Delaware & Hudson Building

Art by: Chris Hytha

Story by: Mark Houser

This former railroad terminal was inspired by the Cloth Hall in Ypres, a Flemish Gothic landmark badly damaged in World War I just as this homage was being constructed in Albany. Delaware and Hudson, which began as a canal bringing barges from the Scranton coalfields to New York, was one of six rail lines serving the state capital. Its new offices were devised to block the view from State Street of unsightly railyards and steamer docks at the riverfront.

A more romantic explanation is sometimes proffered: that the building marks the spot where Henry Hudson forlornly came ashore in his failed search for a fabled Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean. His ship, Half Moon, spins on the rooftop weathervane.

The State University of New York purchased the complex in 1972 to convert into the main administration offices for its more than 60 campuses. Arcaded main hallways with vaulted tile ceilings are the last original interiors. Luxurious former apartments of a newspaper publisher and political boss at the south end of the complex used to be offered to SUNY chancellors, but they have been converted into office space.