Troy is a city in the United States state of New York and is the county seat of Rensselaer County, New York. It's famous for being the home of Uncle Sam, known as the person who supplied beef for the United States Army during the War of 1812. It's also known for the home of Garnet Douglass Baltimore, who is known as the first African-American to become an engineer and graduated at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1881. It is located on the western edge of that county on the eastern bank of the Hudson River just northeast of the capital city of Albany. Troy has close ties to Albany, New York and nearby Schenectady, forming a region popularly called the Capital District.
The city is one of the three major centers for the Albany metropolitan statistical area, which has a population of 1,170,483. At the 2020 census, the population of Troy was 51,401. However, there are several smaller cities close to it, such as Cohoes, Saratoga Springs, and Hudson.
Troy is home to a number of institutions of higher learning: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the oldest private engineering and technical university in the US, founded in 1824; Hudson Valley Community College, part of the sprawling University of the State of New York system that offers both two-year and four-year degrees; the Sage Colleges, which consists of the Russell Sage College headquarters in downtown Troy, an Albany campus, and a graduate-level division, and the Emma Willard School, an all-girls residential high school started by Emma Willard, a women's education activist who sought to create a school for girls equal to that available to their male counterparts. The Emma Willard School was the setting for scenes from the Al Pacino motion picture Scent of a Woman (1992) and the Kevin Kline film The Emperor's Club (2002). In addition, the city's abundance of preserved Victorian architecture has made it a desired place for filming of such productions as the HBO series “The Gilded Age” and such motion pictures as "Ironweed" (1987), "The Age of Innocence" (1993), "The Time Machine" (2002), and "Motherless Brooklyn" (2019), among numerous others.
Due to the confluence of major waterways and a geography that supported water power, the American Industrial Revolution took hold in this area, making Troy reputedly the fourth-wealthiest city in America around the turn of the 20th Century. Troy, originally known as Ashley's Ferry, is noted for a wealth of Victorian architecture downtown and elaborate private homes in various neighborhoods clustered along the river and on an undulating series of hills.
Several churches have a concentrated collection of stained-glass windows by the iconic glass artist Louis Comfort Tiffany. Troy also is home to the musically world-renowned Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, which dates from the 1870s and is regarded as having superb acoustics in a combination of restored and well-preserved performance spaces that regularly are used for recording musical performances.
The area long had been occupied by the Mahican Indian tribe, but Dutch settlement began in the mid-17th Century. The patroon, Kiliaen van Rensselaer, who in the Dutch ascendancy ruled the region, called the region "Pafraets Dael" after his mother. The Dutch colony was conquered by the English in 1664. In 1707, Derick van der Heyden purchased a farm near today's downtown area. In 1771, Abraham J. Lansing had his farm in today's Lansingburgh neighborhood of the city laid out into lots. Sixteen years later, Van der Heyden's grandson Jacob had his extensive holdings surveyed and laid out into lots. He named the new village Vanderheyden or Vanderheyden Farms.
In 1789, Troy adopted its present name following a vote of the people. Troy was incorporated as a town two years later, and extended east across the county to the Vermont state line. In 1796, Troy became a village and in 1816, it became a city. Lansingburgh, to the north, was voluntarily annexed to become part of Troy in 1900.
Aside from the specific listings below, it's great just to walk around the historic district and look at the buildings.
| address=3280 6th Avenue | lat=42.751597 | l-73.680992 | directi | ph+1 518 328-4827 | tollfree= | fax= | hours=Open Shop Mondays 5-8PM | price= | cTroy Bike Rescue is a collective of people in the capital region committed to removing bikes from the waste stream and getting them back on the streets. Operating on a volunteer basis out of donated spaces in both Troy and Albany, they are part of an international movement of "community bike projects" - using bicycles to create community. }}
| address=721 River Street | lat=42.746776 | l-73.683395 | directi | ph+1 518 274-8277 | tollfree= | fax= | hours= | price= | c is one of two branches (the other is in Latham). Feast on Italian style cookies, almond horns, cakes and freshly baked rolls and breads. }} | address=377 River Street | lat=42.734547 | l-73.689193 | directi | ph+1 518 308-0400 | tollfree= | fax= | hours= | price= | lastedit=2015-11-25 | cIt has become a favorite, with several locations throughout New York. Expect hearty portions of Southern-style barbeque ribs, jerk chicken, fried green tomatoes, and a mighty spicy macaroni and cheese. Dinosaur is located right on the river and was flooded badly in September 2011 by Tropical Storm Irene; restoration took place in less than two weeks. Varied and affordable beers on tap, outdoor seating and live music on weekends make it a very popular spot year round. }}
Troy boasts many shopping venues, including a few each of Redbox, Walmart, Goodwill, Radioshack, and a few other brand names. It also has many unique stores and specialty shops, such as antiques, promotional items, art supplies, healing techniques, and murals.
By plane, fly into Albany International Airport. If you visit via train, the nearest Amtrak station is Albany-Rensselaer Rail Station. The Greyhound bus drops you off in downtown Albany's Greyhound terminal, from which you can take CDTA bus #22 to downtown Troy.
Troy is easily accessible by way of I-87 North, exit 7. It is also well connected to local highway 787 from exits 7E, 8 and 9E.
Public Transportation CDTA (Capital District Transit Authority) serves Troy as well as Albany, Schenectady and (to an extent) Saratoga Springs. For full information on bus routes and schedules, visit the CDTA website at CDTA.org. Many of the cab companies in Troy serve Albany as well but may have different fare structures. Cab fare from downtown Troy to downtown Albany is approximately $30.
Troy was a major city during the early years of American industrialization in the first half of the 19th century, with iron, ironware, steel, flour and textile manufacturing among the industries that flourished in and around Troy throughout the boom times of the entire 19th century. Troy continued to have some very productive industries through the 1920s, but during Prohibition, its bootlegging industry was probably the most famous in the area. Starting not long after World War II, most of Troy's industries increasingly either fled to the South, where the cotton for the textiles is grown, unions were weaker and wages were lower; or to the West, which was by that time closer to most of the mines that were still productive; or simply went out of business. Then, when U.S. industries went bust starting in the 1960s and 70s, Troy went even further into a depression, losing population and having the feel of being lost in time. Since there was no monetary profit in tearing down buildings in Troy and replacing them with modern highrises, they were just left alone until the early 1960s, when public opposition to a plan to raze some historic buildings downtown prompted successful applications to preserve buildings and later entire districts of Troy as landmarks. Troy has since revived to a significant degree, with numerous buildings in its Central Historic District being restored.
