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Local Luminary: Susan Holland
As long as she can remember, Susan Holland has had a love for old houses. She recalls childhood summers visiting relatives in Mechanicville, New York, and being enchanted by its Victorian houses and small-town charm. “It was stopped in time for me,” she says.
Since then, the built environment has been a metaphor for emotional memory for Holland, both personal and collective. As executive director of Historic Albany Foundation, she has dedicated herself to the preservation of Albany’s neighborhoods, not just for the sake of its old buildings, but for the values of community they represent.
A graduate of Cornell University in communications, Holland worked for the Neighborhood Preservation Coalition of New York State, advocates for affordable housing and urban revitalization, before being named head of Historic Albany in October, 2005. The private, nonprofit advocacy organization was established in 1974, in an era when cities were razing historic districts and replacing them with, in the words of a New York Times editorial, “tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture.” Awareness of the value of our historic heritage has gone up considerably since then, but one of Historic Albany’s main functions is still that of a conscience and goad to remind local politicians and developers to do the right thing.
—Timothy Cahill
What do you find truly unique about this area?
The historic architecture, of course! Albany is a very old city; the original charter was written in 1686. We don’t have any structures of that vintage, but the oldest in the city was just revealed—48 Hudson Avenue, the Van Ostrande-Radliff House, a Dutch-built house constructed in 1728. The city has a treasure trove of architecture from that era on, right up through what we now call “mid-century marvels,” those 1950s ranch houses we made fun of as kids, which are now hip to own and furnish.
The historic architecture, of course! Albany is a very old city; the original charter was written in 1686. We don’t have any structures of that vintage, but the oldest in the city was just revealed—48 Hudson Avenue, the Van Ostrande-Radliff House, a Dutch-built house constructed in 1728. The city has a treasure trove of architecture from that era on, right up through what we now call “mid-century marvels,” those 1950s ranch houses we made fun of as kids, which are now hip to own and furnish.
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