The Empire State Plaza in Albany, New York, is a celebration of space-age Brutalism. Functional but lifeless after 5, what might it look like with a wee little makeover? Let's dream! For example, this aerial concept opens up the complex's underground city to the sky with street-level retail.

Rochester PBS covered our testimony to the NYS Reparations Commission: www.wxxinews.org/local-news/2...

Hi everyone! I'll be testifying before the NYS Reparations Commission on the history of urban renewal tomorrow around 5:00 PM. boxcast.tv/view/new-yor... Come for me, stay for the great Rochester presenters! Agenda is here: www.ny.gov/sites/defaul...

Tomorrow around 5:10pm, our David Hochfelder is scheduled to testify before the NYS Reparations Commission. Livestream here: boxcast.tv/view/new-yor...

The first time that I saw this, I thought of the exercise in crass capitalism in Clarksdale, Mississippi: the Shack Up Inn.

Want a *free* book? We have lots of great #urbanhistory books available to review 👇

My "Buffalonians Who Lost Property to the Kensington Expressway" blog post now has an alphabetical index of names & the option to download the original newspaper clippings as a single PDF. Scroll to the bottom. buffaloresearch.com/buffalonians... #Buffalo #UrbanHistory #urbanists 📜🗃️

Our latest is up! Chronicling an institution formed after the Civil War—which then collapsed nine years later, with continued ramifications today. Cookie Monster and crypto bros also make important cameos. skippedhistory.substack.com/p/the-rise-a...

From @timesunion, another story about the lasting impact of property seizures and displacement

Petitions, protests, and a mea culpa from the NYS DoT records at the NYS Archives.

On the anniversary of the creation of the NYS Reparations Commission -- we discuss what we did and didn't find in the NYS DoT records.

Just saw the CTA santa train! Tho waiting to head in the opposite direction, I probably would have climbed on had it stopped.

We esrimate 2.5 - 3 m Americans were displaced for urban renewal and urban highways, 1950 - 1980. How many more housing, dams, state office complexes?

Think Bailey has a chance?

Lower Madison in Albany before the South Mall Arterial and 787 -- SRO hotels (Madison and Empress), restaurants (King's Cafe and Dongan St Lunch), bar (Sportsman's Club), 2 barbershops, shoe shine shop, a whole food distributor, a couple vacant storefronts. Bonus: ghost sign advertising paints.

Sanborn detail of Shreveport, LA 1963: Two annotations, "ALL BLDG'S IN THIS BLOCK REMOVED", record the destruction of a neighborhood in progress. This area, now beneath the interchange of I-20 and I-49, once contained over a hundred dwellings (marked "D" on the maps). It now has almost zero.

boston, massachusetts june 1960 west end demolition photograph by nick dewolf https://www.flickr.com/photos/dboo/50747840593 © the Nick DeWolf Foundation Image-use requests are welcome via nickdewolfphotoarchive [at] gmail [dot] com #photography #film #blackandwhite #boston #westend #1960s

Boston, Massachusetts June 1959 West End Demolition Photograph by Nick DeWolf © the Nick DeWolf Foundation Image-use requests are welcome via nickdewolfphotoarchive [at] gmail [dot] com #Boston #Massachusetts #WestEnd #UrbanRenewal #demolition #buildings #1950s

Thanks @anjulierao.bsky.social @dwell.bsky.social for letting me answer the question: Should you turn a mall into housing? www.dwell.com/article/you-...

We found something unusual in Auburn @dphochfelder.bsky.social

Looking for something else altogether, I found photos of Rudolph Paul's model, re-envisioning Robert Moses's Lower Manhattan Expressway. Curiousity about the model led me to this excerpt from Sam Lubell and Greg Goldin's *Never Built New York* www.gothamcenter.org/blog/paul-ru...

Tonight, dozens of activists have shown up to advocate for the city of Charlotte about steps to prevent mass displacements. Currently, 2 complexes are being shuttered following years of trying to get landlords to comply with basic housing codes.

Urban renewal led to the destruction of some of the nation's oldest buildings. But that doesn't mean renewal was necessarily antithetical preservationist goals. In many places, restoring historic structures was part of a plan to facilitate gentrification.

Urban History Association 2025--Panel on US Urban Renewal and Gentrification I'm looking to put together a panel in the connections between urban renewal/redevelopment and gentrification in the US. If you are interested in helping create, joining, or chairing/commenting, I'd love to hear from you.

