Unbeknownst to you, while you've been sitting in your local cinema multiplex enjoying one of any number of dozens of excellent costumed historical films set in the 19th century, chances are what you've actually been looking at is little old cozy and quaint Troy New York. One of the most amazingly preserved little cities in America, Troy is now famous for it's intact and substantially preserved nineteenth century downtown and residential streetscapes. Long suffering from decades of economic stagnation and its close association with the Imperial Capital of Albany just across the river, it turns out that benign neglect and active somnambulism can actually be invaluable blessings in disguise.

Home of some great institutions like Russell Sage College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, (RPI), host to such notable cultural institutions as the New York State Theater Institute and the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, Troy's place as a place of education and culture has always been assured. What wasn't sure was the continuing economic vitality of this pivotal commercial town. With the opening of the railways and the diminishment of the importance of the Hudson River as a commercial highway, Troy's fortunes began to slowly ebb and the city quietly and almost imperceptably slipped into its slumbers. The destructive eccentricities of the 60s Urban Renewal mania more or less bypassed the slumbering city, preserving its charm, its architectural richness and its historic grandeur.

As a result, we are truly blessed with a nearly unique urban landscape. Little of the 20th Century internationalism and urban austerity and commonness has intruded into the nearly intact urban environment. Instead 19th Century architectural exuberance and Victorian Era vigor and gusto dominate with flashes of 18th Century and early 19th Century architectural tastes peppered in for flavor. Great pediments cap the buildings of brick and marble, cornices top the windows and iron work railings surround the porches and porticos. Trees line the many streets of brown stone and brick town houses and blocks of middle class row houses abound. Tiffany windows glitter at you from the facades of both commercial and residential buildings and sweet scented gardens beneath arching shade trees invite you onto the sidewalks for a stroll.

Helping to preserve Troy the Rensselaer County Historical Society owns and operates several houses as museums. In addition, they have regularly scheduled walking tours of Troy, some focusing on the architecture and some focusing on the decorative arts. One in particular focuses on the Tiffany stained glass windows that abound in Troy. All of these walking tours are an enjoyable journey back in time to a seemingly simpler age of innocence and reason. A visit to Troy is a very special treat as you tour through the Hudson Valley. Troy remains a very human scale little city, small in area but looming large as a pristine jewel and architectural treasure.