Brick Row Historic District

Brick Row is a group of brick Greek Revival rowhouses, plus one clapboard building, in an isolated corner of northern Athens off Route 385. Built in 1864, the houses sheltered employees of the Saratoga and Hudson River Railroad, a line organized by Daniel Drew and Cornelius Vanderbilt that carried goods from Schenectady to the Athens docks for shipment down the Hudson. The railroad's success helped make Athens one of the busiest spots on the river in the 1860s. After a fire destroyed the terminal, dockyards and offices in 1876, the worker housing was all that remained of that community. Brick Row then became a community of its own, home to various ethnic groups, including many Italian immigrants who worked in local brickyards and icehouses. Number 32 was originally a tavern. The row is divided into a lower section of seventeen residences and an upper section of eleven. Apart from enclosed porches and three demolished houses, it has changed little, and immigrant families still live there.