I stopped in Albany for 1 day over the summer. Except the awful Empire State Plaza, it's a pretty nice little city. Very little city. Way smaller than I expected, actually. I always figured based on pictures that Albany was about Richmond-sized, but in person it felt much more like a peer of Harrisburg.
Let's get the bad part over with. Empire State Plaza. This all used to be a gorgeous urban neighborhood, including the highway.
Sorry for blur.
The Egg.
The old state house is nice.
Now here's the neighborhood immediately behind, which was thankfully spared. The highway engineers wanted to rip it out, of course.
Back on the other side of Empire Plaza is downtown Albany.
This is city hall.
State Street is the main drag. It's only a couple of blocks long.
I fondly remember passing through Albany on the train from Penn Station to Montreal. Too bad the transit infrastructure looks so pathetic. I shutter when I think/imagine what a similarly-sized European metro (870k) would look like with regards to vibrancy, transit, and real, functional urbanity.
I shutter when I think/imagine what a similarly-sized European metro (870k)...
I agree about Albany's poor transit, but it's not really a city of anything approaching 870k. That metro area number is for a decentralized tri-cities region that includes Troy, and Schenectady, which have impressive cores of their own. If it were all centralized on Albany then no doubt Albany would have more big city amenities.
Cool pics. One of my earliest memories is my Mom taking me to the Egg to see some sort of ice show. Love it or hate it, it was super cool to a little kid.
Nowadays I really appreciate the small patch of historic urban fabric still standing in Albany that you captured.
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"You need both a public and a private position." --Hillary Clinton, speaking behind closed doors to the National Multi-Family Housing Council, 2013
Albany looks nice and comfortable! I like the Egg, the Old State House, State street and that quaint neghbourhood with such pretty houses. I like the downtown and the City Hall too.
Empire State Plaza is amazing. I remember passing through Albany on the way from New York to Montreal and seeing the towers rising from behind some highway interchange at dusk. Dystopian perfection.
Really lovely old stock of buildings. I have seen the before and after, and it saddens me greatly to learn what was lost, just to build the dystopian, car-friendly empire state plaza. It is hard to find anything positive with the mindset of such planners. I passed through Albany many times enroute to NYC (from Montreal, and vice versa), and seeing that plaza only made me want to avoid stopping to check out the city.
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