Albany Pump Station
Encyclopedia
The Albany Pump Station, originally the Quackenbush Pumping Station of the Albany Water Works, is located in Quackenbush Square on Broadway in the city of Albany
, New York, United States. It is a large brick building constructed in the 1870s and expanded later in the century.
It was built to pump municipal water from the nearby Hudson River
, and continued in that use for 60 years. In 1983 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
. Today it has been partly converted
into a popular local restaurant and brewpub, a reuse that drew an award from the Preservation League of New York State. The beers have also received awards at the World Beer Cup
and at the Great American Beer Festival. Another area of the building serves as the city of Albany's visitor center
.
area named for the nearby Quackenbush House
, one of the oldest buildings in Albany. It is located just off Broadway, on the east side of the street just north of, and visible from, the offramp that carries northbound traffic on US 9 from the Dunn Memorial Bridge
and Interstate 787
to Clinton Avenue in the city.
Its main block is a two-story four-by-four-bay
brick building witha hipped roof
shingled
in slate
. Large elliptically-arched windows, doubled on the second story, fill the west (front) facade. They are trimmed with brick lintels, keystones and stone sills, separated by broad pilaster
s. A large red sign saying "Albany Pump Station" is at the top of the facade, with "Brewpub and Restaurant" in smaller letters beneath.
A later northern extension is similar. To the south is a two-story brick building used as stable
s when originally constructed, with rounded windows in that section. A narrow extension protrudes from the north.
Inside, little remains of the original use or equipment. Renovations to create the restaurant, on the east side of the building, retained its industrial character but opened the interior space to create 40 feet (12.2 m) ceilings. Two 20-ton (18-tonne) crane
s were retained and used to hoist the brewery's serving tanks to their current location. The Albany Heritage Area Visitors Center, a gift shop
and the Henry Hudson Planetarium are located along the south facade, on Quackenbush Square.
at the current site of the state capitol
in 1670 to several small reservoirs created by damming local creeks by the mid-19th century. The city's explosive growth around the time of the Civil War
began to test and strain that network. Eventually the city's water commission decided it could meet present and future demand only by tapping the Hudson directly instead of relying on distant tributaries
.
In 1873 it bought land at the corner of Montgomery and Quackenbush streets. Local architect Edward Ogden designed the main block of the current building, and it was built later in the year. It had room for two steam
-driven pumps that could move river water to Bleecker Reservoir (now Bleecker Stadium
) west of the city. A neighboring house was demolished and a boiler
house built on its site.
Five years later, in 1878, it was supplemented by Prospect Hill Reservoir and another pumping station in the west of the city, to serve new neighborhoods growing there. The pump station was expanded in 1895, and again two years later, with the present wings added and another nearby house taken over for office use. Three more pumps were put in service, and the building complex had assumed its current form.
The station continued to draw river water for the city for the next three decades. In 1935, Alcove Reservoir
was built in the countryside south of the city, and Albany's water needs were finally satisfied for the long term. The station pumped its last water in 1937.
In 1999, a local man named Neil Evans decided to resurrect the brewery his family had run downriver in Hudson
, from 1786 to Prohibition
. He started the C.H. Evans Brewing Company and bought the building. When he renovated the space he insisted on retaining its industrial ambiance. It has become a popular spot due to its location just northeast of downtown
. The following year the Preservation League of New York recognized it with an award for Project Excellence.
Beer writer Lew Bryson has joined in, praising not only the brews on tap but the building, calling it "a great setting for a brewpub". He compares it to similar establishments in other cities located in former industrial buildings: "They're so solid, and so overengineered, that they seem to be the work of giants". Evans's beers have twice won awards at the World Beer Cup
: its Munich
Dunkel
took a silver in 2008 in the European-Style Dark category, and Kick-Ass Brown received a 2004 bronze in the American-Style Brown Ale
category. Their Kick-Ass Brown has also won the Gold Medal in the American-style Brown Ale category at the 2000, 2002 and 2008 Great American Beer Festival.
Albany, New York
Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...
, New York, United States. It is a large brick building constructed in the 1870s and expanded later in the century.
