Balding Avenue Historic District

Balding Avenue in Poughkeepsie is a single tree-shaded block of middle-class houses built mainly after the middle of the nineteenth century, with most dating from about 1872 to 1905. The roughly four-acre district includes a row of four simple Bracketed-style houses, along with Second Empire dwellings with slate mansard roofs and several Queen Anne examples with turrets, shingles and decorative porches. Gothic Revival and Eastern Stick elements also appear. All of the houses are two to three-and-a-half stories and clapboarded, though many now have modern siding. The street was shown as proposed on an 1867 map. Compared with the grander homes of Academy Street and the many worker dwellings elsewhere in the city, these houses show modesty and simplicity, and the street often goes unnoticed. Its intact streetscape adds to its period character, and local architect Percival M. Lloyd designed one of the buildings. The block is described as well maintained, reflecting residents' pride, and only one building is non-contributing.