Grondahl: Albany Waterway’s ‘upstate Venice’ gains momentum

The $13 million Albany Skyway now under construction represents a first act of Albany’s downtown revitalization effort to reconnect the city to its long-neglected historical spine, the Hudson River.

Now comes the second act, the Albany Waterway, a companion proposal with fresh momentum and influential backers who have adopted the slogan: “If you can’t bring the city to the river, bring the river to the city.”

Spurred by Chris Churchill’s March 27 Times Union column, a group led by philanthropist Chet Opalka and attorney B.J. Costello III convened a lunch meeting Friday at the Fort Orange Club. They discussed a proposal that artist Len Tantillo, a noted historical and maritime painter, first unveiled in 1995.

“Ever since I read about it, I’ve been beside myself with excitement. It’s brilliant,” said Opalka, a major donor to the region’s arts organizations and cultural institutions.

Churchill reanimated Tantillo’s long-dormant idea of digging a canal from the Hudson and creating a boat basin along Broadway in front of the H. Carl McCall Building and the plaza of the State University of New York headquarters. Churchill said Tantillo’s canal painting depicts “a new romantic Albany that looks something akin to, dare I say, an upstate Venice.”

Costello, a principal of the law firm Hinman Straub, with offices on State Street, has been pining for a Venice vibe for decades. Instead, he’s watched a steady decline in downtown since arriving in 1969. His current assessment: “It’s dying.”

Costello is chairman of the board of the USS Slater, a World War II destroyer escort moored at the Snow Dock and the only riverside tourist attraction downtown. “Albany needs more amenities and new initiatives if it’s going to survive and become a vibrant city,” Costello said.

For much of its four centuries of history, Tantillo noted in a PowerPoint presentation, Albany has been home to a downtown harbor. In the mid-1800s, the Albany Basin was a protected canal and bustling moorage that stretched for nearly one mile parallel to Broadway, separated from the Hudson River channel by a wooden pier and wharves.

Construction of Interstate-787, begun in the early 1960s and finished a decade later, filled in the Albany Basin and cut the river off from downtown with a brutal expanse of concrete and hideous tangles of overpasses – all with the blessing of political boss Dan O’Connell, Mayor Erastus Corning 2nd and their Democratic machine.

Efforts to reverse the deplorable effects of 787 on a city barricaded from its most valuable asset have been mostly talk and little action.

A 1969 Downtown Albany Development Plan called for elevating a section of downtown out over 787 to the river – along the lines of Riverside Park on the Upper West Side of Manhattan or Freeway Park in Seattle. “It had no chance,” Tantillo said, due to an exorbitant price tag. Capitalize Albany Corp. has produced periodic economic development plans for downtown, but most seem to gather dust on a shelf. A pedestrian bridge over 787 at Quay Street and Jennings Landing, a 1,000-seat amphitheater along the river that opened in 2013, are exceptions.

“Downtown needs truly transformative projects, but a billion-dollar plan to bury 787 is not going to happen,” said David Hayes, a principal of his family’s software firm, MM Hayes.

Tantillo’s concept is attractive because it doesn’t disrupt 787, doesn’t tear down any buildings and leaves Broadway intact. Former Mayor Jerry Jennings provided $15,000 in seed money for a 36-page conceptual plan Tantillo developed with the late civil engineer Pat Mahoney and city officials.

That preliminary document in 1995 did not include a cost estimate.

Chip Reynolds, former captain of the Dutch replica ship Half Moon, believes in the transformative power of urban waterways such as the San Antonio River Walk and the Bricktown Canal in Oklahoma. He advocates for a piecemeal approach in Albany. “Better to start with one node and a basin than try to build a mile-long canal all at once,” he said.

“I’m in favor of anything that gets more people out on the water and enjoying boating activities,” said Rick Scarano, vice president of Scarano Boat Building in Albany, which built the city’s Dutch Apple and tour boats used in Oklahoma City and Manhattan.

There was consensus among the group that with President Joe Biden’s just-released $2 trillion infrastructure plan, this is an auspicious moment for the Albany Waterway pitch. Next steps for the group include meetings with local developers and elected officials at all levels of government.

“This will require federal, state, local and private funding,” Tantillo said.

“We’re building the nucleus of a lobbying effort,” Costello said.

After a flurry of interest in the mid-1990s, the canal idea drifted away because there was no money for an in-depth feasibility study. Tantillo met with then-Gov. George Pataki, who expressed interest, but did not commit state funding.

Costello and the Albany Waterway boosters praised the Skyway, a half-mile elevated park on the underutilized Clinton Avenue ramp underneath Interstate 787 at Clinton Square. It will increase safe access for pedestrians and cyclists to reach the Corning Preserve Park and the Mohawk Hudson Hike Bike Trail. It is meant to be an urban oasis for residents and tourists and a catalyst for development like the hugely successful High Line Park built on an abandoned elevated rail line in Lower Manhattan. The Albany Skyway will be a space for public art, entertainment, food trucks and pop-up eateries. Federal, state and local grants are funding construction.

The Albany Waterway represents a bookend to the Skyway and throwback to the city’s Dutch heritage as the world’s greatest canal builders.

When Tantillo spoke with Colonial-era Dutch scholar and translator Charles Gehring about the revival of his 25-year-long Albany Waterway quest, Gehring shrugged: “The Dutch would have done this a long time ago.”

Paul Grondahl is director of the New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany and a former Times Union reporter. He can be reached at grondahlpaul@gmail.com