State Street

Well, it's not That Great Street, but it's Albany's main route up from the river to the capitol. It's mostly lined with office buildings and banks. Shopping has long since moved out to the suburbs. There are a couple of hotels, a church, and some eating establishments, too.

Looking west up State Street from the plaza of the old D&H Building, now the SUNY Administration building. The gray building on the right is Albany's old post office and federal building, now part of the SUNY complex.

This is the street where, every spring during the Tulip Festival, young women in colonial Dutch attire ceremonially sweep the dirt and grime from the pavement. The local news programs eat it up, of course. Um, the ceremony, that is, not the dirt and grime.

A closer look up State Street toward the capitol.

The street is very steep as it climbs up toward the capitol. Back in the day, electric streetcars climbed up. The tracks are long gone, as are the streetcars, replaced by conventional buses. I would love to have known downtown back then, with streetcars, department stores (W. M. Whitney and Myers' were the two big ones), and the hotels, night clubs, and bars of the day.