10 BUILDINGS WORTH SAVING

We have identified the following ten buildings and neighborhoods as being at high risk due to neglect, deterioration, over development, or vacancy and abandonment.  Where we have been invited, we are actively working with the owners of some of these buildings to preserve and restore or adapt them.   

	The Smiley-Brackett house on Excelsior Avenue is the best example of Victorian Gothic cottage architecture in Saratoga Springs. Inspired by noted architect Andrew Jackson Downing’s designs, the house, built in about 1840 by Harry Lawrence, was home to Sarah Smiley, a renowned Quaker minister, preacher and author, and later to Charles Brackett, the Oscar-winner screenwriter who with his producing partner Billy Wilder produced films like Sunset Boulevard and the first Titanic. Long neglected, this architectural jewel is crumbling before our eyes.
	The west wing of the Rip Van Dam Hotel, at 353 Broadway, has been largely unused for close to a decade. The wing is part of the original hotel and forms the south and west walls of the Adelphi courtyard. In 1980, the owner received a grant from the city to restore the façade of the Rip Van Dam and in return gave a preservation easement to ensure its long-term conservation.   In the late 1990s, the owner proposed to demolish the wing.   Because of the easement, his proposal was denied. The easement has expired and the owner has again indicated an interest in tearing down the wing. Long-term neglect of the building has caused the City to cite the property owner for health and safety code violations.
	Over the past 150 years, the congregation of the First Baptist Church has had little call to alter this magnificent structure. As a result, the church building is an enduring legacy of the design and craftsmanship of the mid-19th century. However, there is evidence of water infiltration in the ceiling and barrel vault underneath the church bell tower, the stained glass windows need to be cleaned and restored, and some sections of the masonry are in need of repair and restoration.
	This house at 69 Phila Street was once the home of the Reverend Bostwick Hawley, founder of the Hawley Home for Children. Today, it suffers from almost a decade of neglect. Located in the heart of the Hillside historic district, where most all of the other property owners have invested in restoring and maintaining their properties, this house, its neighbor at 65 Phila Street and the houses at 28, 30 and 32 Lafayette Street are examples of blight in the heart of one of our historic districts.
	Built in the 1830’s, this Greek Revival commercial building at 425 Broadway has an early Victorian cornice and stone lintels. While architecturally this building is not unique or particularly distinguished, it makes an important contribution to the streetscape on Broadway. Signs of structural failure in this building can be seen from the street. Notice how the windowsills slant down towards the middle of the building. The unique sense of place that attracts visitors to Saratoga Springs is maintained in large part because so many of the original buildings on Broadway still exist. Until the structural problems evident in this building are addressed, this building is at risk due to deterioration.
	This Italianate brick building at 19 Church Street with two 2-story bay windows, built in approximately 1875, has been vacant for several years. The 1870s were a period of tremendous growth in Saratoga Springs, and this building is representative of the mixed-use buildings that were being built at the time in our commercial districts. The first floor of the building has housed a variety of businesses over the years and its upper floors were used as apartments. In 1991, the western wall of the building collapsed and needed to be rebuilt. The longer the building remains vacant the more likely it is to be a candidate for demolition.
	These small vernacular cottages are located on Van Dam between Woodlawn and Clinton. Built between 1866 and 1876, they were home to deliverymen, masons, printers, laborers and their families. This early workforce housing was convenient to downtown, to the railroad yard, to the warehouses and businesses on Church Street. These homes still provide housing for working families and senior citizens. Yet, several of these houses today show signs of significant neglect; notice the plastic sheeting on the western façade of number 62.
	The house at 173 Washington Street has long been vacant. Though the grounds are maintained, vacant buildings can present attractive nuisances in a neighborhood. In addition, vacant buildings are more likely to develop significant structural problems because regular building maintenance is often not performed on a timely basis.
	The house at 113 Grand Avenue and its garage at 110 Washington Street, both show signs of deterioration because of maintenance that has been deferred for too long.   Like many homes on the West Side, the long-time owners and residents of this property struggle with the financial burden of maintaining an historic house.
	With its double porches and rare red slate roof, this house at 38 Beekman Street is typical of the architecture of this West Side neighborhood. Its roof is badly deteriorated, causing water damage to the second floor, and its upper story windows are boarded up. This property, along with others on Beekman Street are eligible for one of the Foundation’s Beekman Street grants.

 

LOST: The building at 104-106 Congress Street is a reminder of how working people lived during the years when Saratoga Springs was first developing as a resort. Built sometime around 1815 to 1822, the house was most likely built by Aurelia Clement, daughter of Gideon Putnam, and her husband Joel Clement, then treasurer of the Village of Saratoga Springs.   It was a rental property. On a map drawn from recollections of 1822, it is in an area identified as “houses for colored people.” A two-family house, there were year-round tenants and it provided dormitory housing for seasonal workers at the hotels.    A broad staircase led from the second story to the attic where these summer tenants would have slept. In the basement, the floors were finished in brick and there were brick ovens on both sides of the central chimney system. In the winter, the families would move down to the basement where they could keep warm from the heat of the ovens. The porches had changed significantly from when it was first built. On the upper story, the top half of the original columns still existed, but they were severed when a second story porch was added. The exterior siding had changed and there were no original windows left. The exterior doors, some interior detailing, and the construction techniques revealed just how early a building it is.   Significant deterioration over time, and the relatively small size of the structure, made this building difficult to rehabilitate economically. Over  30 months, the Preservation Foundation worked with the owner to find a way to save the building in situ or at a different location. We were not successful at finding a solution.  Because of the extreme deterioration of the building, the city determined that the building was unsafe and the Department of Public Safety started proceedings to order its demolition. The owner applied to Design Review for permission to demolish the building. After much discussion and with obvious regret, they granted permission contingent on the owner documenting the building in the as-built condition for our archives of historic buildings.   The deterioration that ultimately doomed this almost 200-year old building did not occur over night. Unfortunately, there are no laws in our city that require an owner to maintain the historic integrity of a building. Please support our efforts to gain a stronger level of protection for our city’s historic properties and neighborhoods.