It was built to pump municipal water from the nearby Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
, and continued in that use for 60 years. In 1983 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
. Today it has been partly converted
Adaptive reuse
Adaptive reuse refers to the process of reusing an old site or building for a purpose other than which it was built or designed for. Along with brownfield reclamation, adaptive reuse is seen by many as a key factor in land conservation and the reduction of urban sprawl...
into a popular local restaurant and brewpub, a reuse that drew an award from the Preservation League of New York State. The beers have also received awards at the World Beer Cup
World Beer Cup
The World Beer Cup, known as "The Olympics of Beer Competition", is one of several major international beer competitions. It was founded by Association of Brewers President Charlie Papazian....
and at the Great American Beer Festival. Another area of the building serves as the city of Albany's visitor center
Visitor center
A visitor center or centre , visitor information center, tourist information center, is a physical location that provides tourist information to the visitors who tour the place or area locally...
.
Building
The pumphouse building complex is part of Quackenbush Square, a small pedestrian mallPedestrian mall
Pedestrian malls in the United States are also known as pedestrian streets and are the most common form of pedestrian zone in large cities in the United States. It is a street lined with storefronts and closed off to most automobile traffic...
area named for the nearby Quackenbush House
Quackenbush House
Quackenbush House is a historic building in Albany, New York. It is a house with a double-pitched gable roof that was built in about 1736. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.-History:...
, one of the oldest buildings in Albany. It is located just off Broadway, on the east side of the street just north of, and visible from, the offramp that carries northbound traffic on US 9 from the Dunn Memorial Bridge
Dunn Memorial Bridge
The Dunn Memorial Bridge, officially known as the Private Parker F. Dunn Memorial Bridge, carries US 9 and US 20 across the Hudson River between Albany, New York and Rensselaer, New York. Completed in 1967 to replace an earlier span bearing the same name, the highway bridge has a steel girder...
and Interstate 787
Interstate 787
Interstate 787 is an auxiliary Interstate Highway in the U.S. state of New York. I-787 is the main highway for those traveling into and out of downtown Albany. The southern terminus is at the Interstate 87/New York State Thruway exit 23 toll plaza southwest of downtown Albany...
to Clinton Avenue in the city.
Its main block is a two-story four-by-four-bay
Bay (architecture)
A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...
brick building witha hipped roof
Hip roof
A hip roof, or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope. Thus it is a house with no gables or other vertical sides to the roof. A square hip roof is shaped like a pyramid. Hip roofs on the houses could have two triangular side...
shingled
Roof shingle
Roof shingles are a roof covering consisting of individual overlapping elements. These elements are typically flat rectangular shapes laid in rows from the bottom edge of the roof up, with each successive higher row overlapping the joints in the row below...
in slate
Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...
. Large elliptically-arched windows, doubled on the second story, fill the west (front) facade. They are trimmed with brick lintels, keystones and stone sills, separated by broad pilaster
Pilaster
A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....
s. A large red sign saying "Albany Pump Station" is at the top of the facade, with "Brewpub and Restaurant" in smaller letters beneath.
A later northern extension is similar. To the south is a two-story brick building used as stable
Stable
A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stalls for individual animals...
s when originally constructed, with rounded windows in that section. A narrow extension protrudes from the north.
Inside, little remains of the original use or equipment. Renovations to create the restaurant, on the east side of the building, retained its industrial character but opened the interior space to create 40 feet (12.2 m) ceilings. Two 20-ton (18-tonne) crane
Crane (machine)
A crane is a type of machine, generally equipped with a hoist, wire ropes or chains, and sheaves, that can be used both to lift and lower materials and to move them horizontally. It uses one or more simple machines to create mechanical advantage and thus move loads beyond the normal capability of...
s were retained and used to hoist the brewery's serving tanks to their current location. The Albany Heritage Area Visitors Center, a gift shop
Gift shop
A gift shop is a store primarily selling souvenirs relating to a particular topic or theme. The items sold often include coffee mugs, stuffed animals, t-shirts, postcards, handmade collections and other souvenirs....
and the Henry Hudson Planetarium are located along the south facade, on Quackenbush Square.
Pumping station
Albany's water supply system had grown from wellsWater well
A water well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, boring or drilling to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The well water is drawn by an electric submersible pump, a trash pump, a vertical turbine pump, a handpump or a mechanical pump...
at the current site of the state capitol
New York State Capitol
The New York State Capitol is the capitol building of the U.S. state of New York. Housing the New York State Legislature, it is located in the state capital city Albany, on State Street in Capitol Park. The building, completed in 1899 at a cost of $25 million , was the most expensive government...
in 1670 to several small reservoirs created by damming local creeks by the mid-19th century. The city's explosive growth around the time of the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
began to test and strain that network. Eventually the city's water commission decided it could meet present and future demand only by tapping the Hudson directly instead of relying on distant tributaries
Tributary
A tributary or affluent is a stream or river that flows into a main stem river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean...
