Former Multi Family Building Built for GE Employees in Schenectady NY
Alexandra Apartment Hotel, Schenectady New York
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The Alexandra Apartment Hotel is a five-story Queen Anne multi-unit residential building whose construction was associated with the growth of Schenectady in the early twentieth century. The apartment hotel was the type of multi-person dwelling erected to accommodate General Electric's growing workforce. Due to the rapid expansion of the General Electric Company between 1887 and the 1910s, thousands of people moved to Schenectady and the city experienced a boom in housing construction. The Alexandra was built in 1900 and targeted a clientele that primarily consisted of employees of the General Electric Company, whose industrial works were only a short trolley ride away from the building. During its first twenty years, the Alexandra primarily attracted General Electric employees who wanted to live near the Stockade neighborhood, Schenectady's most distinguished residential neighborhood. Many of these tenants were well-educated technicians and sought lodgings that reflected their position of prominence within the company. The apartment hotel fused design elements from apartment houses and hotels, catering to a clientele that sought the homey feeling of an apartment as well as the dining and service amenities of a hotel. Like apartments, apartment hotel units were built to maximize rentable space and light exposure. The first floor of an apartment hotel most resembled a hotel and generally contained dining rooms and lounges, giving guests a common space in which to relax. The Alexandra retains these key features that distinguish apartment hotels from other multi-person building types. The building's first floor retains evidence of its original configuration and the original layouts of the building's upper floor suites are intact. These suites retain some important interior finishes such as tin ceilings, crown molding, and baseboards. After circa 1923, the Alexandra was converted into a more traditional apartment house and the key first-floor spaces that helped classify the building as an apartment hotel were turned into living quarters.
In 1895 the Furman family, local real estate speculators, purchased James Simpson's carriagemaking shop on the corner of State Street and Washington Avenue. The building was demolished in 1900 to make room for the Alexandra Apartment Hotel. Apartment hotels were a flexible building type that offered the short-term amenities of a hotel, such as food, waitstaff, and public spaces for relaxation, as well as spacious rooms that were attractive to long-term guests. The Alexandra contained a mix of single rooms and multi-room suites as well as a common dining space and reception room. Guests generally rented the rooms on a weekly or monthly basis, though some people, such as Robert Huntly, an engineer at General Electric, became long term residents. The Alexandra also maintained a small staff that consisted of a building manager, waitresses, servants, and a cook all of whom lived in the apartment hotel. This staff served the apartment hotel's guests as well as Schenectady residents, who could order food in the apartment hotel restaurant.
Advertisements for the Alexandra appeared in Schenectady's local newspapers, including Union College's student paper, The Concordiensis. Advertisements also appear in the New Outlook, a trade journal that advertised the Alexandra alongside resort hotels, sanitariums, and seaside cottages. The journal highlighted the apartment hotel's proximity to trolley lines and several local attractions such as Albany, Saratoga Springs, and Ballston Spa. The Alexandra's management made special appeals to General Electric employees, arguing that the Alexandra was the "most convenient house in the city to the General Electric works". The apartment hotel also offered breakfast from 6:30 A.M. until 9:00 A.M., ensuring that workers could enjoy a meal before taking a trolley operated by the Schenectady Railway to work. The apartment hotel's location on the main route of the Schenectady Railway also provided tenants with a bevy of options for weekend excursions in the Capital Region and expanded the shopping opportunities for housewives who could use the trolley to explore Schenectady in comfort.
Given its location near the General Electric works, the Schenectady Railway's trolley lines, and the Stockade District, the Alexandra Apartment Hotel quickly reached full occupancy. Census data from 1910 shows eighteen lodgers, five servants, and the property manager's family of four in residence. With the exception of one German servant and an English boarder, the apartment hotel's residents were American-born, and a majority were employed by General Electric as clerks, engineers, or salespersons. A significant number of newlyweds also resided at the Alexandra. Newlyweds often started out in apartment hotels and lived in the temporary residences as they worked towards purchasing or building a family home. By 1920, the apartment hotel had twenty-eight lodgers. All of the residents were American-born and most were employed by General Electric, though one lodger attended Union College while another managed a theater.
During the 1920s, the Alexandra likely became a more standard apartment house. Advertisements listing the Alexandra specifically as an apartment house appear for the first time in the Schenectady Gazette in 1923 and these advertisements note the presence of kitchenettes in the units, a feature apartment hotels, by definition, lacked. Prior advertisements had noted the apartment hotel's dining options and restaurant. Further, census data from 1925 and 1930 show there are no longer any waitstaff, cooks, or servants living in the Alexandra, which, coupled with the building's changing advertisements, indicate that the building became an apartment house circa 1923. Additionally, by 1925, the Alexandra experienced a shift in its tenants. In addition to General Electric employees, real estate agents, dry goods clerks, and teachers started to live in the Alexandra and by 1930 none of the building's twenty residents worked for General Electric. Instead, the residents were employed in a range of middle-class professions, including clerking, manufacturing, banking, teaching, and medicine.
