page_title: Center Square/Hudson–Park Historic District
section_title: 1957–present: Neighborhood associations
hierarchical_section_title: Center Square/Hudson–Park Historic District / History / 1957–present: Neighborhood associations
caption_attribution_description: English: Artsy Lark Street
context_page_description: The Center Square/Hudson–Park Historic District is located between Empire State Plaza and Washington Park in Albany, New York, United States. It is a 27-block area taking in both the Center Square and Hudson/Park neighborhoods, and Lark Street on the west. In 1980 it was recognized as a historic district and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
  Most of its buildings were constructed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with some dating as far back as the 1830s, in a diverse array of architectural styles of the era. Many prominent architects, including Marcus T. Reynolds and Russell Sturgis, have extant work in the district. Only 22 buildings are more modern, non-contributing properties. While 80% of its buildings are attached rowhouses, giving it a predominantly residential character even today, it also includes churches, two small parks and the Alfred E. Smith State Office Building. Among those are the city's oldest black church and the firehouse that housed its last volunteer fire department.
context_section_description: In 1957 residents of the six blocks between State, South Swan, Jay and Lark formed the Center Square Neighborhood Association (CSNA), Albany's oldest such organization, which ultimately lent its name to their neighborhood. By the late 1960s it had played a key role in the city's zoning overhaul. In the early 1970s it successfully opposed both a plan to demolish four buildings for a parking garage, and an attempt by McDonald's to open a restaurant in the neighborhood. The later condemnation of the neighborhoods east of South Swan for Empire State Plaza, and the plans to extend the South Mall Arterial freeway west along Jay Street, spurred the creation of the Hudson/Park Neighborhood Association in the 1970s. It succeeded both in stopping the highway project, and giving a name to its neighborhood.
  As it had been when the area was first developed, Center Square and Hudson/Park were socioeconomically diverse at the time the neighborhood associations were established. Over the course of the 1980s, that changed in Center Square as the CSNA's success began to make that neighborhood a desirable place for the young professionals of the era to live. By 1990 it had the highest rents in the city. The CSNA helped residents fight the city over a property tax reassessment in the late 1980s that many of them believed had singled out their neighborhood. It also successfully opposed another parking garage proposal at that time.
  The neighborhood association's success in getting its way with city politicians has been attributed to its membership having many lawyers, civil servants and other well-connected present and former residents to draw upon. It has sometimes drawn criticism as an elite group that represents the interests of only its members in preserving the neighborhood's high property values at the expense of the city as a whole. Specifically, when organized opposition by the CSNA and other groups in the city prevented the construction of another proposed parking garage in the late 1980s, some residents of adjacent blocks complained that they had been open to the plan as long as it could be amended to show more sensitivity to the historic character of the neighborhood. They pointed out that residents often competed for parking with state workers in the buildings at Empire State Plaza, and that older residents and those with small children had considered moving out of the neighborhood for the suburbs due to the parking problem. Others have complained that the CSNA's opposition to sidewalk cafes near residences, and some art galleries on the Lark Street end of the neighborhood, restricts the area's growth by keeping out businesses essential to a desirable urban setting.
  Historic preservation of the neighborhoods led the producers of the film adaptation of William Kennedy's novel Ironweed to use Lark Street as a location. The story takes place in Albany during the Depression, and it did not need to be recreated as many buildings from that era still stood. "The trolley came back to Lark Street in Albany," recalled Kennedy, "on a block where it had never run."
  In the 1990s the CSNA and the Lark Street Merchants Association began working together in response to early signs of urban decay brought on by that era's recession. They formed the Lark Street Revitalization Committee and were able to secure approximately half a million dollars in grants to restore and redevelop the area. Eventually they formed a business improvement district. Lark Street has since become regionally noted for its arts community. It hosts several annual festivals, including Art on Lark, Winter WonderLark, its Champagne on the Park annual fundraiser and LarkFEST, the state's largest single-day open-air street festival.
  Since at least the 1970s the city's gay community had been centered on Lark Street.  As gay visibility increased in the 1990s, Lark became identified as Albany's gay village. The Pride Center of the Capital Region has its office on Hudson near Lark. The city's annual gay pride parade is held along State and Lark, ending in a festival at Washington Park
caption: Restored houses on Lark Street
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