The capital of Capitalism — Albany, New York
A casual short weekend trip during Covid-19 that introduced me to the glorious past of the New York State
After six months of exploring the hidden corners of Central Park in the COVID world, I saw a ray of hope when the first phase of re-opening was announced. Desperate yet paranoid, I decided to take a vacation in the safety net of my home state New York itself (if a two-hour train ride and a single night stay count as one). However, what I booked as a much-needed break from my tiny Manhattan studio, turned out to be more than a quiet break with its rich offering.
Albany is the capital of the State of New York and the seventh oldest city in America. But unlike most capital cities, the magnanimity is not limited to a single Capitol building. In fact, other than Washington DC, I have not seen this kind of financial and intellectual investment in ensuring the aesthetics of any city in America. Look at the two ends of the State Street. One celebrates the Dutch heritage with the Flemish-Gothic campus of SUNY Albany while the other boasts the French Renaissance style of the Capital.
Keep walking and you will be greeted with a reminiscence of the ancient Greco-Roman superpower in the imposing Corinthian columns of the State Education Building. And right opposite to it stands the Grand Empire Plaza, representative of the engineering superiority of the modern American superpower.
Add to it the Romanesque City Hall declaring Black Lives Matter, Roman-Catholic, All-Saints and Episcopal churches, and lush green Corning Reserve on the banks of Hudson with a bike trail ending at the docked USS Slater. Whatever the stats might say, Albany will show you what it means to be the richest state of America in true sense.
Albany was founded in 1609 by the famous English explorer Henry Hudson while he worked for the Dutch Republic, hailed as the first model of Capitalism itself. Beverwijck(beaver-town), as it was called then, became a key trading post of the newfound colony of New Netherlands but unlike the British colonies, its foundation is not written in blood. The Dutch very well understood that wealth is generated when everyone in the society benefits. Hence, they co-existed peacefully and profitably with the indigenous Iroquoians exchanging culture, cuisine, and genes by marrying their women.
British took the permanent possession of Beverwijck with the Treaty of Westminster in 1664 and renamed it Albany after the Duke of Albany, who later became James II of England. My guess is as good as yours as to what happened to the local inhabitants then. But all we know for now is that Albany was officially chartered as a city in 1686 with the Dongan Charter, considered to be the oldest running municipal charter in the western world today. Albany played its part in the revolutionary war when Henry Knox decided to deliver 59 cannons from New York to George Washington in Boston, on sledges dragged on the thin ice-sheet of Hudson river. The Knox trail in the Corning Reserve today commemorates this act of grit. Albany is also amongst the original 13 colonies listed out in the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
The story of New York City becoming the financial capital of world takes a pitstop in Albany. At the beginning of the 19th century, Governor DeWitt Clinton of the State of New York, proposed an ambitious, almost impractical project, a 400 miles long Canal from Buffalo on the eastern shore of Lake Erie to Albany on the upper Hudson River. Mocked as a folly or ditch, the Erie Canal, spurred the first great westward movement of American settlers, gave access to the rich land and resources west of the Appalachians and made New York the preeminent commercial city in the United State. The canal recouped the $7 million cost of construction within a decade of its inauguration. Trade exploded as freight rate reduced to $10 a ton compared to $100 a ton by road. In 1829, there were 3,640 bushels of wheat transported down the Canal from Buffalo. By 1837 this figure had increased to 500,000 bushels; four years later it reached one million making New York the busiest port in America in 15 years.
As the state became navigable by waterways, Albany also became home to some artists venturing north to Lake George and Adirondack. These artists will later give birth to America’s first indigenous art movement, Hudson River School of Art, with Thomas Cole and Fredrick Edwin Church as its leading artists.
If you look at the map today, every major city in New York falls along the trade route established by the Erie Canal, from New York City to Albany, through Schenectady, Utica and Syracuse, to Rochester and Buffalo. Nearly 80% of upstate New York population lives within 25 miles of the Erie Canal.
But Clinton was not the only visionary who led the state of New York; Albany was also fortunate to be the seat of the government of the last man who held the principles of the Grand Old Party, Nelson Rockefeller. It might seem like an oxymoron today, but Rockefeller was hailed as the Progressive Republican. Not only is he credited with the beautiful Empire Plaza in the heart of the city but also many of the environmental, educational, health care and civil rights reforms. People might choose to criticize him for expanding the powers of police or not negotiating with the inmates, but I would like to remember what he did to bring about equality.
Rockefeller democratized higher education by turning the State University of New York into the largest system of public higher education in the United States. Under his governorship, it grew from 29 campuses and 38,000 full-time students to 72 campuses and 232,000 full-time students. On the environment front, he persuaded voters to approve three major bond acts to raise more than $300 million for acquisition of park and forest preserve land and also introduced the state’s first support for mass transportation. He reformed the governance of New York City’s transportation system and created the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in 1965.
Rockefeller astutely addressed discrimination in housing and places of public accommodation. He created the New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC), granting it unprecedented powers to override local zoning, condemn property, and create financing schemes to carry out desired development. By 1973, the Rockefeller administration had started over 88,000 units of housing for limited income families and the aging. He also outlawed “block-busting” as a means of artificially depressing housing values. In the area of public assistance, the Rockefeller administration carried out the largest state medical care program for the needy in the United States under the auspices of Medicaid. He outlawed job discrimination based on gender or age increasing the number of African American and Hispanics holding state jobs to 50%. He prohibited discrimination against women in education, employment, housing, and credit applications, initiated affirmative action programs for women in state government and backed New York’s ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Though he served as the Vice President in Ford administration, its a shame that a man like this never even became a presidential nominee.
Rockefeller passed away in 1979, American Capitalism got redefined as greed driven Reagonmics and for next 30 years till the Financial crises of 2008, the wealth of nations became the wealth of few morally bankrupts.
In his recent book Overstated, Colin Quinn mocked the deserted streets of Albany.
“I have been there 20 times and never seen a person”
While I cannot refute that statement, the otherwise quiet city has a lot to say about the former glory of New York State and the role it played in making America a premier free market economy. Visit it for the glorious structures, visit it for the gorgeous photographs and visit it to revisit America’s history of progress.