The Alexandra's shift from an upscale residence for General Electric employees to a middle-class apartment house can be linked to changes in Schenectady in the early twentieth century. Between 1900 and 1910 Schenectady grew from four wards to twelve as city officials attempted to keep pace with General Electric's growth. The City of Schenectady annexed large parcels of land around the old city core, much of which had been open farmland up until the 1890s. As General Electric expanded, real estate speculators started to purchase this land and lay out neighborhoods complete with street grids and trolley lines. For many speculators it was more profitable to sell lots on the city outskirts than to build and manage multi-unit residences in the city. By 1889 developers had started to plot out Mont Pleasant and this was followed in 1891 with the development of Bellevue, both of which accommodated many of General Electric's unskilled laborers, though middle-class workers such as machinists and foremen purchased land and homes in both neighborhoods. These purchases were particularly frequent between 1910 and 1930, when the western portion of Bellevue was laid out and filled with one-story, single-family bungalows. These new neighborhoods offered General Electric employees the privacy considered necessary for growing a family at a time when General Electric's hiring slowed and the company's wages increased, allowing the number of houses and building lots to better match the number of people seeking accommodations in Schenectady.
Schenectady's expansion also led to a shift in the city's commerce, which moved away from the Stockade District and shifted to upper State Street. City residents started to view the Stockade District as overly congested and merchants moved their businesses east of Crescent Park, which demarked the unofficial border between lower and upper State Street, or to new business districts that developed in commercial strips outside the downtown core.
While Schenectady's business district moved to upper State Street, new building projects that directly competed with the Alexandra Apartment Hotel were erected on lower State Street. In 1925 Hotel Van Curler opened at 78 Washington Avenue; the publicly owned hotel stood as a landmark to the progress of Schenectady and was considered one of the city's finest hotels. Three years later, workers finished construction of the Schenectady YMCA Building at 13 State Street (extant), offering men short-term living quarters. After 1928, individuals who would have previously patronized the apartment hotel for short visits could choose to stay in the modern Hotel Van Curler or the inexpensive YMCA, likely undermining the Alexandra Apartment Hotel's ability to attract short-term tenants.
The Stockade District's declining status, the aforementioned slowdown of hiring by General Electric, the construction of the Hotel Van Curler and Schenectady YMCA, and the availability of building lots and inexpensive housing outside the city core likely precipitated the conversion of the Alexandra Apartment Hotel into an apartment house during the early 1920s. Although the Stockade District would regain its status as one of Schenectady's most exclusive residential neighborhoods in the 1960s, the owners of the Alexandra Apartment Hotel likely had to alter the building to attract a new clientele of middle-class professionals during the mid-1920s.
After the Alexandra's conversion into a more traditional apartment house in the early 1920s, it continued to serve as a residence for several decades. In 1955 Anthony Brock purchased the property and used it to generate rental income. Brock died in 1958, leaving the property to his wife, and the Brock family held onto the property until 1978. During this period, the Stockade District was largely considered blighted due to the rapid growth of suburban neighborhoods outside of Schenectady, a continuation of the neighborhood's downward trend that had started in the 1920s with the growth of neighborhoods like Bellevue and Mont Pleasant. However, in 1962 the city passed the Stockade Historic Zoning Ordinance which, along with efforts by homeowners and historic preservationists, led to improved conditions in the Stockade Districts. Elsewhere, Schenectady's downtown experienced a number of issues symptomatic of urban blight as the continued suburbanization of the city's population left many neighborhoods full of dilapidated or unoccupied homes. General Electric also began a decades-long process of downsizing in the 1960s that cut thousands of jobs and led to a general exodus of people from the city. As General Electric downsized, the city attempted to mitigate the job losses by diversifying the local economy by offering grants and other financial assistance to small businesses. Some of the more notable projects included renovating a number of downtown buildings and converting them into mixed-use spaces with offices, retail, and apartments. Despite these efforts, median income fell throughout Schenectady and the city's population shrank until 2000, when a modest economic revival began. After the Brock family sold the Alexandra Apartment Hotel, the building passed through several owners until 2011. During this time a handful of tenants occupied the apartment hotel. Currently, the Alexandra Apartment Hotel is vacant, and a rehabilitation plan has been established to return the Alexandra to the market and continue its century of use by residents of Schenectady.
The History of Schenectady
In 1661, Arendt Van Curler and fourteen families left the fortified community of Beverwyck (present-day Albany) to develop a new settlement to the west. Van Curler and his settlers established their community sixteen miles away from Beverwyck on the banks of the Mohawk River with the hope of creating contacts with Mohawk fur traders to break the pelt monopoly maintained by traders in Beverwyck. This land had been Mohawk territory for decades and the Native Americans called it Skahnehtati or "beyond the pines." The Dutch adopted this name and through several linguistic alterations, the settlement became known as Schenectady. Van Curler's plan ultimately failed, as Beverwyck's political, economic, and legal power undermined efforts to create alternate trade relationships with Mohawk trappers and fur traders. Following this setback, Schenectady's settlers turned to farming and began growing wheat near the Mohawk River's banks and raising livestock using a mix of free, indentured, and African slave labor. The settlers also erected a stockade around their community to defend themselves from Native American and French attacks. The stockade offered minimal protection and Schenectady's lack of a garrison or trained militia left it vulnerable. In 1690, 200 French and Native American fighters descended on Schenectady, massacred the inhabitants, and burned all but five homes. The massacre, a small skirmish in the Nine Years' War, left Schenectady nearly uninhabited. However, the conclusion of the Nine Years' War in 1697 ushered in an extended period of peace in colonial New York, and people returned to Schenectady to rebuild and enlarge the settlement.
