50 Fun Facts About Albany

Albany sits on the Hudson about ten miles south of its confluence with which other river?

That junction is near the northern limit of navigation, which made Albany a natural trading post.

Which Algonquian-speaking people originally inhabited the Albany area, calling it their nation's 'fireplace'?

The Iroquoian Mohawk to the west called the site skahnéhtati, 'through the pine woods', a name that survives in Schenectady.

Which explorer reached the Albany area in 1609 aboard the Half Moon and claimed it for the Netherlands?

He was an Englishman sailing for the Dutch East India Company, and the river now carries his name.

The Dutch fort built in 1624 to replace flood-wrecked Fort Nassau was named for which royal house?

Both forts honoured the House of Orange-Nassau, leaders of the Dutch Revolt; the settlement around Fort Orange became the village of Beverwijck in 1652.

Before the English renamed it in 1664, the Dutch village at Albany was called what?

The name means Beaver District, a nod to the fur trade that founded the town.

Albany was named in honour of the Duke of Albany, a Scottish title held by which future king?

He was then Duke of York and Albany; the name ultimately comes from Alba, the Gaelic word for Scotland.

When the Dutch briefly retook Albany in 1673, what did they rename it?

The English regained it for good the next year under the Treaty of Westminster.

Which provincial governor granted Albany its city charter on July 22, 1686?

The charter created a strip one mile wide and sixteen miles long, and Albany claims to be the longest continuously chartered city in the US.

Who presented the Albany Plan of Union, the first formal proposal to unite the colonies, in 1754?

Delegates from seven colonies met in the Stadt Huys, Albany's city hall; Parliament never adopted the plan, but it foreshadowed the Constitution.

Which Albany native signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776?

During the war the Stadt Huys held Tories and prisoners of war alongside common criminals.

Which Albany-born general and senator was Alexander Hamilton's father-in-law?

He fought in the French and Indian War before commanding in the Revolution; his mansion still stands in the city.

Albany became New York's permanent state capital in which year?

Before that the legislature had shuffled between Albany, Kingston, Poughkeepsie and New York City.

Albany is the second-oldest US city to serve as a state capital. Which is the oldest?

Albany is also the tenth-oldest state capital when measured by how long it has held the job.

In 1807 Robert Fulton launched the first successful commercial steamboat service between Albany and where?

The run up the Hudson made Albany a transport hub decades before the railroads arrived.

The original Erie Canal ended at Albany; where does today's Barge Canal end instead?

The old canal emptied into a 32-acre man-made lagoon, the Albany Basin, which served as the city's port.

Albany's 1830s rail line became part of which company that Erastus Corning consolidated in 1853?

It was headquartered in Albany until Cornelius Vanderbilt moved it to New York City in 1867.

The New York State Capitol opened in 1899 after how many years of construction?

At $25 million it was the most expensive government building of its day, and its planned dome was never built.

Why were the State Capitol's planned dome and tower never completed?

Engineers found the structure was shifting downhill toward State Street under its own mass.

Which governor drove the construction of the Empire State Plaza between 1965 and 1978?

Mayor Corning opposed the project but ended up negotiating the payment plan that made it possible.

The Corning Tower on the Empire State Plaza holds what distinction?

It has 44 storeys and an observation deck on the 42nd floor.

Erastus Corning 2nd was mayor of Albany from 1942 until his death in which year?

One historian summed up his 41 years as 'long on years, short on accomplishments'.

Who became the first woman elected mayor of Albany, in November 2013?

The city had been run by a Democratic machine, founded in 1922, that lasted into the 1980s.

Which Albany native won the 1984 Pulitzer for Ironweed, part of his cycle of novels set there?

The 1987 film version, starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, premiered at Albany's Palace Theatre.

Which two famous authors lived in Albany with their families as children, before their careers?

Kurt Vonnegut also spent time in nearby Schenectady, but that is another city.

Albany's Tulip Festival, held each May, celebrates the legacy of which colonial settlers?

