page_title: Knickerbocker and Arnink Garages
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Knickerbocker and Arnink Garages / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Former site of the Knickerbocker and Arnink Garages in Albany, NY, USA, demolished in the 1980s
context_page_description: The Knickerbocker and Arnink Garages were two attached stone buildings located on Hudson Avenue in central Albany, New York, United States. Both were built in the early 20th century; the Knickerbocker garage was added to the Arnink garage 12 years after it was built. In 1980, they were listed on the National Register of Historic Places; nine years later they were both demolished and delisted.
  At the time, many garages were adapted from stables or carriage houses. The first to be built, the smaller, was instead adapted from an existing commercial building by the owner of a successful Ford dealership in the city for his car-rental and repair service. His superintendent later bought the business from him and had the larger one built in the same style by the same architect.
  They were among the earliest structures in Albany built specifically in response to the increasing use of the automobile at that time. Their neo-Gothic cast stone facades are an unusual choice of style and material for that time.
context_section_description: In 1914, a downtown redevelopment plan based on City Beautiful movement principles led to the construction of the Delaware and Hudson Railroad's (D&H) new headquarters, today the State University of New York (SUNY) System Administration Building. The Flemish Gothic edifice by local architect Marcus T. Reynolds, closely copied from the Cloth Hall in Ypres, Belgium, was meant to be a focal point for traffic coming down from Capitol Hill to the west via State Street. To further this goal, the industrial structures along the riverfront behind it were demolished.
  The new building drew lots of praise, and local merchants and businessmen were inspired to emulate it in their own. Henry Arnink, a local dealer of Ford Model T's, had expanded his business to include repair and rental services by that time. He bought the existing three-story structure at 74 Hudson and renovated and expanded it. Local architect J. Walter Montross oversaw the project, designing a cast stone Gothic exterior that may have been intended to echo the nearby D&H Building.
  Twelve years after Arnink moved into the new building he sold the business to his superintendent, Harry Knickerbocker. Wanting to expand the business, Knickerbocker again commissioned Montross. The second garage was similar to the first in decoration and overall form, save for an extra story at the top. It differed in its wide single garage at the street level with no text and lacked the roofline finials.
  In 1947 Knickerbocker sold the Arnink garage to another concern, which converted it into a warehouse. Both buildings were still in use for those businesses at the time they were listed on the Register three decades later. Knickerbocker had by then become a franchisee of the Hertz car-rental chain, which necessitated placing a large series of illuminated signs with that company's name letter by letter down the two stories above the garage, between the eastern bays. That would be the only significant change made to either building following their construction.
  By the late 1980s the neighborhood had changed. Another Register-listed property nearby, the Abrams Building, had been demolished to clear the way for a new arena, now known as the Times Union Center. In 1988 plans for two large office towers at the corner of South Pearl and Hudson were approved by the city. While the two garages did not overlap the new buildings' footprint, it was necessary to demolish them anyway to provide enough parking. That was accomplished in early 1989; they were delisted a month later.
caption: Site of the garages in 2013
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