avenue.”
The sewer lateral hole is now sealed up, my foundation and a good part of my rear façade have been repointed, the leaking roof has been repaired, a staircase that had been removed decades ago and was original to the house has been replaced with a new staircase, the sagging fence has been reinstalled, and the original retaining wall that holds in my back yard has been rebuilt. When the contractor took the fence down, he and I stared at the retaining wall, which had been built the same year as the house and apparently had never been repaired. It canted out at a dangerous angle; had it let go, I believe the landslide might have also carried away Myrtle Avenue. It is now upright, completely rebuilt and nicely held together with new concrete.
An enclosed sun porch replaced the fire escape. I have new stairs that lead into my garden from the porch. I do not any longer have the table-top-sized piece of stone that had formed the stepping stone for the old stairs. I set that aside in the yard, told the contractor I intended to use it again, and forgot about it. One afternoon, I looked out my window and saw the crew swinging a sledge hammer to break up my stepping stone. The message about my reusing it apparently did not get through to everyone, and the stepping stone pieces are now the capstones on the new retaining wall. But that seemed a small price to pay for knowing that wall will never collapse in my lifetime.
And come this summer, I will love the sun porch.
By Darryl McGrath
Primo's Meat Market, 540 Clinton Avenue by Cara Macri
/No matter how many buildings I advocate for I will never forget Primo's Meat Market on the corner of Clinton and North Lake Avenues. It was the first building I lost working for Historic Albany Foundation, less than eight hours after I started on my very first day.
“It looked so sad, calling out for help…”
I had just moved back to the Capital Region to become the Director of Preservation Services in August 2008. Susan Holland was the Executive Director. She had just gone on vacation leaving me with the phone numbers of several board members to call in an emergency. I couldn't have been at my desk for more than two hours when my phone rang. It was Susan. 540 Clinton Avenue was about to be an emergency demolition. Time to learn on the job. The phrase trial by fire had never been so appropriate. I arrived on the scene to a sad looking three story building, The storefront was boarded up, but the upper floors were mostly not. The storefront cornice was gone with little stubs poking out from where it was attached. The upper floor lintels and partial cornice showed black char, a clue as to how the building went vacant 40 years ago. Half of the storefront was gone with a big gaping hole on the first floor covered with sagging grey plywood. It looked so sad, calling out for help. After hours of scrambling, desperate phone calls to find the owner, a new owner and stabilization funds, the almost 121 building was gone. Wow, my career as a preservationist in Albany was off to a banner start.
“Built in 1887, in the German West Hill neighborhood, the building had been a meat market since at least the 1930s…”
That ill-fated shell wasn't always such though. Built in 1887, in the German West Hill neighborhood, the building had been a meat market since at least the 1930s. The upper floors were rented out to working class immigrants. Elizabeth Moore, a German born houseworker with three children; Thomas McGraw, an Irish-born fireman; Herbert Bammer, a foreman, and his wife and three children were among the many, many tenants to call the lovely Italianate rowhouse home. It had a deep cornice with a paneled frieze and pressed metal lintels. The first floor had a lovely little storefront. The recessed shop door was set off by tall pilasters with beautifully carved capitals and large plate glass windows that rose merely a few feet from the ground. It was your average bustling corner store, an anchor in a bustling immigrant neighborhood.
“average bustling corner store, an anchor in a bustling immigrant neighborhood….”
It was for me a tragic loss, an unknown building I had no previous connection with, that lit a fire within me to do better, to take every advocacy effort head on. I have lost hundreds of buildings at Historic Albany. (Clearly, they hired the wrong woman for the job) but I will never forget Primo's.
Cara Macri