It grew out of Pinkster, an African-Dutch celebration, and drew about 80,000 people in 2010.

The Tulip Festival is held in which Albany green space?

The park is often wrongly credited to Frederick Law Olmsted because it follows so many of his ideas.

A four-ton statue of which advertising dog stands on a former RCA building roof in Albany?

The RCA Victor terrier still gazes over the north end of downtown from what is now a moving-company warehouse.

The Albany Pine Bush is the only sizeable inland example in the US of what kind of ecosystem?

It shelters the endangered Karner Blue butterfly and was protected by the state legislature in 1988.

Which endangered butterfly is the emblem of the Albany Pine Bush?

It depends on wild blue lupine, which thrives in the preserve's fire-maintained sand barrens.

The University at Albany began in 1844 as what kind of institution?

Its teams are the Great Danes, and it competes at NCAA Division I level in every sport.

The University at Albany's sports teams are known by what nickname?

Nearby Siena College's men's basketball team plays its home games downtown at the arena on South Pearl Street.

Albany Law School, opened in 1851, holds what distinction?

It ranks as the fourth-oldest law school in the United States.

Albany claims to have opened the first municipal airport in the United States in which year?

Today's Albany International Airport calls itself the oldest municipal airport in the country.

Amtrak's Albany station is actually across the river in which neighbouring city?

The grand Beaux-Arts Union Station on Broadway closed to trains and was reborn as a bank headquarters in 1986.

Albany's Beaux-Arts Union Station opened in which year, alongside the new Capitol?

Its 1986 renovation as Norstar Bank's headquarters is often credited with starting downtown's revival.

Which US senator from New York was born in Albany in 1966?

Her grandmother, Polly Noonan, was a power in the city's Democratic machine.

What was Albany's population at the 2020 census?

The wider Capital District, with Schenectady, Troy and Saratoga Springs, holds around 1.3 million people.

Which arena football team played at the city's downtown arena from 1990 to 2000?

A second Firebirds team later played in af2, the AFL's developmental league.

Which political boss built the Democratic machine that ran Albany from 1922 into the 1980s?

His organisation took power with the election of Mayor William Stormont Hackett in 1922 and outlived him.

In the 1990s the state legislature approved a downtown building plan for Albany worth how much?

Since 2020 the region's economy has pivoted toward nanotechnology, quantum hardware and AI-based photonics.

The name Albany ultimately derives from Alba, the Gaelic name for which country?

The Duke of Albany title had been given to younger sons of Scottish kings since 1398.

Albany's first documented European structure, Fort Nassau, was built in 1614 on which island?

The site is now the Port of Albany; the fort was a fur-trading post that a flood wrecked four years later.

Which Dutch city sent Albany 50,000 tulip bulbs in 1948, sparking the annual Tulip Festival?

Albany had helped rebuild the war-damaged library of Nijmegen's Catholic university with over 50,000 donated books.

USS Slater, the museum ship docked on Albany's Hudson waterfront, is the last afloat example of what?

Restored in 1998, DE-766 sits at Quay Street; the state museum, library and archives are all free to visit nearby.

Which Wicked author grew up in North Albany and graduated from SUNY Albany?

Fellow Albany product Trevanian wrote the semi-autobiographical The Crazyladies of Pearl Street about a North Albany neighbourhood.

Henry James identified which of his heroines as coming from Albany?

James and Herman Melville both lived in Albany as boys before their literary careers.

Which famous architect designed Albany City Hall, opened in 1883?

The nearby State Capitol cost $25 million, making it the most expensive government building of its day.

What is Albany's oldest surviving building, dating from 1728?

Quackenbush House followed around 1736 and the Georgian Schuyler Mansion in 1765.

Which NFL team held its training camp at the University at Albany from 1996 to 2012?

UAlbany's Great Danes were the first SUNY school to reach the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, in 2006.

'Tech Valley', the marketing name for the Albany region, was coined in which year?

It now spans 19 counties from IBM's Westchester plants to the Canadian border, with heavy state subsidy for chip-making.