Community Builders

FIVE - Arbor Hill: Revitalizing an Inner-City Neighborhood

5 Arbor Hill· Revitalizing an Inner-City Neighborhood The Arbor Hill Neighborhood Association shares organizational characteristics with the Center Square Neighborhood Association, which created a model for collective action widely emulated in Albany. Arbor Hill's problems differ from Center Square's, however. As is typical ofpoor neighborhoods, its association plays a far more limited role than those in middle-class neighborhoods and is not the most successful way ofmobilizing a community. Arbor Hill thus has a much richer history ofneighborhood mobilization than Center Square does. Its residents have formed a wider range of neighborhood-based organizations and have used not only advocacy but also protest and community development to improve housing, to empower themselves, and to build a sense ofcommunity. Characteristics ofArborHiDNeighborhood The Arbor Hill neighborhood was named for its multitude ofgrape arbors and its lofty position on a hillside. In 1850, itwas known as one ofthe most delightfullocations in the city. The famous Ten Broeck mansion was there, and Arbor Hill was "the most mercurial of Albany neighborhoods, a place ofArcadian wealth, gentility and beauty" (Kennedy 1983:96). Although its early residents were wealthy merchants and bankers, the neighborhood soon expanded to the north, and these sections became primarily working-class areas bounded by heavy industry (see Map 3). Some ofthese workers had come to Albany to build the Erie Canal during the 1820s; others were employed in the thriving lumber industry. 94 CHAPTER 5 By the end ofthe nineteenth century, the neighborhood had started to decline . The decision to build Washington Park (1869-1882) on Capitol Hill made that neighborhood the more desirable. When trolleys replaced horsecars in 1890, they did not travel to Arbor Hill but stopped at Clinton Avenue. Two decades offrustrating protest by residents began, and "not until 1911 was the trolley to be seen on Livingston Avenue, and its journey then was not always a blessing. Livingston is a steep hill and on slick and icy days, despite sanding, the downhill car would sometimes jump the tracks and crash into Grace Methodist Episcopal Church at Ten Broeck, or sometimes into the home of the Sixth Ward's democratic leader, William Mitchell, who lived across the street from the church-all going to prove that neither God nor the Democratic Party had any control over the traction interests" (Kennedy 1983:105). All the reside:nts' attempts to reverse the destiny of Arbor Hill were in vain. One resident, Barrington Lodge, wrote to city leaders: "Before Washington Parkwas made, the property on Arbor Hill was as valuable as any like property in the city.... This was changed by the Washington Park improvement for which the people ofthe North End helped to pay ... although it depreciated all their property" (Kennedy, 1983:105). The city declined his request to invest money in improving Arbor Hill. Soon more working-class families settled in, and Arbor Hill lost its position as a fashionable neighborhood. About three-quarters of the housing in Arbor Hill was built before 1950 (70 percent), according to the 1980 census. The lower part of the neighborhood , known as Ten Broeck Triangle, consists of beautiful brownstones and brick houses. Along Clinton Avenue, houses are of similar substantial quality . But more than 90 percent of the houses in Arbor Hill are attached and consist ofmultiple units, and 83 percent of the residents in 1980 rented their apartments (Table 7). The streets and houses near the heart ofArbor Hill on Second Street are in the worst condition. Most ofthese buildings are wooden, and most of the vacant buildings in Arbor Hill are here. Today, Arbor Hill is predominantly Black, according to the 1980 census, 73 percent ofthe 5,876 residents (see Table 8). Ofall the Blacks living in Albany , 25 percent lived in Arbor Hill in 1980. Thirty percent ofthe Hill's residents lived below the poverty level, and the average years offormal education tended to be lower in Arbor Hill than in the city as a whole. Its unemployment rate was 12 percent at a time when Center Square's was only 4 percent. About 15 percent of its working residents held white-collar jobs, and about 39 percent worked for the government. However, in 1980,50 percent had family incomes under $7,500 {low income at the time), with only 8 percent above $25,000 (high income at the time). ARBOR HILL 95 Table 7: Land-Use Characteristics ofArbor HillNeighborhood Housing % Occupancy 69.2...