The South End/Groesbeckville Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. Portions of the content on this web page were adapted from a copy of the original nomination document. [‡]
Description
The South End/Groesbeckville Historic District is located in Albany's south end, less than a mile south of downtown and only a few blocks west of the Hudson River. The South End/Groesbeckville Historic District encompasses approximately 26 city blocks densely covered with residences and commercial/residential buildings. There are 507 contributing buildings in the South End/Groesbeckville Historic District and only 13 intrusions. A working-class neighborhood which developed during the mid-nineteenth century, the South End/Groesbeckville Historic District derives its character from its mix of diverse building types and materials, its narrow curving streets and unusual street pattern, and the modest design and scale of its vernacular buildings. Most buildings in the South End/Groesbeckville Historic District are two- and three-story rowhouses, executed in wood or brick, with cornice, window and door detailing of stone, metal, or wood. A range of nineteenth and early twentieth century styles is reflected in the district but most common are vernacular adaptations of Greek Revival, Italianate, and Eastlake styles. While contributing buildings range in date from 1761 to 1930, the vast majority date from the 1840s through 1870s.
The South End/Groesbeckville Historic District is bounded roughly by Franklin Street on the east, Second Avenue on the south, Elizabeth Street on the west, and Morton Avenue on the north. It is set apart on the north and east by open land, modern construction and high-rise public housing. To the east and south are the industrial structures associated with the Port of Albany. The neighborhood south of Second Avenue contains houses of similar style and scale to those in the historic district, but the area is interspersed with large tracts of open space, giving it a much less urban character. Above Elizabeth Street on the west, the South End/Groesbeckville Historic District's architectural character continues for an additional block, but construction is generally sparser, a result of extensive demolition in recent years. Thus, the South End/Groesbeckville Historic District boundary is drawn to encompass the contiguous area distinguished by shared qualities of density, scale, age, and use.
The South End/Groesbeckville Historic District is situated on the gentle slope which rises west of the Hudson River floodplain. Originally, this slope was cut by streams near the northern and southern extremities of the district, but these were subsequently filled as the neighborhood developed. The earliest road through the area was Washington Street, now South Pearl Street, which led south from the city and was incorporated in 1804 as the Bethlehem Turnpike. This road marked the western edge of the Hudson River floodplain, curving slightly opposite Gansevoort Street to conform with a bend in the riverbank. Beginning in the 1790's, a gridiron street plan was imposed on areas in Albany's floodplain and on the neighboring gentle slopes. By 1818, the grid was extended as far south as Gansevoort Street, the southern line of the city at that time. Immediately to the south lay the town of Bethlehem community of Groesbeckville, and here too a grid plan was in place by the 1850s. Both north and south of the city line, side streets intersected Pearl Street at right angles, but due to the curve in Pearl Street the two independent grids met at a skewed angle.
By the end of the 1850s all the streets in the South End/Groesbeckville Historic District were laid out, though not yet densely settled. The gentle curve of the north-south streets, the juxtaposition of non-parallel grids, and the rising slope of the land to the west and south have resulted in some interesting visual effects and provide an "Old World" flavor to the district. The narrow streets, many of which retain original granite or brick paving, the dense concentrations of structures, and the block-to-block mix of building types are evidence of the close-knit society which gave rise to this neighborhood, a community in which people worked, shopped, worshiped, and found entertainment within walking distance of their homes.