Like the rest of New York State, Schenectady became a British colony in 1664 and remained part of the British colonial empire until 1783, when the British government recognized American independence. In 1795, three of Schenectady's oldest churches pooled their funds and organized Union College, the second university established in New York State, and in 1798 Schenectady was incorporated as a city. Initially, the city's business district developed along Washington Avenue and the Mohawk River, where warehouses and wharves were built to ship goods along the river. In 1809, architect Theodore Burr bridged the Mohawk River to facilitate easier travel along the Albany & Schenectady Turnpike. Settlers moving to central and western New York passed along this turnpike and businesses developed in Schenectady and Albany to support them. In 1819, a fire swept Schenectady's business district, destroying the lower portion of the city around Washington Avenue and nearly consuming Union College. Rather than rebuild their businesses near the waterfront, many of Schenectady's merchants moved to State Street to take advantage of the Erie Canal. Once the debris from the fire had been cleared, the former business center became an affluent residential neighborhood known as the Stockade District, so named because of the stockade that had encircled the neighborhood during the 1600s.
Schenectady benefited from the Erie Canal's completion; however, the canal was an imperfect vehicle for passengers, particularly between Schenectady and Albany, where a 225-foot elevation change made boats spend an entire day passing through twenty-seven locks to journey the fifteen miles between the cities. Many passengers opted to take stagecoaches between the cities rather than waste a day on the canal, and in 1826 a group of investors chartered the Mohawk & Hudson, New York State's first railroad, to transport people between Schenectady and Albany. The Mohawk & Hudson Railroad made its first trip in 1831, journeying from Albany to Schenectady in roughly forty minutes, making it by far the fastest transportation option in the Capital Region. In 1833, another group of investors chartered the Utica & Schenectady Railroad to carry passengers into western New York. Railroads soon emerged as the preferred method of long-distance travel and after 1851 the New York State Legislature removed restrictions that favored the Erie Canal's freight business, leading to a boom in railroad construction. Soon after, lines controlled by major conglomerates like the New York Central Railroad Company crisscrossed New York and the greater northeast.
In 1849 Schenectady's first train manufacturing works, the Schenectady Locomotive Works, opened. Under the leadership of master mechanic John Ellis, the firm created the McQueen, one of the most serviceable locomotive engines of the mid-nineteenth century. The Schenectady Locomotive Works became one of the nation's leading producers of locomotive engines and other locomotive firms such as the Jones Car Works and Gilbert Car Works opened factories in Schenectady. Collectively, these firms employed thousands of people and formed the nucleus of Schenectady's growth after 1850. In 1901, a number of locomotive manufacturers, including the Schenectady Locomotive Engine Manufactory, the Pittsburgh Locomotive and Car Works, and the Richmond Locomotive Works, merged their businesses, forming the American Locomotive Company and establishing their headquarters in Schenectady.
Schenectady's growth changed dramatically after Thomas Edison visited the city in 1886 to examine a site on the city outskirts for a light bulb factory. The twelve-acre site had two semi-complete buildings that had been built for the Schenectady Locomotive Works; however, the railroad company had abandoned the buildings before their completion, forcing the city to put the property up for sale. Thomas Edison offered $37,000 for the land and buildings, well below the city's $45,000 asking price. However, local real estate developer Colonel Robert Furman, who believed Edison's electric works could provide employment for upwards of 2,000 people, galvanized several local businessmen to raise the money necessary to make up the difference between the city's price and Edison's offer. On June 14th, 1886, Furman telegraphed Edison's attorney, John De Remer, to indicate the deal could be struck and within a year Edison's works had moved to Schenectady. Initially known as the Edison Electric Light Company, the firm soon took over several northeastern electric light manufacturers and reorganized as the General Electric Company. General Electric expanded rapidly and by 1914 the firm had hundreds of buildings in its industrial park and employed 18,000 people in Schenectady.
The Great Depression halted Schenectady's growth and the city's largest employers, General Electric and the American Locomotive Company, operated on a reduced basis throughout the 1930s. Both companies were buoyed by military contracts during World War II, and ship turbines, radios, electric drives, M-7 self-propelled artillery pieces, and Sherman tanks were produced in Schenectady during the war. After the war, both companies resumed their peacetime production; however, the rapid growth that had characterized Schenectady in the early twentieth century did not return. Schenectady's population shrank as people migrated to the suburbs and as critical businesses like the American Locomotive Company went bankrupt. Additionally, during this time General Electric started to reduce its workforce. The company started to lay off blue-collar workers in the 1960s and by 2012 General Electric only employed 4,000 people in Schenectady. General Electric's downsizing corresponded to a general decline in Schenectady's population, which currently sits at roughly 65,000, a sizable drop from the city's peak of 95,000 in 1930.
