Ahead of you spreads Washington Park, Albany's premier green space and stage for countless festivals and gatherings. As public property this ground dates back to the city charter in 1686, and over the centuries it has been gunpowder storage, square and parade grounds, and even a cemetery. People often assume Frederick Law Olmsted designed this landscape, but in fact the park simply incorporates many of the philosophical ideals Olmsted used when he designed Central Park in Manhattan.
The park itself covers about 81 acres (33 ha), and in the southwestern corner you can see Washington Park Lake, a 5.2‑acre (2.1 ha) body of water roughly 1,600 feet long (490 m) and 140 feet wide (43 m). Beyond the green you’ll notice the mostly residential neighborhood that surrounds the park, where many late 19th‑century architectural works line the streets, including designs by Henry Hobson Richardson. At least two governors of New York lived in buildings facing the park outside of their terms in office.
Because of this history and architecture, the park and neighborhood were included in 1972 as the Washington Park Historic District. Somewhere among those facades a governor once made his home, watching the same lake glint below.