Urban evolution
Exhibit traces changes in Schenectady’s streetscape across decades
To trace the timeline of downtown Schenectady’s evolution, Mary Zawacki didn’t have to search very far. The archives of the Schenectady County Historical Society were full of stories about grand structures demolished and forgotten — such as the castle-like state armory building at the head of Veterans Park, or Plaza Theater nearby, which haunts the viewer with its similarities to Proctors.
Also stored away were artifacts of antiquated artistry, like the metal rack that rail passengers hung their coats and hats on after they stepped through the doors of Union Station. That massive structure was razed before many of today’s Schenectady residents were even born.
“Notable buildings, be they very old or very new, but welldesigned and attractive, are what define a cityscape — and we’ve kind of destroyed a lot of that,” said Zawacki, who directs the Historical Society.
“Changing Downtown,” the current exhibit that collects and presents these artifacts at the society’s Stockade location, leads visitors through the transformations that generations of city officials have instituted in response to the city’s changing fortunes. The exhibit’s up until November.
These included a canal built in the late 1970s near Proctors, with customers invited to drift around in paddle boats to access the various shops along the 400 block of State Street. (The bank foreclosed on the developer within days of the project opening, and the canal leaked into the surrounding buildings.)
But it also contains ample reminders of the renewal and success readily apparent today along State Street.
“Theories in urban planning and design have changed over the years,” Zawacki said. “They continue to change and evolve, and that’s just what that exhibit captures — how those changes affected Schenectady.”
When Union Station opened in 1908, it cut an imposing and majestic figure against Schenectady’s skyline.
The station towered for decades above the Wall Street area — so-named, wrote the Daily Gazette’s Larry Hart, for the barrier that formerly encompassed the Stockade — near where Erie Boulevard and Liberty Street intersect today.
Inside the depot, passengers came and went as up to 30 cars arrived every half hour to travel to points east and west, according to Schenectady Union-star coverage.
“It was a magnificent building and it was on par with Penn Station in New York City,” said Richard Dicristofaro, who’s been cutting hair at Wedgeway Barbershop at Erie Boulevard and State Street for 56 years. “It was full of terazzo marble and had beautiful benches and it was just a wide, wide open area. And it was unfortunate that it had to be taken down.”
The station had fallen victim to changing times. As a Gazette reporter wrote in 1968, after airlines and cross-country highways cut into the rail travel business, railways were forced to slash costs. This meant maintenance at sites like Union Station suffered.
Around the same time, Schenectady was eyeing ways to accommodate drivers. Christopher Spencer explains in his 2001 scholarly work, “Shovel Ready: Razing Hopes, History, and a Sense of Place: Rethinking Schenectady’s Downtown Strategies,” the end of streetcar service in the 1940s meant visitors needed to arrive downtown by car, and all those cars needed places to park.
In its zeal to produce more spaces, the city saw many historic properties razed.
Dicristofaro remembers how the station, where he boarded trains to travel down to New York City to watch ballgames, deteriorated into a refuge for squatters and vagrants before finally being demolished in the 1970s. It was a dark time for Schenectady, he recalls — the energy crisis was gripping the country, and with businesses leaving the city was on the verge of “total destruction.”
That’s why Dicristofaro takes great pleasure in looking through the barbershop windows today at the construction of the city’s new Amtrak station, whose design echoes its long-gone predecessor.
He points to new apartments being built on State Street and at Mohawk Harbor as further evidence of a resurgence in the city. “That’s gonna bring tons of new people and new businesses to our area,” he said, “so it’s a very exciting time.”
Images at the “Changing Downtown” exhibit chronicle the journey through good fortune and turmoil, and give a context to revitalization, Zawacki says.
If the opening reception was any indication, there is abundant curiosity about that revitalization and the many twists and turns that led to it.
Public response to the collection has been “overwhelmingly positive,” Zawacki said. “The opening reception brought in more people than we could even fit. People were turned away at the door, which I think shows that this is something that’s really near and dear to people’s hearts.”
The exhibit runs through November at the Schenectady History Museum at 32 Washington Ave., Schenectady.
“We hope when people leave (the museum) they’ll feel good about the city and the downtown’s future and be enticed to explore more of the buildings and streets and shops we talked about and featured in the exhibit,” Zawacki said.
“I think also a big part of it, again, is this understanding of place. It’s not static, it’s never been static. Schenectady has just always been changing. It’s very dynamic — the good and the bad.”