Apartment and Apartment Hotel Living in Schenectady During General Electric's Boom Period
Prior to Edison's arrival, 13,000 people lived in Schenectady. The city's neighborhoods were divided by class and race with the wealthiest citizens living in the Stockade District and much of the commerce centered along State Street. The rest of the city contained a mix of one-and two-family homes, commercial establishments, and factories, the largest of which belonged to the railroad companies. Schenectady also had sixteen hotels and twelve boarding houses. Sanborn maps from 1884 show that Schenectady's largest hotels, the Givens Hotel, (demolished in 1889 and replaced by the Edison Hotel), Ellis Hotel, and Carley House were on State Street while most of the city's tenements were located near the New York Central Railroad's tracks.
As a result of General Electric's rapid expansion throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Schenectady's population grew to nearly 73,000 people in 1910. Longtime residents started to renovate their homes to take in boarders as a way to capitalize on the opportunity. In 1907 the city newspapers printed a reminder that May 1st was moving day and Schenectady would be congested with horse carts, trolleys, and cars hauling people and luggage across the city. Schenectady also experienced a construction boom, and by 1910 sixty-five hotels and one hundred boarding houses operated in the city. Many of these new buildings were erected near the General Electric works and occupied by the company's blue-collar labor force. As a result of the constantly growing population, Schenectady began tearing down existing buildings to erect larger facilities and the city, particularly along State Street, seemed to be in a constant state of construction. In addition to this practice, newly formed real estate companies started purchasing land to the south and east of the General Electric works, laying out subdivisions such as Edison Park and Mont Pleasant. The rapid development of these subdivisions resulted in many neighborhoods of near identical wooden double-decker houses, known regionally as Schenectady houses.
While unskilled laborers found housing in crowded tenements around the General Electric works, the company's managers and technical experts struggled to find housing that reflected their status. Many attempted to move into the Stockade District, however the historic neighborhood lacked enough houses for all of General Electric's professional workers. In 1899 the company purchased land from Union College and started to develop single-family residences and mansions for its executives. The land, known as the General Electric Realty Plot, developed into an exclusive neighborhood where elites from General Electric and broader Schenectady mingled. While General Electric's executives settled on the GE Realty Plot, its white-collar workers and technical experts continued to search for housing.
Priced out of the GE Realty Plot, where building lots required a $10,000 down payment, General Electric's white-collar workers sought accommodations in the Stockade District, physically altering portions of the neighborhood in the process. Real estate developers began to erect apartment houses and apartment hotels in the neighborhood and by 1914 a number of multi-person dwellings had been erected in the Stockade District including the Saratoga Rooming House at 237 Green Street (extant), the Albright Hotel at 253 Green Street (extant), and the Alexandra Apartment Hotel at 1-3 State Street, just outside the Stockade District's borders. Additionally, some Stockade District residences were converted into rooming houses. In many cases a family rented out part of their home, acting as the proprietors and housekeepers. Some landlords built additions at the rear of their properties to provide extra rental units and offer tenants greater privacy. According to census data from 1910, General Electric's electrical engineers and chemists were the primary lodgers in many of these rooming houses. Examples of residences that were used as rental properties in the Stockade District can be found in the building at 29 Front Street, the building at 43 Front Street, the building at 33 North Ferry Street, and the building at 115 North Ferry Street. The building at 115 North Ferry Street is a particularly good representation of a converted residence in the Stockade District as it features two small additions that telescope off the rear of the original home.
Apartment Hotel Architecture
The apartment hotel building type developed in the mid to late nineteenth century as multi-person dwellings like flats and apartments became increasingly socially acceptable living quarters for middle-class Americans. Previously, multi-person dwellings had been associated with tenements and the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions in which many immigrants lived. However, as regulations curbed the most unsanitary aspects of tenement housing, multi-family units like apartment houses and apartment hotels began to appeal to the economic sense and shifting social norms in American society.
The term "apartment hotel," used to describe multi-person dwellings like the Alexandra Apartment Hotel, came into general use in America following the Civil War and, in 1902, architect Russell Sturgis defined the apartment hotel as a building where occupants lacked private kitchens and took their meals in the "restaurant of the house." In subsequent decades, the presence of a central kitchen became the defining feature of apartment hotels and the main point of difference between apartment hotels and apartment houses.
Importantly though, apartment hotels frequently included suites that were large enough to make long-term stays comfortable for guests whose stays could range from several days to several years in a unit. Some of these suites included furnishings which were another element that helped distinguish apartment hotels from apartment houses and hotels. Many apartment hotels offered a mix of furnished and unfurnished rooms for guests to choose from based on their preferences and the prospective length of their stay. Apartment houses were typically not furnished, and hotels came fully furnished for guests. Like hotels, apartment hotels were often located near centers of social and commercial activity, allowing tenants to enjoy downtown amusements and opportunities to socialize.
In a typical apartment hotel, the building's first floor contained communal spaces such as a dining room, a lounge, breakfast room, and, if space allowed, a billiards room. If possible, other entertainment spaces such as rooftop gardens or ballrooms were included as well. After the development of cost-efficient indoor plumbing, private bathrooms were generally added to suites, as were private telephones.
