Fifth Avenue-Fulton Street Historic District

Two blocks of Fifth Avenue on the eastern edge of downtown Troy, New York, make up this district of thirty-seven residential, religious, industrial and commercial properties built between 1862 and 1894. Nearly everything in the area burned in the Great Fire of 1862, and it was rebuilt quickly in a consistent scale and building height. The dominant house type is the three-story brownstone-style rowhouse with a basement, with carriage houses on the parallel service streets, Williams and Union. The district also includes the W. & L.E. Gurley Company main building, nominated separately. Architect M.F. Cummings, one of Troy's notable architects of the later nineteenth century, shaped the area. He designed the Second Presbyterian Church, and many rowhouses may follow his pattern book. The district is valued for its architecture and setting, and for the nineteenth-century residents whose business and social careers form a significant chapter in Troy's history. Exteriors are largely intact and in generally good condition.