The South End is primarily a district of vernacular two and three-story residences of frame or brick set close together or arranged in rows to form dense uninterrupted streetscapes. The majority of the buildings were constructed in the latter two-thirds of the nineteenth century. A smaller portion of the structures date from the first third of the twentieth century, continuing to reflect the modest rowhouse form. The major styles represented in district architecture are Greek Revival and Italianate, with some influence from Gothic Revival, Eastlake, Queen Anne, Arts and Crafts, and Colonial Revival design. Unlike other Albany neighborhoods where most rowhouse development was financed by speculative builders, most of the South End housing was the result of individual initiative. This pattern of owner-financed (and probably builder-designed) construction gave rise to considerable variety in the style, materials, and degree of refinement exhibited in district architecture. It is not unusual to find an earlier wood-frame Italianate style residence adjacent to a later NeoClassical brick structure. For example, in one block of Clinton Street, there are a brick rowhouse with lintels and sills of rock-faced stone and a corbelled cornice (135 Clinton Street, c.1895), a five-bay brick Italianate house with arched windows, metal lintels, and an ornate bracketed cornice (137 Clinton Street, c.1870), two modest frame rowhouses with bracketed cornices (143 and 141 Clinton Street, pre-1860), and a pair of richly textured brownstone and brick townhouses (145-147 Clinton Street, c.1895), with similar variety on the opposite side of the street. Despite this variety of style and detail, there is a remarkable homogeneity in the streetscapes, due to similarities in dimensions, the rhythm of window openings, and the proportion of glass to surface. The majority of properties are rowhouses intended for single-family use (which originally may have included one or more boarders). There are a few large tenements, but these continue the rhythm, proportion and decorative detailing of the streetscape, whether in an Italianate design such as 105 Broad Street or in the later Arts and Crafts influenced apartment block at 82-84 Morton Avenue. This continuity is also found in some non-residential buildings in the neighborhood, most notably in the warehouse at 52 Morton Avenue, whose block-long Elizabeth Street facade presents the appearance of five Italianate rowhouses.
In the historic period, industrial development clustered at the riverfront, a development pattern which was intensified by introduction of the railroad running roughly parallel to the river. Properties adjacent to and east of the railroad tended to be in industrial use, while those to the west were residential, commercial, and public buildings. In modern times many South End industrial properties have given way to highway development, public housing projects, and clearance programs, but the pattern of industrial use east of Pearl Street continues, especially south of Vine Street. The eastern boundary of the South End/Groesbeckville Historic District reflects this change in use, excluding the industrial properties, most of which are non-historic. Those few industrial properties which are included in the district date from the historic period of development and architecturally are compatible with the surrounding streetscape, as in the warehouse noted above, the brewery at 76-78 Third Avenue, or the Jared Holt Wax Factory at 111 Broad Street.
Pearl Street was and continues to be the South End's major thoroughfare and the commercial spine of the neighborhood. Some of the oldest buildings in the district are located on South Pearl Street, as are the newest, for, it has been the site of continuous construction and improvement since the 1820s. Most Pearl Street buildings are three-story brick structures which combine commercial use on the first floor with apartments on the upper floors. Typically, Pearl Street buildings are among the most elaborate in the South End/Groesbeckville Historic District, featuring bracketed cornices, decorated window surrounds, and cast-iron storefronts. The formerly dense streetscape has been interrupted by demolitions and occasional low-level modern commercial development, particularly on the east side of the street. Small non-contributing garages on the west side of Pearl Street south of Third Avenue reflect the impact of the automobile on this commercial corridor. Commercial buildings are also scattered on other streets in the neighborhood, particularly on Clinton and Elizabeth Streets and Second Avenue, but these small shops tend to be architecturally modest compared to those on Pearl Street.
The South End/Groesbeckville Historic District's most distinguished building is the Schuyler Mansion (National Historic Landmark 1967), the Georgian mansion built by General Philip Schuyler in 1761, which occupies the west side of Clinton Street south of Catherine Street. Distinguished from surrounding properties by its early date, sophisticated design, and spacious grounds it is nonetheless intimately associated with the neighborhood. It was the subdivision of the Schuyler property after the General's death in 1804 which stimulated the initial development of the South End. After the Schuyler Mansion, the most sophisticated architecture is found in the South End/Groesbeckville Historic District's churches and public buildings. Especially prominent are the Gothic Revival style churches which punctuate the skyline: the slender broach spire of the German Evangelical Protestant Church at Alexander and Clinton Streets (c.1857), the pyramidal spire of the Mt. Zion Baptist Church at 86 Schuyler Street (1893), and the gable-roofed tower of the Church of St. Ann (Roman Catholic) at Fourth Avenue and Franklin Street (1867). The St. Ann's rectory (c.1875) is also an excellent example of High Victorian Gothic design. The Mount Calvary Baptist Church (c.1865) at 58 Alexander Street is notable as one of the last remaining wood-frame churches in the city.