Apartment hotels typically charged higher rents than apartment houses and because of this they catered to the middle and upper classes. Tenants were also generally single people or newlyweds who did not have children and therefore did not need as much living space or privacy. The Real Estate Record and Builders' Guide posited that apartment hotels had grown in popularity in the early twentieth century due to the rising cost of hiring servants and operating a traditional upper-class household. Living in an apartment hotel offered tenants convenience and simplified their lives; servants employed by the apartment hotel cleaned rooms, cooked meals, and served guests, allowing tenants to enjoy urban life without the hassles of managing the domestic sphere.
Apartment hotels also frequently utilized architectural styles that enjoyed broad popularity in order to appeal to the widest number of potential tenants. The use of Queen Anne architecture as well as the Alexandra Apartment Hotel's simple and symmetrical facade is consistent with the philosophy. The building's facade contains ornamental details such as bay windows and a bracketed cornice that would have contrasted with the working-class tenements in other parts of the city, giving prospective tenants confidence in the apartment hotel's respectability without appearing gaudy.
As previously mentioned, the Alexandra Apartment Hotel's interior spaces retain many of the architectural features that defined the apartment hotel typology. The first floor retains a small foyer that faces several rooms that were converted to apartments after circa 1923; also present is the building's original staircase and evidence remains to suggest the original layout of the first floor. The apartment hotel's upper floors feature largely intact interior layouts that were arranged to maximize rentable space complete with finishes expected by the well-to-do-tenants. The arrangement of the suites so that residents could view the bustle along State Street from their parlors also reflects early twentieth-century apartment hotel building principles.
The Furman Family
Led by Colonel Robert Furman and, later, his children, the Furman family was one of Schenectady's most important families, influencing the growth and layout of Schenectady during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The family was also an important local landowner and the Alexandra Apartment Hotel was built on land they owned. A photo from the Schenectady County Historical Society attributes the construction of the Alexandra to the Robert Furman Estate. The photo suggests that Hamilton and Earle Furman, sons of Robert and managers of his estate and real estate business after his death, erected the Alexandra Apartment Hotel as an income-generating property. However, no other documentation has been found to directly link the Furman family to the Alexandra Apartment Hotel.
Born in Franklin, Oneida County, New York in 1826, Robert Furman came to Schenectady in 1843 to work in his brother's dry goods store. Later, he worked for Myndert Van Guysling, another prosperous dry goods merchant, and in 1857 he married Van Guysling's daughter, Catherine. In that same year, Furman erected a mansion at 225 Lafayette Street (extant), where he lived for the rest of his life. During the Civil War, Furman raised a regiment of militiamen, earning the rank of colonel; after the war, he secured $30,000 to erect an armory on Washington Avenue. Furman also donated land and money to create Crescent Park (now Veterans Park), Schenectady's first public park, and worked with a committee to develop Vale Cemetery into a landscaped burial ground and park complete with miniature lakes and stands of shade trees.
In addition to his civic and philanthropic work, Furman engaged in a number of capitalist ventures, particularly railroad development, land speculation, and real estate investment. In 1886 Furman and several other city boosters formed the Schenectady Railway with railroad promoter A.R. Chisholm; the following year the first portion of the line, which grew to encompass routes to every community in the Capital Region, opened. In that same year, Furman raised the money necessary to bring Thomas Edison's electrical works to Schenectady.
Furman's property holdings stretched across Schenectady and constituted his largest business investments. In 1871 Furman purchased several hundred acres of land just outside the city limits. The land, at that time part of the Town of Niskayuna, was annexed by Schenectady as the city expanded to meet the housing needs of General Electric's workforce. After 1913, the value of Furman's land increased substantially when Schenectady's common council decided to develop Central Park on a plot of land adjacent to Furman's property. In 1894, Colonel Robert Furman died of malaria, and two of his sons, Hamilton Earle Furman and Harry Furman, took over his real estate business.
Hamilton Earle Furman and Harry Furman both attended Union College and, following their graduation, began to manage their father's real estate business, locally known as the Furman Estate. Between 1895 and 1900 funds from the estate were used to purchase property at 1-3 State Street and around 1900 the Alexandra Apartment Hotel was built on their land. The brothers continued to sell real estate around Schenectady, offering a mix of residential, industrial, and commercial lots and transacting much of their business from the Furman Block at 207 State Street, their father's former place of business (extant). Examples of their holdings include family homes on Haigh Avenue and Division Street, vacant lots on Bradley, McClellan, Elm, and Furman Streets, and factory and warehouse lots on Van Guysling Avenue.
Schenectady's common council decided to develop Central Park in 1913 and Hamilton and Harry Furman started to negotiate with the common council to develop their late father's land as well as the park. In 1915 the brothers sold property on McClellan Street to the city for conversion into parking and a park entrance. In exchange, the city compensated the Furman brothers with $10,000 and a boulevard measuring 1,000 feet in length near the park, a move many decried as unfairly tipped in favor of the Furmans'.
