The Knickerbocker and Arnink Garages were two attached stone buildings located on Hudson Avenue in central

Albany, New York Albany ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It is located on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River. Albany is the oldes ...

, United States. Both were built in the early 20th century; the Knickerbocker garage was added to the Arnink garage 12 years after it was built. In 1980, they were listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

; nine years later they were both demolished and delisted. At the time, many garages were adapted from stables or

carriage house A ''carriage house'', also called a ''remise'' or ''coach house'', is a term used in North America to describe an outbuilding that was originally built to house horse-drawn carriages and their related tack. Carriage houses were often two ...

s. The first to be built, the smaller, was instead adapted from an existing commercial building by the owner of a successful

Ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

dealership in the city for his car-rental and repair service. His superintendent later bought the business from him and had the larger one built in the same style by the same architect. They were among the earliest structures in Albany built specifically in response to the increasing use of the automobile at that time. Their

neo-Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half of the 19th century ...

cast stone Cast stone or reconstructed stone is a refined artificial stone, a form of precast concrete. It is used as a building material to simulate natural-cut masonry in architectural features such as facings and trim; for statuary; and for garden or ...

facades are an unusual choice of style and material for that time. They may have been inspired by the nearby

Delaware and Hudson Railroad The Delaware and Hudson Railway (D&H) is a railroad that operates in the Northeastern United States. In 1991, after more than 150 years as an independent railroad, the D&H was purchased by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CP). CP, which would it ...

office building An office is a space where the employees of an organization perform administrative work in order to support and realize the various goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific du ...

, a contemporary catalyst for the redevelopment of

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...

that is today the system administration building for the

State University of New York The State University of New York (SUNY ) is a system of Public education, public colleges and universities in the New York (state), State of New York. It is one of the List of largest universities and university networks by enrollment, larges ...

. One was later converted into a

warehouse A warehouse is a building for storing goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial parks on the rural–urban fringe, out ...

and used for that purpose until its demolition. That came about as part of a plan for two large office towers proposed for the neighborhood as redevelopment. Nothing has been built on the space since; it is used as part of a parking lot that serves another nearby redevelopment project, the

Times Union Center MVP Arena (originally Knickerbocker Arena, and then the Pepsi Arena and Times Union Center) is an indoor arena located in Albany, New York. It is configurable and can accommodate from 6,000 to 17,500 people, with a maximum seating capacity of ...

Buildings

The two garages were located on the south side of downtown Albany in a lot on the south side of Hudson Avenue, midway between South Pearl Street (

New York State Route 32 New York State Route 32 (NY 32) is a north–south state highway that extends for through the Hudson Valley and Capital District regions of the U.S. state of New York. It is a two-lane surface road for nearly its entire length, wit ...

) and Green Street. The terrain is generally flat and the

Hudson River The Hudson River, historically the North River, is a river that flows from north to south largely through eastern New York (state), New York state. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains at Henderson Lake (New York), Henderson Lake in the ...

lies to the east. Today the land is, along with everything east to Green, a parking lot. The buildings of the Downtown Albany Historic District, including the city's oldest building

48 Hudson Avenue 48 Hudson Avenue (also known as the Van Ostrande–Radliff House) is the oldest building in the city of Albany, New York. It was believed by Paul Huey, in the Albany architectural guide of 1993, to have been built in 1759 by Johannes Radliff w ...

, are two blocks to the north and east. An 18-story office tower is located on the west. Across the street is a large parking garage serving the

arena and another old, commercial building to the northwest at the corner of Hudson Avenue and South Pearl Street. The arena is across South Pearl Street. To the south, just beyond Division Street, is the elevated

South Mall Arterial The South Mall Arterial is a short freeway in Albany, New York, in the United States. It begins at an intersection with Swan Street and runs eastward under the Empire State Plaza to the west end of the Dunn Memorial Bridge, where the highway end ...

, which leads from nearby

Interstate 787 Interstate 787 (I-787) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway in the US state of New York. I-787 is the main highway for those traveling into and out of downtown Albany. The southern terminus is, per New York traffic data, at New York State ...

at the

Dunn Memorial Bridge The Dunn Memorial Bridge, officially known and dedicated as the Private Parker F. Dunn Memorial Bridge, carries U.S. Route 9 in New York, U.S. Route 9 (US 9), and U.S. Route 20 in New York, U.S. Route 20 (US 20), across the upper Hudson River bet ...

to the parking areas under

Empire State Plaza The Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza (known commonly as the Empire State Plaza, and also as the South Mall or Albany Mall) is a complex of several state government buildings in downtown Albany, New York, Albany, New York. The ...

