The Old Halenbeek Burial Ground

Downtown Albany was once dotted with public, private, and church graveyards.  The earliest churchyard surrounded the First Dutch Church at what is now Broadway and State Street, a Lutheran graveyard stood on South Pearl Street just below State Street, small burying grounds for soldiers from Fort Frederick and for African-Americans were located just outside the stockade not far from today's City Hall.  Later, municipal burial grounds were established on Eagle Street (just south of modern East Capitol Park) and then at State Street (now the northeastern corner of Washington Park). 

There were also small family burial grounds on farms, estates, and privately owned or leased lots.  One such lot - complete with a private vault - was built by merchant David Vanderheyden around 1766 at what is now the northwest corner of Washington Avenue and Swan Street. 

The Oldest Building (Formerly)

Plaque on State Street near the corner with South Pearl Street. Like most of Albany's colonial relics, the house referenced by this bronze marker is long since gone and Albany's oldest surviving building is a few blocks away on Hudson Avenue.

Walk east along the front of this building towards 74 State and you'll find a set of windows with a very interesting (though dimly lit) exhibit of photos tracing the history this corner from the original Dutch house where General Philip Schuyler was born to the succession of modern buildings that replaced it.