Troy Savings Bank

Troy Savings Bank
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
Looking up at the bank from the street
Location:	32 Second Street, Troy, NY
Coordinates:	42°43′49″N 73°41′29″W
Built:	1870
Architect:	George B. Post
Architectural style:	Second Empire, Italianate
Governing body:	Troy Savings Bank Music Hall Corporation
NRHP Reference#:	89001066
Significant dates
Added to NRHP:	April 11, 1989
Designated NHL:	April 11, 1989

Troy Savings Bank, now owned by First Niagara Financial Group (FNFG) is a bank in Troy, Rensselaer County, New York, U.S.A.. It is notable for having a music hall constructed on the second floor above the bank itself, the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, which is renowned for its acoustics and includes a huge Odell concert organ.

History of the bank and music hall

Engraving from 1876

The Troy Savings Bank was founded in 1823 and moved to its current location in 1870. The plans for the new building included a music hall on the upper floor.

In the early years of the 20th century the Music Hall featured performances from artists such as Lillian Nordica, Henri Vieuxtemps, Ignace Jan Paderewski, Albert Spalding, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Myra Hess and Jose Iturbi. In the 1930s and 1940s, artists including Vladimir Horowitz, Yehudi Menuhin and Artur Rubinstein played there. It was a usual stop for a musician on a tour around America.

Apparently not up to modern building codes, there was long a tradition that prior to each performance the Fire Marshal would come out on stage and announce "There is absolutely no smoking in the Hall. If you have to smoke, you can hit the streets at half time."

Following World War II, Troy's wealth declined and so did the bank's. Many public initiatives were begun to save the bank (and thus the music hall) from closure. Ideas included establishing a Museum of Industrial and Folk Art downstairs and renting the Hall itself to the area's many colleges. In 1989 the building was declared a National Historic Landmark. It is also a contributing property to the Central Troy Historic District.

Design Legacy & Antecedents

Akin to Ilium, the gold-rich city-state, its namesake, Troy evolved to a somewhat similar rich status — or as others contend, Troy, New York owes certain of its municipal design scheme eg, its world-renown Troy Music Hall aka Troy Savings Bank to its civil-leaders’ admiration of the similarly, exceedingly erudite and highly prosperous Venetian Republic model(s) ie, those cities of the terra-ferma aka Veneto eg, Vicenza.

Troy’s most distinguished buildings’ designs share in the design legacy of their antecedents, to whom they often bear sticking, if little known today, similarities to eg, Vicenza's Opera House aka Basilica Palladiana and for that matter it closely resembles Brescia's somewhat more ornate Opera House <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brescia_Loggia.jpg> as well as for Troy’s other civic buildings’ decidedly Italianate ie, Italian Renaissance design heritage: Troy Public Library and Troy Court House.

That reflects a stalwart social consciousness held among Troy's citizens, wrought of the decades’ long industrial, scientific and mercantile innovation and prosperity, which led, too, in a like vein to those historical achievements facilitated by and realized by the Maritime Republics aka Maritime republics along more ancient water trade routes. However, in Troy, New York's incarnation, the mighty Hudson and Mohawk rivers play their part, as does the Erie Canal and its lesser tributary canal systems, and later the railroads that linked Troy to the rest of the Empire State, New York City to the south, and Utica, New York, Syracuse, New York, Rochester, New York, Buffalo, New York and the myriad of emergent Great Lakes' cities of other states in the burgeoning United States … substituted analogously for the Adriatic Sea and its Bosporus waterways, for the ancient Spice Trade aka Spice trade and Silk Trade routes: as detailed for the Economic History of Venice aka Economic history of Venice.

It can be little wonder that Troy’s neo-classical and scores of other outstanding building styles represent a community’s culture that valued learned minds among its citizenry. Obvious is that Trojan’s held erudition and historical awareness, as to what comprises a great civilization, in the highest regard. Early on, indeed, Trojans had placed great emphasis on education. That predilection is witnessed in the numerous centers for higher learning and advanced degrees — for both men and women, and the civic leaders who were the drivers for those changes and institutions as well as the local citizenry that supported them — known today as these (all in one small city … along a the mighty Hudson River.

History of the Odell Opus 190 Organ

The organ at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall was built in 1882 as Opus 190 of J. H. & C. S. Odell of Yonkers, New York, and originally installed in the home of New York City financier William Belden. The original purchase price of the instrument was $12,470. The Troy Savings Bank purchased the organ from Mr. Belden in 1889 and the instrument was installed in the Music Hall during the months of August through October, 1890. The first notes from the Odell Opus 190 in the Hall were heard on October 20, 1890. The organ was maintained in usable condition until the 1960s, at which point it fell into disrepair.

In early 2006, an effort was mounted to restore the organ after decades of neglect. Under the impetus of the Organ Historical Society and under the direction of organ builder S.L Huntington & Co. of Stonington, Connecticut, a crew of volunteers worked over the course of several weeks to restore the organ to playable condition. The instrument was featured during the Organ Historical Society's 2006 convention.

Troy Savings Bank Music Hall in modern times

The music hall's iconic roof

In 1979, the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall Revitalization Committee was founded by private citizens. With the bank's support and additional funding from the city and county for its administration, the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall Corporation was founded. A not-for-profit organization which still leases the Hall from the bank, it began its ownership with a performance by the Benny Goodman Band in 1980. There followed a corporate re-structuring and buyout and, in 1999, the Troy Savings Bank converted to a public corporation. On January 16, 2004, First Niagara Financial Group, Inc. acquired Troy Financial Corporation, the holding company for the Troy Savings Bank, and Troy Commercial Bank.

External links

• The Troy Music Hall
• The Troy Savings Bank Charitable Foundation