Albany neighborhoods, read as moving jobs
Every neighborhood here has a personality and a staircase. A guide to both, from the people who carry the sofa up.
Albany's most sought-after residential neighborhoods include Center Square, Hudson Park, Delaware Avenue, Pine Hills, Buckingham Pond and New Scotland. Center Square and Hudson Park are historic brownstone districts near Washington Park with the narrowest stairs in the city. Buckingham Pond and New Scotland are quieter and more suburban in feel, with driveways and easier access.
Why a mover's guide is different
Most neighborhood guides tell you about restaurants. This one tells you what the staircase is like, because that is the part you find out on the day you move in and the part nobody warns you about.
None of this is a ranking. What is best depends entirely on whether you want a brownstone with original detail or a driveway you can park two cars in.
Center Square and Hudson Park
The postcard version of Albany: nineteenth-century brownstones and rowhouses around Washington Park, close to the Capitol and walkable to most of downtown. It is the part of the city people fall in love with.
It is also the hardest place in Albany to move into, and it is worth knowing that before you sign. The houses are tall and narrow, which means stairs that are steep, that turn, and that were built when furniture was smaller. Street parking is competitive and often permit-controlled. Many of these houses are now split into apartments, so the apartment you are moving into may be at the top of three flights.
The specific thing to check before you commit to a sofa or a bed: measure the turn at the top of the stairs, not just the width. A straight staircase takes almost anything. A staircase with a landing and a ninety-degree turn is what defeats large furniture, and the answer is sometimes a window and a set of straps.
Pine Hills
West of downtown around Madison Avenue, and the most student-shaped part of the city because of the university's downtown campus and the general supply of rented houses. Lively, cheap to eat in, and busy.
For moving, the defining feature is turnover. Late August here is close to gridlock, with several houses on one street changing hands the same afternoon. Housing is mostly older multi-family, so stairs again, and often shared ones. If you are moving into Pine Hills in August, book early and be realistic about where the truck will actually fit.
Delaware Avenue
South of Washington Park, running down towards the Normanskill. A mix of rowhouses closer in and detached houses further out, with a proper strip of independent shops and restaurants along the avenue itself.
This is the compromise a lot of people end up making, and it is a reasonable one. You get some of the character of the older districts with more of the practicality of the outer ones. Access varies a great deal street by street: closer to the park it behaves like Center Square, and further south it behaves like the suburbs.
Buckingham Pond, New Scotland and the western edge
Out towards the western boundary of the city, this is where Albany starts feeling suburban while still being Albany. Detached houses, yards, driveways, quieter streets, and the school catchment conversation that goes with that.
From our side these are the easy ones. A driveway to park the truck in, a path that is not shared with anyone, and usually a single flight of ordinary stairs. If you are moving something large or heavy, or if anyone in the household should not be climbing stairs, this part of the city removes most of the difficulty.
Downtown and the Warehouse District
Converted commercial buildings and newer apartments, north and east of the Capitol. The appeal is obvious if you work downtown and want to walk to it.
Moving into these is a building question rather than a street question. Expect the full procedure: a certificate of insurance, a service elevator that has to be booked into a named window, and a loading dock or a designated entrance rather than pulling up outside. It is more paperwork than a house and much less carrying, which most people consider a good trade.
And the towns just outside
Plenty of people searching for an Albany neighborhood end up in Delmar, Colonie, Guilderland or Latham instead, which are all a short drive out and are a different proposition again: newer housing, more space, driveways and schools people move specifically for.
If that is where you are heading, we cover all of them, and the moves are generally the straightforward kind.
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Common questions
Albany neighborhoods, read as moving jobs: the short answers
It depends what you want. Center Square and Hudson Park have the historic architecture and the walkability. Buckingham Pond and New Scotland have the space, the driveways and the quiet. Delaware Avenue sits between the two.
The historic brownstone districts around Washington Park. Narrow, steep, turning staircases and competitive street parking are the usual combination, and upper-floor apartments in split houses are common.
Mostly Pine Hills and the streets around the downtown campus, plus purpose-built housing near the uptown campus. Late August is exceptionally busy there.
Some residential streets are permit-controlled. Check with the city about what is needed to hold space for a moving truck on your street, and do it before the week of the move.
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