While the schools and other government buildings in the South End/Groesbeckville Historic District are large, they are more domestic in scale and design than the churches. Public School 17, built in 1875, adopts many design elements from the Italianate rowhouses of the neighborhood: corbelled cornice, raised stone basement, wide lintels over regularly spaced double-hung windows and simple pilasters break its block-long facade into five rowhouse-sized bays. Public School No. 1 on Bassett and Franklin Streets is an unusual example of Moorish Revival architecture, dating from 1889. The early years of the twentieth century brought several significant buildings into the district including Engine House #5 (1904-05), Public Bath House #2 (1904-05), and twentieth-century architecture in the district, these buildings exhibit strong influences of Colonial Revival design. The John A. Howe Public Library on Schuyler Street, built in 1929, is a notable example of the Georgian Revival style, designed to complement the neighboring Schuyler Mansion.
Thirteen buildings have been identified as non-contributing. All except one are one-story masonry commercial and industrial buildings of twentieth century origin, which differ markedly in massing and design from contributing historic buildings in the district. The exception is Walls Temple, a modern brick church which, like the other non-contributing buildings, has low, horizontal massing, rectangular windows, and flat, unadorned walls.
Significance
The South End/Groesbeckville Historic District is a distinctive neighborhood characterized by modest vernacular rowhouses punctuated by the substantial commercial blocks of South Pearl Street and a scattering of architecturally distinguished church and public buildings. The 26 block district in the southeast corner of Albany is historically significant as a reflection of the city's nineteenth century industrial expansion and population growth. Developed after 1820 as a residential and commercial center for the city's growing immigrant population, the district has been home to numerous ethnic groups but is particularly associated with the German community. Many of the South End/Groesbeckville Historic District's working-class residents were employed in the adjacent industrial area along the Hudson River, while independent tradesmen set up shop along South Pearl Street. The South End/Groesbeckville Historic District's 520 structures, mostly constructed between 1820 and 1930, exhibit a variety of architectural styles, materials and ornament. The vernacular design and small scale of the residential structures and the modestly ornamented but substantial commercial blocks reflect the limited resources of the owner-builders, who were predominantly laborers, artisans, and independent businessmen. The grand scale and sophisticated design exhibited in the religious and civic architecture bespeak the importance of church and government to the immigrant working class. Remaining a stable and close-knit community well into the twentieth century, the South End/Groesbeckville Historic District retains integrity as a unique historic neighborhood in Albany recalling a significant phase of the city's growth and development.
Nineteenth century development in Albany's South End was centered around Gen. Philip Schuyler's Georgian style mansion, built in 1761 (Schuyler Mansion NHL, Clinton and Catherine Streets). Sited on a bluff overlooking the southern portion of the city's communal pastures, the mansion was cut off from the city's urban core by the pastures to the northeast and by the Hudson River, and on the south and west by unsettled portions of the township of Bethlehem, the Schuyler Mansion remained in an isolated rural setting for more than half a century. It was not until after the General's death in 1804 that the house was sold and the surrounding land broken up for sale as building lots.
In the last decade of the eighteenth century, the city's pasture lands were improved, subdivided and gradually sold for speculative building.
By 1840, the entire northern sector of the pastures, once characterized by open grass and marshland, was transformed into the compact, densely built-up residential community now recognized as the Pastures Historic District (National Register listed, 3/16/1972). However, it was not until the second quarter of the nineteenth century that population and development pressures impelled expansion south of the Beaverkill into the area surrounding Schuyler Mansion. Fed by the massive immigration from Ireland and Germany, Albany's population nearly doubled between the years 1840 and 1860. The growth of industrial activity along the riverfront attracted the city's swelling populace to the South End, with iron foundries, breweries, distilleries and rail yards east of South Pearl Street furnishing employment for newcomers. The South End/Groesbeckville Historic District acquired its present character primarily during this twenty-year interval at mid-century.
