Albany: Where the Erie Canal Changed America
The Dutch arrived in 1614, establishing a fur trading post they called Fort Nassau on the mudflats where the Hudson River met the Mohawk. The Iroquois Five Nations had used this confluence for centuries - the Mohawk Valley corridor connecting the Atlantic coast to the Great Lakes. The English renamed the settlement Albany in 1664; New York made it the state capital in 1797; and when the Erie Canal opened in 1825, Albany became the hinge point where goods from the Great Lakes transferred to Hudson River boats bound for New York City. That canal made New York the Empire State, and Albany grew wealthy on the commerce flowing through its warehouses. The wealth shows in the architecture: Dutch colonial houses, Federal mansions, Victorian churches, and the brutalist Empire State Plaza rising incongruously beside it all.
The Dutch Foundation
Fort Nassau was the second permanent Dutch settlement in North America, established just seven years after Henry Hudson sailed up the river that bears his name. The location was strategic - far enough upriver to be safe from ocean storms, at the point where the Mohawk River joined the Hudson, providing access to the interior. The Dutch traded European goods for beaver pelts with the Mahican and later the Mohawk, shipping furs downstream to Amsterdam. When the English took over in 1664, they kept the trading post functioning, renaming it for the Duke of Albany (later King James II). The colonial street pattern survives in downtown Albany, narrow lanes winding up from the river in the Dutch manner rather than the rigid English grid.
The Erie Canal Revolution
When the Erie Canal opened in 1825, it transformed Albany from a regional trading post into a continental crossroads. Goods from Buffalo and the Great Lakes traveled 363 miles by canal to Albany, then transferred to Hudson River steamboats for the final 150 miles to New York City. The commerce was staggering - grain, lumber, manufactured goods flowing east; settlers, supplies, and finished products flowing west. Albany's warehouses multiplied; its population exploded; fortunes were made in shipping and banking. The canal also made Albany a center for Prohibition-era smuggling a century later - Canadian whiskey traveling the old water routes south. The Erie Canal remains navigable today, though pleasure boats have replaced cargo barges.
Five Centuries of Architecture
Albany's architectural wealth reflects its centuries of prosperity. The Schuyler Mansion (1765) hosted the wedding of Alexander Hamilton and Elizabeth Schuyler - now a state historic site. The New York State Capitol (1899) took 32 years to build, its Great Western Staircase containing 444 steps carved with famous faces and grotesques. The Delaware and Hudson Railroad Building (1914) showcases Flemish Gothic revival. Then Governor Nelson Rockefeller demolished 40 acres of historic buildings in the 1960s to construct the Empire State Plaza - a billion-dollar complex of marble towers, underground concourses, and brutalist government buildings that remains controversial decades later. The Egg, an ellipsoidal performing arts center, tilts at an impossible angle in the plaza's center.
Albany After Dark
Lark Street is Albany's cultural corridor - a concentration of bars, restaurants, and clubs between Washington Park and Central Avenue that earned the neighborhood its 'Greenwich Village of the Capital District' nickname. The street's Victorian rowhouses contain everything from dive bars to cocktail lounges, art galleries to independent bookstores. Pearl Street downtown draws the after-work government crowd, particularly during the summer 'Alive at Five' concerts when streets close for outdoor festivals. The Tulip Festival in May celebrates Albany's Dutch heritage with street performers and the coronation of a Tulip Queen. Washington Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted's firm, provides 81 acres of green space in the city center.
Capital of the Empire State
Albany International Airport (ALB) sits 7 miles northwest of downtown, with flights to major Eastern hubs. Amtrak's Empire Service connects Albany-Rensselaer station to New York City (2.5 hours) and points west. The city spreads across hills rising from the Hudson's west bank - the skyline dominated by the Corning Tower, at 589 feet the tallest building in New York outside Manhattan. From altitude, Albany appears as development concentrated along the river, the Empire State Plaza's geometric complex visible as a break in the 19th-century fabric, the green rectangle of Washington Park to the southwest. The Hudson flows south toward the city that Albany made great, the water route that connected wilderness to world markets.
From the Air
Located at 42.65°N, 73.76°W on the Hudson River's west bank, 150 miles north of New York City. From altitude, Albany appears as development climbing hills from the river - the geometric white complex of the Empire State Plaza visible against surrounding brick and stone, the capitol building's red granite contrasting with brutalist towers. What appears from the air as New York's modest capital was the hinge point where Erie Canal commerce made the Empire State, where Dutch traders and English governors built the foundations for American industry.