Knox Street Historic District facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Knox Street Historic District
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View south along street showing 142–158 Knox (left) and 143–153 Knox (right), 2011
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 Location in New York
Location in the United States
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| Location | Albany, New York |
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| Area | 0.8 acres (3,200 m2) |
| Built | 1838, 1870s–80s |
| Architect | Walsh, John & Edmund |
| Architectural style | Italianate, Queen Anne |
| NRHP reference No. | 08000138 |
| Added to NRHP | March 5, 2008 |
The Knox Street Historic District is a special area mostly found on one street block in the Park South neighborhood of Albany, New York, United States. It's made up of several groups of connected houses called rowhouses. This area was named a historic district and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.
For much of the early 1800s, the block of Knox Street in the district was either empty land or used as a plant nursery. A Scottish man named James Wilson ran this nursery. He grew one of the first successful American types of strawberry. His 1830s Federal style house on Morris Street is part of the district. It is the oldest building there and one of the oldest in Park South. The nursery kept running into the early 1900s, even with different owners.
Most of the rowhouses were built in the 1870s and 1880s. They were likely built by the same person because they look very similar. Some of these houses have special brick designs and bays (parts of the house that stick out). These features are not common for rowhouses in Albany. All the buildings in the district are made of brick. Only two of them are stand-alone houses. The buildings used to be in bad shape, but they were fixed up. This restoration project won an award from the state's Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation in 2009.
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What the District Looks Like
The Knox Street Historic District covers both sides of Knox Street between Dana Avenue and Morris Street. It also includes the houses on the west side north of Dana, and the house at 74 Morris Street. The district's edges follow the property lines exactly.
This area is about 0.8 acres (3,200 m²) in size. It contains 24 buildings. All of these buildings are considered important to the district's historic look. There used to be a house at the corner of Knox and Morris. Now, that spot is a small city park. This park is the only open space in the district.
Nearby Areas
To the east and west of the district, you'll find other city blocks. These blocks also have many buildings close together, mostly rowhouses. However, they don't always look as similar as the ones in the district.
North of the district, along Madison Avenue (U.S. Route 20), are properties that are part of the Washington Park Historic District. One block to the east is Lark Street. This street forms the western edge of the Center Square/Hudson–Park Historic District. Just past Myrtle Avenue, one block south, is the Samuel S. Stratton Veterans Administration hospital. This hospital is part of a large group of healthcare buildings. It is taller than the buildings around it, so you can easily see it when looking south down Knox Street.
Buildings in the District
Most buildings in the district are connected brick rowhouses. None of them are listed on the National Register individually.
- 131–135 Knox Street: These three houses are at the north end of the district. They were built in 1875, soon after Washington Park opened. They are in the Italianate style. Each house is three bays wide and has a raised basement. The front windows have fancy cast iron sills and tops with detailed Italianate designs. At the roofline, there are decorative wooden cornices. Wooden steps with iron railings lead to a hidden entrance on the right side of each house. This entrance is topped by a square wooden oriel window that sticks out.
- 137 Knox Street: This is one of two stand-alone houses in the district. It was built in 1876. It has a roof with a cross-gable design and a ground floor at street level. Its windows and door have similar tops to the other houses. The three first-floor windows are on a small bay that sticks out. This bay has wooden siding. The roof does not have wide overhanging eaves. This makes it look more like a country-style house, even though it's in the Italianate style.
- 139, 140 and 141 Knox Street: These three buildings are on opposite sides of the street, just south of Dana Avenue. They are three stories tall and have flat fronts, with three bays each. The ground floors of 139 and 140 were originally storefronts. Number 140 now has clapboard siding on its storefront. The decorative tops of the storefronts are still there, even though the buildings are now homes. All three buildings have windows with covers, but the material or design is different on each. At the roofline, there is a fancy wooden cornice, typical of the Italianate style. However, 139 and 140 only have this cornice on the sides facing Knox Street, not on the Dana Avenue side.
- 142–158 Knox Street: This row of houses fills the rest of the east side of Knox Street between Dana and Morris. They were built in the mid-1880s. They mix elements of the Romanesque Revival and Queen Anne styles with their basic Italianate forms. Decorative bands of brick separate the floors. The windows and doors have curved or segmented tops. At the roofline, there is a patterned brickwork design and the cornice is held up by large brackets. Both of these are common in the Queen Anne Style. Each house also has a triangular shape (a pediment) in the center at the top. Houses from 146 to 158 also have an oriel window on the second story, above the main entrance and wooden stoop (small porch).
- 143–153 Knox Street: This row of houses is across the street and takes up most of that block. Built around the same time, these houses show a stronger Romanesque influence on their Italianate design. On all of them, one of the two bays sticks out. This projecting bay has double windows facing the street. All windows on the front have single panes of glass and brownstone sills and tops. A curved arch of bricks tops the double windows on the street side of the bay. The stoops are lower than those on other houses on the street. They lead to double doors that are set back, with a brownstone top. The cornice at the roof has a decorative corbel at the south corner.
- 155 Knox Street: This corner building was built in 1882, a few years before the rest of the street. It doesn't have the projecting bay like its neighbors. It is more strictly Italianate. It shares some features with the row across the street, like the projecting second-story bay (which is square in this case, with double windows). The main entrance has double doors in a curved archway that is set back. The windows on the exposed basement have outside bars.