Although historically Albany has not been known as a major manufacturing center, some of the largest industries in New York State were found within the city limits by the latter part of the nineteenth century. Most prominent of the city's industries for a long time was that of a stove manufacturer and by 1860, Albany County was employing over 800 men as founders, moulders, patternmakers etc. By the last decade of the century that figure, within the city of Albany alone, had spiralled into the thousands.
Other major industrial activities in the city at this time included: brewing and the manufacture of dyes, furniture, flour, pianos, boilers, shirts, shoes, and machinery. In the third quarter of the nineteenth century was industrial establishments concentrated at two locations: near the entrance to the Erie Canal in North Albany and along the South End riverfront. The extent of the activity in the South End is evident from an 1876 city map, which shows in the two blocks east of the river between Arch Street and Gansevoort Street: three stove works, some occupying a number of city blocks; three major breweries; two machine shops; one distillery; ice houses; an aniline chemical works; and a lime, plaster and cement works. In addition, much of the area around and south of Gansevoort Street was occupied by the immense depots and yards of the Albany and Susquehanna Railroads.
Together these industries offered unprecedented opportunities to city residents and scores of newcomers to enter a number of specialized occupations. As a direct outcome of the availability and proximity of this employment, new residential neighborhoods of laborers, artisans and small businessmen were appearing in previously undeveloped areas adjacent to South Pearl Street. Throughout the last half of the century there was a major concentration of iron founders, moulders, laborers and machinists within the neighborhood, indicating a direct relationship with the nearby riverfront industrial district. Within this growing community a large number of residents worked as grocers, cigar makers, peddlers and independent businessmen (e.g. tailors, bakers and hat retailers).
The earliest construction in the South End/Groesbeckville Historic District occurred along South Pearl Street sometime before 1825 as a southward extension of the development then flourishing in the former pasture lands to the north. According to local historian C.R. Roseberry: "South Pearl Street was the main branch Albany put out when it began its serious expansion. It was the city's 19th century street, the street where the industrial revolution made itself most cogently felt and it was the city's original melting pot."[1]
In 1825, Pearl Street's development did not extend south of Alexander Street to any degree, but by mid-century frame rowhouses, interspersed with modestly scaled brick structures, lined the avenue for a number of blocks. Small frame houses, such as the one still extant at number 307, and brick commercial/residential structures of similar scale and modest detail, for example 395 South Pearl Street, are typical of this early development in the South End.
After 1850 the character of South Pearl Street changed with each new decade. Many of the early frame structures on the street were replaced by more substantial brick commercial rows or "improved" with the addition of new brick facades. The growth and diversification which was to characterize South Pearl Street throughout the last half of the nineteenth century was in response to an expanding immigrant population to the west and a burgeoning industrial district along the riverfront. Once again, C.R. Roseberry described South Pearl Street at the end of the nineteenth century:
"Street of adventure and polyglot and awakening America... Street of seafaring men and of brawny iron-moulders...Street of foundries and breweries and Kosher markets... Street of five hundred stories and a thousand anecdotes... Street of Irish-stew and sauerbraten... Street of forgotten men and remembered men... Street of politics and of farmer's wagons... Street of Philip Schuyler, and Aaron Burr and Theobold Smith and the O'Connells... Street that was not planned but just grew... Street that was for 200 years of Albany's life little more than a pathway used by cattle and those occasional humans who ventured beyond the pales."(sic)[2]
By the last quarter of the nineteenth century the entire expanse of South Pearl Street from State Street to Second Avenue had become Albany's major commercial district. The breweries and iron foundries that Roseberry speaks of were actually east of Pearl Street for the most part, and the "polyglot... forgotten men and remembered men..." in fact speak for the whole of the South End.
