ALBANY

ALBANY. Located along the upper Hudson River, Albany is best known as the capital of New York State. The city once had an important role as a transportation crossroads and manufacturing center.

In 1624, the Dutch West India Company established Fort Orange, the first permanent European settlement in the area, as the company's fur trading outpost. In 1664, British forces seized the fort and the surrounding village of Beverwyck, and changed the latter's name to Albany. In 1686 Albany received its first city charter. In 1797 it became the state capital. The Erie Canal connected Albany to the West in 1825, and the nation's first functioning railroad linked Albany and Schenectady in 1831. In 1830, Albany had a population of 24,209. A center of Irish and German immigration and a much smaller African American migration, Albany's major industries included iron casting, apparel, brewing, tobacco processing, publishing, and shipping. A powerful Democratic machine, built by Dan O'Connell and maintained by Mayor Erastus Corning, dominated Albany politics between the 1920s and the 1980s. After World War II, Albany lost much of its port traffic and industry, and its population declined from its 1950 peak of 135,000. Major highway and urban renewal projects, such as the Empire State Plaza, helped create a new service economy but displaced thousands of residents. In 2000 Albany's population was 95,658.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Grondahl, Paul. Mayor Corning: Albany Icon, Albany Enigma. Albany, N.Y.: Washington Park Press, 1997.

Kennedy, William. O Albany! Improbable City of Political Wizards, Fearless Ethnics, Spectacular Aristocrats, Splendid Nobodies, and Underrated Scoundrels. New York: Viking, 1983.

Roberts, Anne F., and Judith A. Van Dyk, eds. Experiencing Albany: Perspectives on a Grand City's Past. Albany: Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, 1986.

GuianMcKee

See alsoErie Canal ; Hudson River ; New York Colony ; New York State .