. Both buildings used a

structural system The term structural system or structural frame in structural engineering refers to the load-resisting sub-system of a building or object. The structural system transfers loads through interconnected elements or members. Commonly used structu ...

of steel framing and reinforced concrete. The exteriors were brick faced in

. The Knickerbocker, at 72 Hudson Avenue, was four stories tall; the Arnink's was three stories; both buildings were three

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

wide and had flat-roofs. Different materials in the

composite Composite or compositing may refer to: Materials * Composite material, a material that is made from several different substances ** Metal matrix composite, composed of metal and other parts ** Cermet, a composite of ceramic and metallic material ...

for the cast stone meant the Knickerbocker had distinct golden hue that resembled the color of sandstone while the Arnink was granite gray. The upper fenestration of both garages was similar. The Knickerbocker's street entrance was a single, wide, pointed arch stretching across all three bays with separate entrances. Its window

spandrel A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame, between the tops of two adjacent arches, or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fil ...

s had decorative touches that were intended to mimic Gothic

tracery Tracery is an architectural device by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone ''bars'' or ''ribs'' of moulding. Most commonly, it refers to the stonework elements that support th ...

. On the Arnink, every bay had a separate garage; the western one was slightly larger and each garage had a pointed-arch entrance with an original folding door and a metal lantern-style light above. Above it was a

frieze In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...

that bore the inscription "Arnink Garage 1915" carved into the cast stone. The garages were set with

casement window A casement window is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges at the side. They are used singly or in pairs within a common frame, in which case they are hinged on the outside. Casement windows are often held open using a c ...

s that continued with the large, pointed-arch windows in the upper stories. Between them the tracery continued. At the top of the Arnink were cast-stone

finial A finial () or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the Apex (geometry), apex of a dome, spire, tower, roo ...

s shaped like bells. At the time they were listed on the Register, the Knickerbocker was used a

Hertz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), often described as being equivalent to one event (or Cycle per second, cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose formal expression in ter ...

rental-car location and a vertical, illuminated sign with the company name was affixed to the facade. This was the only significant modification to either building during their lifetimes.

History

In 1914, a downtown redevelopment plan based on

City Beautiful movement The City Beautiful movement was a reform philosophy of North American architecture and urban planning that flourished during the 1890s and 1900s with the intent of introducing beautification and monumental grandeur in cities. It was a part of th ...

principles led to the construction of the

's (D&H) new headquarters, today the

(SUNY) System Administration Building. The Flemish Gothic edifice by local architect Marcus T. Reynolds, closely copied from the

Cloth Hall A cloth hall or linen hall (; ; ; ) is a historic building located in the centre of the main marketplace of a European town. Cloth halls were built from Medieval architecture, medieval times into the 18th century. A cloth hall contained trading st ...

in Ypres, Belgium, was meant to be a focal point for traffic coming down from Capitol Hill to the west via State Street. To further this goal, the industrial structures along the riverfront behind it were demolished. The new building drew much praise, and local merchants and businessmen were inspired to emulate it in their own. Henry Arnink, a local dealer of

Ford Model T The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by the Ford Motor Company from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. It is generally regarded as the first mass-affordable automobile, which made car travel available to middle-class Americans. Th ...

's, had expanded his business to include repair and rental services by that time. He bought the existing three-story structure at 74 Hudson and renovated and expanded it. Local architect J. Walter Montross oversaw the project, designing a

Gothic exterior that may have been intended to echo the nearby D&H Building. Twelve years after Arnink moved into the new building he sold the business to his superintendent, Harry Knickerbocker. Wanting to expand the business, Knickerbocker again commissioned Montross. The second garage was similar to the first in decoration and overall form, save for an extra story at the top. It differed in its wide single garage at the street level with no text and lacked the roofline finials. In 1947 Knickerbocker sold the Arnink garage to another concern, which converted it into a warehouse. Both buildings were still in use for those businesses at the time they were listed on the Register three decades later. Knickerbocker had by then become a franchisee of the

car-rental chain, which necessitated placing a large series of illuminated signs with that company's name letter by letter down the two stories above the garage, between the eastern

. That would be the only significant change made to either building following their construction. By the late 1980s the neighborhood had changed. Another Register-listed property nearby, the Abrams Building, had been demolished to clear the way for a new arena, now known as the

. In 1988 plans for two large office towers at the corner of South Pearl and Hudson were approved by the city. While the two garages did not overlap the new buildings' footprint, it was necessary to demolish them anyway to provide enough parking. That was accomplished in early 1989; they were delisted a month later.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in New York Demolished buildings and structures in New York (state) Garages (parking) in the United States Gothic Revival architecture in New York (state) Former National Register of Historic Places in New York (state) Buildings and structures in Albany, New York Buildings and structures completed in 1915 Buildings and structures completed in 1927 Buildings and structures demolished in 1989 Garages (parking) on the National Register of Historic Places Transportation buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state) 1915 establishments in New York (state) 1989 disestablishments in New York (state)

Buildings

History

See also

References