In 1928 the Furman family sold the home at 225 Lafayette Street to Irving B. Eaton, a real estate agent working for St. Joseph's Church, which converted the house into a rectory. Following the sale of their family home, Harry Furman and his wife Katherine moved into the Alexandra Apartment Hotel. Harry and Katherine Furman both lived in the Alexandra until their deaths in 1943 and 1955, respectively. While living at the Alexandra, Harry and Katherine Furman continued to play an active role in Schenectady's affairs. Katherine Furman helped manage the Furman Estate and donated to local civic and charitable organizations such as the Mohawk and Hudson River Humane Society. In addition to overseeing the Furman Estate, Harry Furman sold his 200-foot yacht to the navy during World War II. Just prior to moving to the Alexandra, Harry Furman proposed that New York State erect a bridge over the Mohawk River to facilitate the movement of automobilists through the Mohawk Valley. Furman campaigned for the bridge project throughout the late 1910s, and in 1925 the state completed the Great Western Gateway Bridge."' The bridge began at State Street just west of the Alexandra Apartment Hotel, spanned the Mohawk River over the Isle of the Cayugas, and connected Schenectady to Scotia, New York. A mix of business savvy and city boosterism likely informed Furman's support of the bridge project. The bridge placed Schenectady on New York State's main east-west highway, increasing traffic through the city and leading travelers making use of the bridge past the Alexandra.
Building Description
The Alexandra Apartment Hotel, at 1-3 State Street in Schenectady, Schenectady County, New York, is a late Victorian era example of the Queen Anne style with Renaissance Revival inspiration as applied to a high-style apartment hotel. The building is located on the northeast corner of the intersection of State Street and Washington Avenue in a block that is bordered by Union Street to the north, Liberty Park to the south, and South Church Street to the east. State Street is a major west-east thoroughfare that runs through downtown Schenectady after originating in Albany, where it was the main street for more than 300 years. The block contains other early twentieth-century buildings facing State Street, including the 1926 YMCA building on the far corner of the block. The surrounding neighborhood is residential with a mix of small apartment buildings, row houses and freestanding residences built around the same era as the Alexandra and some that date earlier. To the northeast is the Stockade Historic District (NR 1984), which contains some pre-Revolutionary War buildings, along with modest dwellings, mansions, churches, old factories, public buildings, and clubs in a wide variety of architectural styles.
The Alexandra Apartment Hotel is a five-story, rectangular brick building that nearly fills the corner lot. It reaches to the sidewalk on the front (south) side and along the west side of the lot. A narrow walkway runs along the east side of the building, between it and the adjacent building to the east, and along the back (north) side. The sidewalks at the south and west directly abut the foundation and the walkways on the lot are paved with asphalt.
The Alexandra is constructed of brick and stone with decorative wood trim. Its five-story height marks the corner and dominates the block. The Alexandra Apartment Hotel is representative of a building type in which apartments were accompanied by an in-house dining room that would provide meals for the residents. Fine detailing on a grand staircase, accompanied by coffering and paneling in public spaces, add a feel of high style to the interior. It currently contains four apartments on each of four full floors and one apartment in a truncated fifth floor, all over a raised basement.
As an example of late Victorian Era architecture, the Alexandra is characterized by low-pitched, parapeted roof lines, prominent cornices, and rounded windows. The building also has Italian Renaissance elements with a sense of formality in the design that emphasizes symmetry and the use of classical details. These include Roman arches, columns, pilasters and, a flat or low-hipped roof.
The Alexandra Apartment Hotel consists of four full floors over a rusticated stone raised basement with an additional fifth floor that is set back over the rear portion of the building. It sits freestanding on a corner lot at State and Washington Streets and, with a narrow alley along its east side, fills the lot and has windows on all four elevations. The building is built of brick with red face brick laid in running bond on the primary (south) facade and common red brick laid in common bond on the remaining three elevations. Two, two-story oriel bays and a heavy wood cornice articulate the front of the building. On the facade, each of the window openings is round-arched with the exception of the oriel bays which have segmentally arched openings. Throughout, all of the windows are one-over-one, double-hung, vinyl replacement sash with some remaining original round-arched leaded glass transoms on the primary facade.
