Albany Tulip Beds #2 – State St & Pearl St – Beverwyck Stockade, Albany, NY 518

#2 of the official City of Albany Tulip Beds, the Capitol Hill Tulip Bed, slightly NW of the Hudson Riverfront Bed.

Beautiful work by our city gardener @gardenswithjena and I love the Virichic’s! (Scroll to bottom for more!)

2 whole blocks of tulip beds fill both sides of the median on Upper State Street Hill between Pearl & Eagle Streets, centered around Lodge Street in front of the French-gothic St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, circa 1859.

This was once considered city center and was within the walls of the Beverwyck Stockade as far back as the 1640’s. The English built Fort Frederick here in 1676 and the Americans occupied it during the Revolution and later tore it down in 1789 to clear way for a new Capitol Hill District west of the stockade.

The current St. Peter’s Church Tower sits on the site of the NE corner of the old Fort, behind it the oldest Masonic Temple in the country, built in 1765, by a Lodge dating back to 1737.

The church received the land to replace the English Church from 1715 that sat in the middle of Lower State Street just above Pearl at what would be Chapel Street, named after the Chapel.

One block East of the English Church on Lower State Street near James Street sat the Market House dating back to 1704.

A display on the M&T Bank Building on the SW Corner of State/Pearl explains how this was the trail the Mohawk took from the Hudson River inland to the Western Gateway of the Iroquois Confederation stretching from what we know as Schenectady west across Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Niagara, Toronto, Detroit & more.

As recently as the 1950’s, this area dominated the city skyline until the ESP was built in the 1960’s. Many Gilded Age skyscrapers were built in the financial district.

On top of the hill at State & Eagle Streets are the French-chateau style NY State Capitol and the Renaissance style Albany City Hall, we will touch on these in the next article.

A hotel project in the 1990’s overshadows many historic buildings, as well as cutting off Chapel Street but State & Pearl Streets still hold many periods of architecture & Albany’s oldest store B.Lodge & Co. in business since 1867.

They still scrub the streets here every year to kick off Tulip Festival & Pinksterfest

I spend a lot of time in the area as it is the main downtown public transit hub for both uptown and out of the county to Troy, Schenectady, Saratoga or Amsterdam.

We will get further into the history of the area in our Albany Neighborhoods series with @NativeNewYorker518 follow along, I’m a 13th-Generation Dutch Descendant of New Netherlands Founders from 1645.

This was just a quick stop before I went into work an event a couple blocks away at 90 State Events, the National Savings Bank building, doing banquet service for the official NYS Capital District Caterer, Mazzone Hospitality. Learn more on my food blog @eatsbyjay_jrkd