Turning Keys to Education

You’ve heard the struggles facing the Enlarged City School District of Troy.  Enrollment is down, expenses are up and there’s a budget shortfall.  An old problem has come back again: Declining population leading to declining enrollment. Our efforts to Revitalize Uptown Troy include saving the only public school serving children living north of Hoosick Street. We’ve seen this before in both the Troy and Lansingburgh School Districts. I attended 4 different elementary schools as a child: 2 in Troy, 2 in Lansingburgh.  Not one of those school buildings is operating as a public school today.

PS#14 (the original building) was sold to RPI in exchange for our new PS#14.  School #1 now serves as the offices for Troy’s Board of Education and Superintendent of Schools. Lansingburgh Elementary is now office space as well. And then, there’s Haskell School.  Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this wonderful old school building is sitting vacant and unused.  Hopes were to convert the old school into apartments, similar to what TAP achieved with the former School 10 in South Troy. Unfortunately, financing couldn’t be secured and the building has languished ever since.  Hoodlums and graffiti artists have assaulted its structure.

Haskell sits on Sixth Avenue between 102nd and 103rd in South Lansingburgh on the boulevards. It is sometimes confusing for out-of-towners given Troy has two Sixth Avenues. Sometimes I wish they had just kept the name Vail for the Sixth Avenue in North Central.

Please continue supporting The Uptown Initiative’s efforts and those of our CDC Partners: Albany Jewish Community Center, Project Hope/Fort Edward, WSW Art Farm, Encore Theater, Palace Performing Arts Center and Hannah’s Hope. We are also pleased to welcome new CDC partner project Hope Heals.

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A Great Foundation to Start with right Tina?

I’ve been told many times by people how amazed they are with the work that The Uptown Initiative has been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time. Yes, we have begun to see a change enveloping the areas we have focused on in our 9-month existence. However, without the dedicated work of Tina Urzan, Thila Belle and Nina Glandz amongst many others Uptown wouldn’t be ready for the revitalization we perceive it is about to receive. We had a great foundation to start with right Tina?

We understand that, throughout the histories of Troy and Lansingburgh, our area connected the two entities - at first separating them and then merging them together. Middleburgh, or Batesville as then also known, was chosen as home to The Farmer’s Bank precisely because it was located smack dab in the middle. Therefore, we understand that from our core we can Revitalize Uptown Troy.

The North Central and South Lansingburgh neighborhood associations have worked as a team for years and The Uptown Initiative was born of that collaboration. That's why we have joined the Albany Jewish Community Center, WSW Art Farm, Encore and Palace Theaters and Project Hope/Fort Edward as part of the CDC.  Working together works. Can it be said better than this?

“United we stand; Divided we fall.”-A. Lincoln