It was in the decades before and after 1850 that the major thrust of residential construction occurred in areas adjacent to South Pearl Street. During these years, modest one- and two-family homes, frame and brick intermixed, filled Franklin, Clinton, and Broad Streets and all cross streets running to the river. For example, in the block of houses at 140 to 150 Franklin Street, there is only one building (148 Franklin, c.1884) which post-dates 1859. Characteristic of this period are the rectangular lintels and boxed or modillioned cornices of the Greek Revival style (for example, at 138-142 Franklin St.) and the carved and bracketed cornices of the Italianate style (e.g., 150 Franklin). The row of six frame houses in the Greek Revival style at 159-169 Franklin Street, historically known as Foley's Row (c.1851), is an unusual and early example of speculative housing in this neighborhood.
Multiple family structures and tenements were found only sporadically throughout the district. Streets west of Clinton were settled selectively at this period until the early 1850s. Yards for the manufacture of brick were scattered throughout much of the higher land west of Clinton Street, due to the good drainage and abundant clay deposits. The largest of these brickyards lay in the block now bounded by Elizabeth, Alexander and Clinton Streets and Fourth Avenue; it was still active in 1850 but was gone by 1857, giving way to the projected construction of Elizabeth Street.
The rapid pace of expansion in the 1850s is documented by John Kite's study of Groesbeckville, the unincorporated village which lay just south of the city line in the town of Bethlehem. Groesbeckville, shown on the 1852 Albany County survey map as a group of scattered buildings, appears on an 1855 map with a fully developed street grid: Albany's north-south streets were extended southward and crossed by new east-west streets laid parallel to the city line. The hamlet had not warranted separate enumeration in 1845, but in the 1855 census Groesbeckville had a population of 1,232. Beginning in 1858, the Albany City Directory included residents of the Groesbeckville area, listing their addresses as Bethlehem. According to Kite, Groesbeckville at this period "looked like Albany, was really an extension of Albany, but was not lawfully within the city's boundaries."[3] By the early 1860s, residents of the area were petitioning to be included in the city, arguing that the character of their neighborhood was identical to that of the adjacent area of Albany and that therefore they should receive the benefits of inclusion.[4] In 1870, the city boundary was expanded a mile to the south and Groesbeckville and its environs became Albany's First Ward.
After the Civil War and in the 1870s, there was another surge in construction, filling in the vacant sites on Broad, Clinton and the cross streets and expanding to new areas, including Elizabeth Street, Morton Avenue west of Elizabeth, and Fourth Avenue west of Clinton.
The bracketed cornices of the Italianate style are almost universal on district buildings of this period, whether on 2-story frame dwellings such as 91 Elizabeth Street (c.1870) or more conspicuous 3-story brick residences such as 56 Morton Avenue (c.1870), with a richly carved frieze and arched iron lintels.
The final stage of construction occurred in the South End/Groesbeckville District in the last decades of the nineteenth century, possibly spurred by the influx of Jewish immigrants after 1880. This development was concentrated on all blocks between Second and Third Avenues and west along Second Avenue to Elizabeth Street. The streams which once ran from the Second Avenue hill were probably filled or diverted underground during these years in an effort to provide needed residential space for the neighborhood's growing population. Italianate architecture continued to dominate the district, although houses of the 1890s exhibit somewhat less ornamental carving in the cornices and more extensive use of oriels and bay windows than those of the 1870s. Influence from national architectural fashions can be seen in some of the buildings of this period particularly on South Pearl Street, as in the Adamesque wreaths and swags which decorate 336 South Pearl Street, the elaborately textured decorative brickwork of 329 Pearl Street or the rock-faced lintels of 399 and 401 South Pearl Street. One particularly common motif from the 1890s is a semi-circular attic window, found at 375, 399-401, and 413-15 South Pearl Street.