- 74 Morris Street: This is the oldest property in the district, built in 1838. It is also one of the oldest in Park South. It's a two-story, three-bay house that is almost square, with a side-gabled roof. It is set back further from the street than its newer neighbors. The front yard has been paved over for parking. The main entrance is on the east side, under a porch with a hip roof. It has six-over-six windows and a gabled cover over the door. All other windows are one-over-one. The east window on the second story is fake. The original slate and copper roof has several modern pipes for ventilation and heating.
History of the District
For the first half of the 1800s, the area that is now the Knox Street Historic District was either empty or used as a strawberry farm. The street itself only existed on maps. It was planned to be built when the city grew and needed houses there. When that time came, the area developed quickly. However, the original farming use continued in some way into the early 1900s. The neighborhood became run-down later in the 20th century. But an award-winning project in the early 2000s helped to fix it up.
Early Days: Strawberry Nursery (1813–1874)
Knox Street first appeared on Albany maps in 1813. Building lots were already planned out. However, these were just plans. The city had not yet grown far from its original downtown, which was first settled by the Dutch in the 1600s. So, Knox Street, like many others in what is now Park South, only existed on paper. The only real street in the area was Madison Avenue, then called Lydius Avenue. The future site of Washington Park was there, but it was not a park yet. It was used as a parade ground and for special events like the county fair. The only other use in the area at that time was a cemetery built in 1806.
The land that makes up the district today eventually went to James Wilson. The east-west streets were then built. City tax records first show his house, at 74 Morris Street, in 1838. There was also a barn. He had built greenhouses three years before on three acres of land. He used land that the city thought was useless because of a slope from nearby Beaver Creek. Here, he built a plant nursery. He developed and grew the Wilson strawberry. This was the first successful American type of strawberry. It was as rich and juicy as European types but could grow well in the American climate. For the next 40 years, his strawberry type was the most popular in American markets.
For the next 30 years, there were no other houses south of Lydius Avenue. Lydius Avenue finally became Madison Avenue in 1867. The only other properties in use in the area were an almshouse (a place for poor people) from 1826 and a prison from 1846. These buildings suggested that the area was far enough from the city center for necessary but unwanted businesses and institutions.
In the 1830s, Albany's city directories started listing Knox as "the first street west of Lark". Twenty years later, in 1850, it was on the city's official map. But it was still just a planned street, even though more homes were shown in the area. Buildings were also shown at the northwest corner of Knox and Morris, and at 139 Knox. It is unlikely that the latter is the building that stands there today.
Wilson died in 1855. His son and widow continued to run the nursery. After the Civil War, they sold it. In the 1870s, building in the area picked up. This happened as Washington Park began to be built on the old parade ground. Thomas Davidson, who bought the Wilson nursery in 1871, divided the lots on Knox Street into their current sizes. The city's horsecar line (a type of public transport) was extended west to what is now New Scotland Road to serve the park. Other important services, like water and sewer lines, soon followed.
Growth and Restoration (1875–Present)
Many local investors and builders bought lots near the park. John and Edmund Walsh were builders who grew up in the neighborhood. Their father might have worked in the nursery. After building several rows of houses along Madison, they focused on the area to the south. In 1875, they built 131–35 Knox. These were the first houses in the district besides Wilson's. It is thought that they built other houses along that part of the street. However, only the stand-alone gabled house at 137 Knox remains.
In 1880, the block of Knox between Morris and what was then called Yates Avenue was finally opened. Most of the district is on this block. The lots were sold to individual buyers, but they remained empty. The next year, 13 of those owners, who owned most of the street front, sued the city. They complained that the paving work on the street was not good enough.
John Walsh left his brother's construction business that same year. By 1882, tax records show that at least 140 Knox had been built. It was owned by Ann Martin, the wife of a local builder. In the next few years, the row from 146 through 158 was built. Soon after, 142 and 144 were built. The earlier houses were strictly Italianate in design. But the later ones started to show the influence of the new Queen Anne Style.
By 1886, the last houses to be built, the 143–153 row, were finished. Their designs show the influence of another style from that time, the Romanesque Revival. The brownstone decorations suggest the work of a famous architect named Henry Hobson Richardson. It is very likely that the same builder built these houses because they are so similar. However, it is not known if that builder was John Walsh.
To the south, Davidson, now joined by his brother, continued to run the nursery. Records from that time show another house attached to 74 Morris. There were also greenhouses along Morris and Knox near the intersection. The Davidsons owned the southern half of the block west to what is now New Scotland Road. It stayed that way even after a building boom in the neighborhood in 1892, after Washington Park was finished.
By 1908, when another big building period happened in what is now Park South, the east-west cross streets had houses on both sides. The nursery was listed in city maps as a flower shop, with different owners. Yates Street had been renamed Dana Avenue.
The next detailed map of the area, a 1934 insurance map, showed little sign of the nursery except for Wilson's original house. By then, the neighborhood was mostly built up. The map showed a rowhouse next to Wilson's, similar to others on the block. This house has since been torn down.
Throughout the rest of the 1900s, the neighborhood suffered from urban decay. This happened to many of Albany's older areas. People moved out to newer, more suburban parts of the city or its suburbs. The houses were neglected, and some were even abandoned. In the early 2000s, a developer from Boston won a contract to fix up 18 of the houses on Knox Street between Dana and Morris. They spent $12.5 million, with help from city and state tax credits. In 2009, they received an award from the state's Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation for their restoration work.
