BUILT Art Pick up for Winners and Unsold Work

BUILT 2021

Winners - if you have won your bid we should have notified you via email. Please check your bidding profile to see if you have won. Pick up for the pieces is on Tuesday 9th between 10 am and 6 pm from the Argus Hotel (8 Thurow Terrace, Albany).

UNSOLD ART PICKUP - Artists

If your work does not sell, please be prepared to pick up the artwork from The Argus Hotel on Tuesday 9th between 10am and 6pm. HAF staff will only notify you on Monday 8th if your piece has NOT been sold, you can also check on the bidding site here. Please note that HAF cannot be responsible for any damages to artwork that is transported after the event.

Annual Fund 2021

Dear Friends in Preservation, 

At 48 Hudson Avenue, a building sits amid the vast emptiness of Albany’s so-called “parking lot district.”  Thirty-two years ago, the oldest remaining Dutch building in our city was “discovered” underneath nearly 300 years of additions and new facades, adjacent to newer neighbors that were collapsing or being torn down.

Last week I listened as Historic Albany Foundation’s staff member Cara Macri led a tour of the building, relating how its discovery started filling in some blank spots in what we know about Albany’s past and where its people lived and worked.  As she spoke, I heard the stories of real people emerge, stories that are as familiar as my own family’s and those of my friends and neighbors.  They are Albany’s stories.

Historic Albany Foundation is a keeper of Albany’s stories and a fierce advocate for preserving Albany’s built environment. For nearly fifty years, with the financial help of our members and supporters, we have provided technical assistance to homeowners, salvaged elements from buildings that can’t be saved and brought our city’s history alive with walking tours and other programming. We do this because people like you are here to support it.

“Historic Albany Foundation is a keeper of Albany’s stories and a fierce advocate for preserving Albany’s built environment…”

The need for the services that we provide continues to grow.  Albany continues to lose buildings to neglect and to the developers’ wrecking ball.  As these buildings come down, we not only lose our old stories, we lose the ones that are still to be written. The neighborhoods stricken by neglect are those that, for hundreds of years, provided that first shot at homeownership or the bigger apartment to a growing family.   We have to advocate for those buildings like we have for those with grander proportions or more illustrious tales.

I became involved with Historic Albany Foundation during the sixteen years I served on Albany’s Common Council. We were working to find innovative ways to keep older, two-family homes viable and available to new generations, especially in neighborhoods like ours, along Delaware Avenue.

While serving in public office, I heard a lot of stories -- about people who grew up here, who moved here from other countries and other states, who played politics, danced in jazz clubs and ran bootleg whiskey.  They worked long hours in the railyards and factories so they could build the churches, schools and homes that form our communities.

We continue to save those stories when we save their context, when we save the streets, parks and homes where they lived.  And we save the space for the stories yet to come.

Can I count on you to join me in supporting these efforts?

Thank you,

Shawn Morris, Board Member

Preservation and Advocacy Chair

Give to the Annual Fund >>

The Dark Side of Downtown Albany Tours

In honor of Halloween, join Historic Albany Foundation and Discover Albany for a special, sinister tour exploring the Dark side of Downtown Albany. This guided tour will delve into the stories behind the buildings you see every day in the downtown area of Albany, peeling back the layers of history to discover tales of true crime, spooky stories, and murderous mysteries.

Hear about an elevator accident, a murder at the luxurious Ten Eyck Hotel, attractions at a long-gone curiosity museum, and much more.

Booking is essential - each tour has a maximum of 15 attendees

Meeting point - Outside McGeary's, 4 Clinton Square, Albany, NY 12207. . Please note there will be a stop at a local pub midway through the route for a tipple on all tours, apart from 5.30 pm

20/21/26/28/31 OCT 2021

tickets here >>

Meet our #BUILT2021 Judges

Elizabeth Reiss

Elizabeth Reiss is a life-long arts advocate.  Her career has been guided by the simple belief that the arts belong in everyone’s life.  Raised in LI, Reiss has worked in NYC, Pittsburgh and the Capital Region, in art museums, children museums, arts festivals and now as the CEO of the Arts Center of the Capital Region.

Reiss has worked as a museum educator, education department director, exhibitions manager and development and public relations director, as well as organizational leader.  She is skilled in project development as well as strategic planning and business development.  Her favorite creative projects have been developing Craft in the Classroom, a K-12 craft education curricula developed with the NYC board of education, renovating an empty storefront to become the Children’s Museum of the Arts in SoHo, and, as part of the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh, presenting public art projects that interacted with the environment.

Reiss has a BA from Bard College and an MS from Bank Street School for Education.  She has played an active role in community and professional service organizations.  In the past, she has served as the Chair of the NYC Museum Education Roundtable, VP of Greater Pittsburgh Arts Alliance and has served as a grants panelist for Institute of Museum and Library Services, New York State Council on the Arts, Cleveland Percent for Art, and the Pittsburgh Foundation.

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Kevin Kuhne

Kevin Kuhne specializes in watercolor depictions of the Capital region, with a special interest in local architecture and history.  He has a B.S. in Art Education from SUNY New Paltz and continues to teach and conduct workshops locally and regionally.

He is an active member of many local Arts organizations, including the Oak Room Artists and shows regularly in the Capital District and beyond. Kevin is a Signature Member of the Northeast Watercolor Society and has shown in the  Artists of the Mohawk Hudson Regional and the Adirondack National Exhibition of American Watercolors.  One of his sculptural constructions is in the collection of the Albany Institute of History and Art.

In addition, Kevin has submitted work to Historic Albany Foundation’s BUILT since the beginning, and serves as a volunteer helping to organize and hang the exhibit for the auction and event.