The laborers, artisans, and small businessmen who settled this district were drawn largely from the forces of newly arrived Irish and German immigrants who came to Albany in large numbers at mid-century. Although the South End was home to people of a number of nationalities, it was for nearly one hundred years most closely associated with the city's German population. Germans first arrived in Albany in the eighteenth century and by the 1840s two German Lutheran churches served the city's flourishing German population. In the 1850s, the economic and political uncertainties brought on by the ill-fated revolutions of 1848 drove German immigrants to the United States in record numbers. Many of the mid-century immigrants who came to Albany settled in the South End, and by the late 1850s three German Protestant churches served the neighborhood, augmented by two additional Roman Catholic parishes by 1880. Three of these churches survive as significant landmarks in the district: the Dutch Evangelical Church at Alexander and Clinton streets, c.1857; the German Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, now Mt. Zion Baptist Church on Schuyler Street (address of a German congregation since 1855, present building 1893); and St. Ann's Roman Catholic Church at Fourth and Franklin Streets, 1871. The German Methodist Church at Fourth and Franklin Streets and the German Evangelical Church at Fourth and Clinton, both c.1857, no longer survive. The congregation of Our Lady Help of Christians Roman Catholic Church continues to worship at Second at Second Avenue and Elizabeth Streets (just outside the South End/Groesbeckville Historic District boundary).
In many cases the new immigrants were prosperous enough to build or buy their own houses, though modest, and to start their own small businesses. Although the number of German names on the tax rolls was relatively small in the early 1850s, by the end of the Civil War German homeowners pervaded the whole district form Morton to Second Avenues. German social halls, cultural organizations, music halls, theatres and commercial establishments were common in the area, particularly along South Pearl Street, well into the twentieth century. Furthermore, the area was notable for its high degree of residential stability, possibly higher than any other contemporary neighborhood in the city. At least into the 1930s, many neighborhood families could boast continuous occupancy for three generations or more. While statistics have not been compiled for the period after 1930, it is generally assumed that the German community began to disperse in the 1950s.
There was also a large Irish population in the South End from the 1830s on, but their cultural institutions were not so visible in the neighborhood, in part because of their strong allegiances elsewhere in the city. Even after the establishment of St. Ann's Roman Catholic parish in 1867, many Irish Catholics continued to worship in neighborhoods farther north, at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (National Register listed) and St. John's Roman Catholic Church (in the Pastures Historic District). The Irish were also more mobile than the Germans, and in the early 1900s, large numbers of the South End Irish moved into new residential areas farther to the south and west. The prominent O'Connell family, Democratic Party leaders in Albany for the first half of the twentieth century, were typical of this movement: although they resided in the Delaware Avenue neighborhood, the roots of the family and their political power were in the South End. John O'Connell's saloon at Fourth and South Pearl Streets was known as Little City Hall until it closed in 1971.[5]
As early as 1838, a group was meeting for Jewish worship in a house on Bassett Street, but there was not a conspicuous Jewish presence in the neighborhood until the last two decades of the nineteenth century when there was a large influx of Jews from Eastern Europe. Although their synagogues and major cultural institutions lay to the north of the district, the Jewish community was quite visible in the South End, particularly on South Pearl Street, where many Jewish tradesmen — butchers, tailors, grocers, and merchants — established small shops to serve the neighborhood.
In the early part of the twentieth century, many Italian immigrants settled in the South End, expanding outward from the heart of the Italian community in the Mansion Historic District (National Register listed 9/30/1982) a few blocks north.
There seems to have been a small free black community in the area of Bassett Street in the early nineteenth century, but it was not until the mid-twentieth century that the South End became a predominantly black neighborhood. Albany's black population increased substantially following World War I, again after World War II, and throughout the 1950s, but the black neighborhoods were north of this district.
The Urban Renewal programs in downtown Albany during the late 1960s through the 1970s brought black families to the neighborhood in large numbers and it is probably this period of time which saw the largest increase in black families living in the neighborhood. At present, black families account for at least half of the district's population.
The architecture of the South End Historic District reflects the multiplicity and diversity of the people who shaped it over a period of more than 130 years. The modest character of housing adjacent to South Pearl Street is reflective of the neighborhood's early working class population. On the other hand, the South Pearl Street commercial district, though in deteriorated condition, represents the vitality and prosperity of an era when the industries and commercial establishments of this area serviced the entire city.
