Early Albany Architecture 

     By the time of the American Revolution, Albany was already an old city; officially established by the Dutch West India Company in 1652, it had started as a small group of buildings north of Fort Orange, built in 1624.  The first religious congregation was established in 1642.  The Dutch Reformed Church built its first church on the site of what is now the intersection of State Street and Broadway. By 1714, the congregation had become too large and the city granted permission to build a larger church on the same site that reflected the gabled roof of the Dutch design.  

    By 1790, Albany was close to two hundred years old, and one of the oldest cities in America.   An Italian scholar visiting Albany in 1785 recorded that " most of the buildings are built of brick after the Dutch taste... with very high peak roofing, which slopes down sharply on both sides of the house."(Gold & McCarthy, 1993) Unfortunately, very few of these early buildings remain standing.   One casualty of this thinking was the Dutch Reformed second church building.  By 1797 their congregation again grew too large and a third church was built and relocated to its present site on North Pearl Street. This church building represents the shift to Georgian architecture and was built by Phillip Hooker.  Finished in 1799, the building reflects the changing tastes and attitudes in the city and this country.

       By the end of the 1700s, the general attitude of the city changed with the city officials wanting to shed there Dutch influence and image for the more stylish Greek revival /Georgian style architecture of the time.   Thus, many of these early Dutch buildings were demolished by the mid 1800s. 

        Of the six houses or parts of buildings known to be standing none remain from the 16th century.   The Quackenbush house at the corner of what is now Broadway and Clinton Street is good example of a structure built during the transition from Dutch to Georgian style .   As the city grew, more substantial buildings were being built outside the city walls.  In 1736, Peter Quackenbush built this structure on the site originally owned by his great grandfather Pieter who was working as a bricklayer in Albany by 1657.   The exterior remains close to what its original features displayed in the late 1700s.   

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