Between boxes and strings, this is Bailey's favorite time of year.

The Amsterdam (NY) Urban Renewal Agency records are currently stored in a carriage house behind City Hall.

"The South End is changing, its skidrow diminishing as the old buildings are felled for urban renewal projects, and the men move on, or pass on." William Kennedy and Bernie Kolenberg, "They Ask Wine, a Place to Sleep...." @timesunion.com 7/7/64

William Kennedy's Pulitzer-prize winning novel, Ironweed, grew out of his reporting for @timesunion.com. With photographer Bernie Kolenber, his 1964 series, "The Shadow World," focused on "the way of life of men and women along the skid row of Albany's South End."

Postwar redevelopment projects destroyed many of the places where the poorest, most marginal people lived -- typically w/o building replacement housing for them. We don't know what happened to Palombi Hotel residents, but we do know many South Mall displacees lived in SROS and rooming houses.

@dphochfelder.bsky.social sampling gingerbread cider at Nine Pin in Albany. (Going for bronze-level 26er.)

"Advent always proceeds through wreckage. Some destruction is not merely death chasing death. Sometimes God clarifies, provokes, purifies, turns the world rightside-up again, even when the politics of domination threaten to collapse our neighborhoods, even our churches."

Handy ppt trick (courtesy @dphochfelder.bsky.social) -- end with cute cat photo.

Now for the dog lovers. We found this photo among a collection of prints focusing on the most rundown sections of the South Mall area in Albany. Photos such as this were used to justify redevelopment.

Celebrating the Graphic History of Hip Hop! #cybermonday www.graphichistorycompany.com

Here's a link to @dphochfelder.bsky.social's inventories of the renewal records we found in cities across New York State.

She's now too old (18, maybe 20) to jump up on my desk. But she caught a mouse last week.

Want to research urban renewal in your hometown? Learn what our Dave Hochfelder found in municipal archives across New York State!

A Christmas skit with self-congratulatory lyrics by the real estate firm hired to empty and demolish Lincoln Square: "Tenants are living much closer to Paradise, Theatre, symphony, opera, ballet, Millions of lives will be filled with zest and spice...." urbanrenewal.substack.com/p/lincoln-ce...

🚨 MAJOR ALERT 🚨 The people wanted verification badges on Bluesky and @guan.dk and I have teamed up to bring you verification badges. Behold! It is the Official Verified Labeller! bsky.app/profile/veri...

"Jarrell is an excellent storyteller, which makes this vital history a gripping narrative. Although the ending is essentially known from the outset, he keeps readers turning each page to see what is revealed next in the telling." www.christiancentury.org/books/what-w...

I'm testing out an Urban History feed -- bsky.app/profile/urba...

A revealing Christmas skit by the firm hired by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts to oversee relocation, site management, and demolition of Lincoln Square urbanrenewal.substack.com/p/lincoln-ce...

hello fellow urbanists, the Urban History Association CFP is up. the 2025 conference is in LA!! www.urbanhistory.org/uha2025

Any interest in figuring out how to create a custom Urban History feed? I've pinned the Urbanism+, What's History, and #History feeds. But I don't see a feed on the history of cities. Urban History can be such a fragmented field; it would be nice to connect. @urbanhistorya.bsky.social

Urban History Association 2025--Panel on US Urban Renewal and Gentrification I'm looking to put together a panel in the connections between urban renewal/redevelopment and gentrification in the US. If you are interested in helping create, joining, or chairing/commenting, I'd love to hear from you.

Let's talk about peeing in space. Several people, in response to my NY Times essay, have said that women couldn't go into space because we lacked the technology for them to pee in space. www.nytimes.com/2019/07/17/s...

A quote from the archives that stays with me: "Maybe what we are finally experiencing ... is a revolt of sorts against the highway program.... We would be less than candid if we didn’t acknowledge that a lot of this feeling has been generated by our past cavalier attitude....

From the papers of w/ J. D. Rockefeller 3rd -- correspondence w/ Robert Moses, the president of Columbia University, and real estate brokers about the type of neighbors befitting the new Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts -- particularly the area across Broadway visible from the plaza

Relocation & Management Assoc. was a private firm specializing in urban renewal site management and residential relocation. The principals got their start working for Lincoln Center and Fordham University on the Lincoln Square site, where they relocated about 2,600 families in less than 2 years.