The variety of styles, which range from Georgian through Eastlake, and the individual character of many buildings found within the district serve as a further reminder of the forces which initially shaped this district. The South End, unlike many contemporary Albany neighborhoods such as Hudson/Park, Center Square and Clinton Avenue, did not develop through the efforts of local speculators and building contractors. Although a number of small rows were financed by South Pearl Street merchants (e.g. Number 50-54 Broad Street) or large property owners such as George Stanwix and E.C. Delevan, brick manufacturers (e.g. Number 79-83 Broad Street), the majority of residential construction within the district in its peak period of growth was a matter of individual initiative.
Thus, buildings, Greek Revival and Queen Anne, frame and brick, modest and ornate, are found side-by-side, stamped by the personal taste and means of their owner-builders. It should be noted, however, that the particular variations were drawn from a total repertoire of architectural choices that was rather limited. This was not a diversity based on imported ethnic traditions or creativity and innovation among the builders. Rather, the district reflects a period of industrialization in the housing trade and popularization on a national scale of middle-class tastes in architecture. Builders could choose from an array of mass-produced architectural elements which was broad yet finite. The limited range of architectural fashions and decorative elements and shared qualities of density, scale, age, and use impart a cohesive character to the South End/Groesbeckville Historic District. The sophisticated architecture of the churches and public buildings contrasts with the modest owner-builder construction of the residences, documenting the importance of church and government in the social life of the immigrant working class.
Endnotes
References
Public Records
Albany County Assessment Rolls 1817-1930.
Albany City Directories: Various years and publishing companies.
NY State Census 1915 (NYS Library).
US Census 1880, 1900 (NYS Library).
Unpublished Reports
Kite, John T. "Groesbeckville, 1845-1875: A Neighborhood Study." Prepared For History 622, State University of New York at Albany, 1982.
Mendal, Mesick, Cohen, "Report on the Architectural Survey of Historic Districts in Albany, New York." Prepared for the Albany Urban Renewal Agency, Summer 1979.
Opalka, Anthony. Unpublished report on the History of Albany Annexations. Prepared for the Bureau of Historic Services, Albany, New York, 1976.
Waite, Diana. "Report on the Pastures Preservation Historic District." Prepared for the Albany Urban Renewal Agency (ca.1974).
Roberts, Ruth W. "Survey of Blacks of the South End." Albany Public Library, 1971.
Books
American Publishing & Engraving Company. The Empire State Its Industries and Wealth. New York, ca.1890.
Bishop, Leander. A History of American Manufactures from 1608-1860. Edward Young & Company: Philadelphia, 1864.
Coppa, Frank J. and Curran, Thomas. The Immigrant Experience in America. Twayne Publishers: Boston, 1976.
Howell, George & Tenne, Johnathan. Bicentennial History of Albany & Schenectady Counties 1686-1886. New York; 1886. W.W. Munsell and Company.
Robinson, Frank S. Albany's O'Connell Machine. An American Political Relic. Albany, New York: The Washington Park Spirit, Inc., 1973.
Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Scribner's, 1970-76.
Kennedy, William. O Albany!, New York; The Viking Press, 1983.
Newspapers and Articles
Silver, Louis. "The Jews in Albany, New York." Taken from Yivo Annual of Jewish Social Service, Vol.9, 1954.
Knickerbocker News. South End Supplement. December 7, 1951.
New York State Historic Trust. "The Pastures." A pamphlet on the Schuyler Mansion.
Roseberry, C.R. "South End was Albany's Real Cradle." Times Union.
________. "South Pearl Street, Cross Section of America," Times Union. June 23, 1949.
&dagger C. L. Sweat, South End Improvement Corp., and Lucy A. Breyer, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation, South End/Groesbeckville Historic District, nomination document, 1984, Nationa Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.
Nearby Neighborhoods
Street Names
2nd Avenue • 3rd Avenue • 4th Avenue • Alexander Street • Bassett Street • Broad Street • Catherine Street • Clinton Street • Delaware Street • Elizabeth Street • Franklin Street • Morton Avenue • Osborne Street • Pearl Street South • Plum Street • Route 32 • Schuyler Street • Stephen Street • Teunis Street