The facade is three bays wide and symmetrically composed. It has a two-story oriel bay at the second and third stories of both outer bays and culminates in a prominent cornice that is raised into a round arch above the center bay. At the base, the basement level is painted sandstone with four low, inset wood basement windows on sandstone sills, two on each side of the entry. The rusticated stone foundation rises to the base of the first floor windows and there are rusticated stone quoins on the corners of the facade. In the central bay of the foundation, four steps lead up to a wide, round-arched entry framed in rough-hewn sandstone. The entry includes a non-original paneled door flanked by original sidelights and a short transom across the top. Above this, within the arch, is an original leaded-glass fanlight. The original paneled casing remains at the sides of the doorway and also around the entry, where it incorporates a denticulated cornice just beneath the arched transom. Flanking the entry at this level are pairs of double-pane windows with half-round transoms containing leaded-glass fanlights similar to that above the entry door. Header brick lintels surround the arched window tops. In the center bay, each story features two narrow arched windows at each floor lighting the intermediate landings of an interior center stair. As on the first floor, these windows are topped by half-round header brick lintels. The paired windows at the second floor are in a half-round brick surround with an ocular window centered within the arch. Like the windows on the first floor, half-round leaded-glass transoms are above double-hung sash. Two-story oriel bay windows occupy the outer bays of the second and third stories and have a window at each face of the bay on each floor. Each oriel is topped by a slightly projecting cornice and the spandrel panels below the windows are articulated with classical swags, while wreath details run above the windows. The fourth floor repeats the first-floor fenestration, although here the leaded transoms are missing. In the center bay, the top window of the stair contains paired casements topped by a leaded-glass half-round transom. This projects up into the cornice. Above, the building is crowned by a deep original cornice with modillions at the upper register and large brackets descending into a frieze in a lower register decorated with wreaths and swags matching those at the oriels. At the center, above the central bay, the cornice is broken by a raised arch with a round medallion on its face bearing the date "1900" and anthemia capping the apex and corner of the arch.
The east and west elevations are nearly identical. The west elevation faces Washington Street and the east elevation faces an alley between the Alexandra and the building to the east. The foundation continues the rusticated stone seen on the front of the building but is lower in height. The common brick walls are laid in common bond and there are seven vinyl one-over-one sash replacement windows at each story, all with segmental arch brick lintels and concrete sills. On both elevations, a steel fire escape runs down the southern portion of the wall. A truncated fifth floor rises at the rear (north) end, of the east and west facades. It is contained within a steep mansard roof with two dormer windows on each side. The walls of the main block terminate at the top in a simple stepped parapet with a stone coping that rises towards the south (front) of the building.
The rear (north) elevation has four bays at each of the four lower stories, containing two separate doors in the center flanked by a single window to either side. The fifth floor has a door in the eastern end and three double-hung windows running across the mansard. A steel fire escape accesses all of the floors.
Between 1900 until ca. 1923, the Alexandra Apartment Hotel served as a residential hotel, which, unlike traditional apartment buildings, catered to a mix of short-term and long-term tenants and with staff and a full-service dining room. The layout of the building provided flexibility; depending on how the doors were closed, the rented spaces could range from a single room for an individual or couple to a series of rooms for a family. The dining room in the Alexandra was located on the first floor and the fifth floor may have housed rooms for the live-in staff. Around 1923, alterations to the original configuration of the building converted it into a traditional residential apartment building with two units per floor, each with its own kitchen and bathroom. The eight apartments on the first through fourth floors follow a simple plan of two apartments per floor, arranged laterally on either side of the entrance hall. Generally, each apartment contains six rooms corresponding to a living room at the south end, followed by two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen and small room (possibly another bedroom) in the rear (north). Every unit except for the eastern unit on the second floor contains a door at the end of the hallway that leads to the back of the building.
The Alexandra Apartment Hotel's interior spaces retain many of the architectural features that defined the apartment hotel typology. The first floor retains a small foyer that faces several rooms that were converted to apartments after circa 1923; also present is the building's original staircase. Advertisements for the apartment hotel note the presence of dining and reception rooms and it is likely these rooms occupied the first floor. Though these rooms were converted to apartments, evidence remains to suggest the original layout of the first floor. The room closest to the staircase shows evidence of a wall partition that would have divided the room in half. It is likely that a small dining room occupied the front of this room while a kitchen occupied the rear. The other large first-floor room could have been used as a lounge or secondary dining space.
The apartment hotel's upper floors feature largely intact interior layouts. On the second, third, and fourth floors, the rooms are arranged along a single-loaded corridor with suites facing State Street and small single rooms at the rear of the building. The rooms were arranged to maximize rentable space and contain decorative elements such as tin ceilings, baseboards, and crown molding that well-to-do tenants would have expected. The arrangement of the suites so that residents could view the bustle along State Street from their parlors also reflects early twentieth-century apartment hotel building principles. The finishes and materials in the apartment hotel's fifth floor are much simpler than the building's other units. It is possible that the fifth floor, which has simple ornamentation, served as living quarters for the Alexandra's staff.
The entrance to the building is reached via four steps that lead from the street to the entry door and into a vestibule with an original small circular glazed tile (sometimes called "penny tile") floor in a decorative scrolled pattern. The painted wood ceiling is coffered. An original half-glazed wood door with three half-round muntins leads to the stair hall. The stair hall has an original penny tile patterned floor with inlaid star patterns and matching border. A staircase winds with multiple landings through this hall to the top floor. Newel and end posts are square with fluted sides and the original square balusters remain. The chair rail and high baseboard remain on the sidewalls of the staircase; originally these walls were covered with beadboard that remains at some levels but is missing on most, leaving the brick exposed. The original doors are missing, but the casings, simple flat wood with a curved molding, remain, as does the wood baseboard. The underside of the staircase is paneled, and the fifth-floor ceiling of the stair hall is barrel-vaulted. Windows present at each of the landings also retain their original casings, matching those of the doorways.