.
In 1873 it bought land at the corner of Montgomery and Quackenbush streets. Local architect Edward Ogden designed the main block of the current building, and it was built later in the year. It had room for two steam
Steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...
-driven pumps that could move river water to Bleecker Reservoir (now Bleecker Stadium
Bleecker Stadium
Bleecker Stadium is a multi-purpose stadium in Albany, New York. The stadium was once a reservoir for the Albany public water system. Today it has a baseball diamond, football/soccer field, and a softball field used by area high schools, colleges, and youth and adult leagues...
) west of the city. A neighboring house was demolished and a boiler
Boiler
A boiler is a closed vessel in which water or other fluid is heated. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications.-Materials:...
house built on its site.
Five years later, in 1878, it was supplemented by Prospect Hill Reservoir and another pumping station in the west of the city, to serve new neighborhoods growing there. The pump station was expanded in 1895, and again two years later, with the present wings added and another nearby house taken over for office use. Three more pumps were put in service, and the building complex had assumed its current form.
The station continued to draw river water for the city for the next three decades. In 1935, Alcove Reservoir
Alcove Reservoir
Alcove Reservoir is a reservoir located in Albany County, New York, United States. It serves as water supply for the city of Albany. At in elevation, the closest hamlet is Alcove, part of the town of Coeymans. New York State Route 32 passes the reservoir on the west...
was built in the countryside south of the city, and Albany's water needs were finally satisfied for the long term. The station pumped its last water in 1937.
Brewpub and restaurant
The station remained in city hands, and was used by the city's water department primarily as a storage facility after it was taken offline. Four decades after that, in 1977, it was extensively renovated. It continued to be used for storage, and suffered structural neglect and decline.In 1999, a local man named Neil Evans decided to resurrect the brewery his family had run downriver in Hudson
Hudson, New York
Hudson is a city located along the west border of Columbia County, New York, United States. The city is named after the adjacent Hudson River and ultimately after the explorer Henry Hudson.Hudson is the county seat of Columbia County...
, from 1786 to Prohibition
Prohibition
Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
. He started the C.H. Evans Brewing Company and bought the building. When he renovated the space he insisted on retaining its industrial ambiance. It has become a popular spot due to its location just northeast of downtown
Downtown Albany Historic District
The Downtown Albany Historic District is a 19-block, area of Albany, New York, United States, centered around the junction of State and North and South Pearl streets . It is the oldest settled area of the city, originally planned and settled in the 17th century, and the nucleus of its later...
. The following year the Preservation League of New York recognized it with an award for Project Excellence.
Beer writer Lew Bryson has joined in, praising not only the brews on tap but the building, calling it "a great setting for a brewpub". He compares it to similar establishments in other cities located in former industrial buildings: "They're so solid, and so overengineered, that they seem to be the work of giants". Evans's beers have twice won awards at the World Beer Cup
World Beer Cup
The World Beer Cup, known as "The Olympics of Beer Competition", is one of several major international beer competitions. It was founded by Association of Brewers President Charlie Papazian....
: its Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
Dunkel
Dunkel
Dunkel, or Dunkles, is a dark German beer. Dunkel is the German word meaning dark, and dunkel beers typically range in colour from amber to dark reddish brown. They are characterized by their smooth malty flavour....
took a silver in 2008 in the European-Style Dark category, and Kick-Ass Brown received a 2004 bronze in the American-Style Brown Ale
Brown ale
Brown ale is a style of beer with a dark amber or brown colour. The term was first used by London brewers in the late 17th century to describe their products, such as mild ale, though the term had a rather different meaning than it does today...
category. Their Kick-Ass Brown has also won the Gold Medal in the American-style Brown Ale category at the 2000, 2002 and 2008 Great American Beer Festival.
External links
- Albany Pump Station page at Albany Times-UnionAlbany Times-UnionThe Times Union is a major daily newspaper, serving the Capital Region of New York, United States. Although the newspaper focuses on Albany and its suburbs, it covers all parts of the four-county area, including the cities of Troy, Schenectady and Saratoga Springs. It is owned by the Hearst...
site.