Arbor Hill, Albany, New York
Arbor Hill is a neighborhood in Albany, New York, generally defined as the area from Clinton Avenue north to Tivoli Hollow and the Livingston Avenue Railroad Bridge and from Broadway west to Henry Johnson Boulevard. Both Clinton Avenue and Henry Johnson Boulevard are signed as U.S. Route 9. It was outside Albany's first boundaries as set up in the Dongan Charter of 1686. The original name of the area was Colonie (which is applied now to the current town to the north), and the area was incorporated under that name as a village in 1804; it was annexed by Albany in 1815. There are two sub-neighborhoods in Arbor Hill, Dudley Heights and the Ten Broeck Triangle. "Arbor Hill" was the name given to the Ten Broeck estate; the Ten Broeck Mansion is still an important cultural and historical museum. The neighborhood has other historical and cultural sights such as the Palace Theatre and St. Joseph's Church. Demographically it is predominantly African-American.
Arbor Hill Historic District–Ten Broeck Triangle
The northward expansion of the city envisioned by the elder van Rensselaer finally came to pass after 1825, when the Erie Canal was opened. Many new arrivals to the city, drawn by the canal and its economic opportunities, needed places to live and work. They looked north, along Broadway and North Pearl. Some found the mansion neighborhood and the blocks to its west to their liking, enough that city directories of the period show a few residents and businessmen listing "Arbor Hill" as their address. During the 1830s, they built some of the first houses in the district after the mansion. A few from this period, such as 10 Ten Broeck Place and 31 Second Street, survive. Similarly, the mixed-use Greek Revival buildings around the intersection of Second and South Swan were built in the early 1840s.