The eastern unit on the first floor contains evidence of its original use as the dining room and kitchen. In the hallway, there is egg and dart and crown molding that is not present in any other room and a decorative cast-iron column with a Corinthian capital suggests that it was originally accessed by a larger entry. A large beam in the center of the room allowed for a double-wide dining room. Access to a kitchen at the rear of the dining room (in the middle of the unit) rather than at the rear, also indicates the former use of the unit. Unlike the other units, there is evidence of a wall that formerly closed access to the back rooms from the front rooms, although currently it is open.
Four units have a double parlor at the southern end, followed by the general pattern of two bedrooms with closets, a bathroom, kitchen, and small room, and rear door. This configuration is found on the western unit of the first floor, both second-floor units, and the western unit of the third floor. With the exception of the first-floor unit, each of these apartments is accessed by a doorway from the hallway beyond the stair hall. On the second floor, the western unit maintains the original double-parlor configuration with a wide opening, original trim and molding between the rooms, and floor damage in the third-floor unit evidences the original placement of the same opening. In addition, each of these units contains original doorways leading from the second bedroom into the main hallway. On the first floor, the doors and transoms are present but have been enclosed in modern walls and on the second and third floors, the doorways are open without any historic fabric. These doorways show the potential to divide the apartment into two smaller units, with the front three rooms and bathroom in one unit, and the rear kitchen and small room in another.
The three other units, located at the east side of the third floor and both units on the fourth floor, display evidence of a different historic configuration. Each of these apartments has an entrance directly from the stair hall, and in two of the units, there is evidence of a small triangular vestibule that formerly offered two doors leading into separate rooms. These two rooms occupy the space of the double parlor in the four units described above. The configuration was likely purpose-built to be easily divided into multiple living spaces for short-term living; each of the rooms could have functioned independently. Beyond this southern end, the layout is the same as the previous configuration, with two more bedrooms at the center of the unit, a bathroom, and then the rear kitchen and small room. The two fourth-floor units both had the same configuration, though it is not as legible or intact as the third-floor unit. In both fourth-floor units, non-original walls have replaced the dividing wall between the front rooms, although the original wall location is evident from the floor.
The layout of the fifth-floor unit differs from that of the other floors and is entered off the main staircase through a long gallery-type space that has unique ceiling and wall treatments. The ceiling is a shallow barrel vault and, like the walls, is characterized by wood stripping that continues from the baseboards, through the crown molding and across the ceiling. Beyond this space are four rooms and two bathrooms arranged as two one-bedroom/sitting room suites, each with its own bathroom.
Within the apartments, the windows are set in the original window casings of simple flat wood with curved molding trim and wood sills, and the original high baseboards made of multiple layered moldings are extant. The front units have larger rooms with more detailing such as beaded crown moldings and wood transoms above the doors, along with prominent bay windows. Above the windows on the front (south) facade are half-round transoms with original leaded-glass fanlights. Some original seven-panel doors remain in the interior of
the apartments and the original flat wood casings of the doors and arches remain. Original narrow wood flooring remains with some floors covered with linoleum. Some units retain tin ceilings with a small block pattern and bead or egg and dart moldings along the ceilings. The surfaces are a mix of plaster and gypsum wallboard and, in some cases, have been stripped to the brick walls.
The apartments within the building are in somewhat deteriorated condition with most of the wall surfaces compromised; ceiling are missing in several rooms. The building is currently being rehabilitated.

Advertisement for the Alexandra Apartment Hotel in the Concordiensis, Union College's student newspaper. The advertisement's promotion of rooms available for transients as well as permanent guests as well as its mention of dining and reception rooms all highlight the building's function as an apartment hotel (2018)

This 1910 map of the Schenectady Railway's different routes highlights the many different places the trolley could take residents of the Alexandra Apartment Hotel. The apartment hotel's location is marked with a black arrow. The General Electric works are encompassed by a blue box. In addition to Schenectady, the railway went to communities in the Capital Region such as Albany, Troy, Scotia, Watervliet, Ballston Spa, and Saratoga Springs (2018)

Picture from 1900 showing the Alexandra Apartment Hotel during the final phases of construction. (1900)

Photography from circa 1930 showing the side elevation of the Alexandra Apartment Hotel. (1930)

Photograph from 1935 showing the facade and western elevation of the Alexandra Apartment Hotel. (1935)

Photo from circa 1950 showing the Alexandra Apartment Hotel. (1950)

Sanborn Map from 1894 showing the corner of Washington Avenue and State Street prior to the construction of the Alexandra Apartment Hotel. (1894)

Sanborn map from 1914 showing the Alexandra Apartment Hotel, here labeled as the Alexandria Apartment Hotel. (1914)

Sanborn map from 1953 showing the Alexandra Apartment Hotel. The building is labeled as apartments and the surrounding area has a number of apartments and social clubs. (1953)

Sanborn Map from 1930 showing the location of the Hotel Van Curler and the Schenectady YMCA in comparison to the Alexandra Apartment Hotel. The Hotel Van Curler and YMCA are both highlighted with red circles while the Alexandra is marked with a blue arrow. (1930)

First Floor Plans

Second Floor Plans

Third Floor Plans
