• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar

New York Almanack

History, Natural History & the Arts

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • Adirondacks & NNY
  • Capital-Saratoga
  • Mohawk Valley
  • Hudson Valley & Catskills
  • NYC & Long Island
  • Western NY
  • History
  • Nature & Environment
  • Arts & Culture
  • Outdoor Recreation
  • Food & Farms
  • Subscribe
  • Support
  • Submit
  • About
  • New Books
  • Events
  • Podcasts

The Rice Building: A Celebrated Troy Landmark

September 3, 2020 by Suzanne Spellen Leave a Comment

rice buildingTroy has many iconic buildings, each unique for either an architectural, functional or historic reason. The city’s building stock is one of the reasons Troy has become a favorite Capital District destination.

Walking the city’s streets is a visual treat. Within the space of blocks one can see more than 200 years of architecture and history.

rice building illustrationOne of downtown Troy’s most beautiful buildings is the Rice Building, standing at the intersection of River and First streets. This triangular site allowed the architect to design a unique building, resembling in some ways, the prow of a magnificent ship.

There are many great architectural features here – the most striking being the banks of double-story arched windows on both sides on the second and third floors. All of the building’s street-facing windows are capped by polychrome stone voussoirs – those are the arched wedge-shaped stone frames above the windows. A polychrome arch has more than one colored stone.

Add to that, the decorative terra-cotta tiles festooning the gabled dormers and elsewhere, the fine decorative brickwork and other details, and you’ve got a gorgeous building, and a fine example of High Victorian Venetian-inspired Gothic architecture. It was even more impressive when it still had a sixth story, a central clock tower and two smaller towers rising high over downtown Troy.

rice building courtesy Ganem ConstructionThe building was built in 1871, and was originally called the Hall building, for its owner Benjamin Homer Hall, who served as a City Clerk of Troy. There is some dispute as to the architect. It’s generally ascribed to Calvert Vaux and Frederick Clark Withers. Vaux is better known as one of the architects of Central Park in Manhattan and Prospect Park in Brooklyn, with his partner Frederick Law Olmsted.

He was a fine architect in his own right, the architect, both alone and with Withers, of many fine buildings, especially in the Hudson Valley. The Rice Building has many similarities to his Jefferson Market Courthouse building, which still stands in NYC’s Greenwich Village.

But recent investigations have led many architectural historians to believe that the Rice Building was actually designed by George Post, who also designed the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. If so, this would be one of his earliest known buildings. Post went on to a fine career which included the NY Stock Exchange Building in Manhattan, as well as many, many other banks, university buildings, churches and large commercial buildings.

rice buildling details courtesy Ganem ConstructionEither way – Vaux and Withers or Post – the building had a great architect and it shows.

A fire took that top floor and the towers sometime between 1913 and 1920, but the building was repaired and in use until a foreclosure in the 1980s, which left it abandoned and run-down, like too many other downtown buildings. In the 1990s, a non-profit group consisting of the Troy Architectural Program (TAP), Troy Savings Bank (now First Niagara) and RPI saved the building. Aided by $2 million from the State, via Senator Joe Bruno, the building was repaired, restored to beauty, and used as a business incubator.

The Rice Building can be seen as a law office in Martin Scorsese’s 1993 film, “The Age of Innocence.”

In 2015, the building was purchased by brother and sister Luther and Lolly Tai, who have plans with preservation architect Joseph Michael Kelly to rebuild the towers. Hopefully those plans are still in the works.

Photos, from above: Rice building courtesy Wikimedia user UpstateNYer; illustration of Rice Building in Troy; Rice Building details courtesy Ganem Construction.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Filed Under: Capital-Saratoga, History Tagged With: Architecture, Landmarks, Troy

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Help Finish Our 2022 Fundraising

Subscribe to New York Almanack

Subscribe! Follow the New York Almanack each day via E-mail, RSS, Twitter or Facebook updates.

Recent Comments

  • Edythe Ann Quinn on Poetry: Stairway from Heaven
  • Ellen Brown on How Does A Land Trust Protect A Watershed? One Parcel At A Time
  • Nell Rapport on Transforming The Niagara Falls Experience
  • Jimmy on World War II POW Camps in Upstate New York
  • Paul Huey on Advocates: Pass The Unmarked Burial Site Protection Act
  • NOEL A SHERRY on Adirondack Logging History: Wood’s Lake & Beaver River Stations
  • NOEL A SHERRY on Adirondack Logging History: Wood’s Lake & Beaver River Stations
  • Jim Fox on Adirondack Logging History: Wood’s Lake & Beaver River Stations
  • Big Burly on Adirondack Logging History: Wood’s Lake & Beaver River Stations
  • MATTHEW J BURDEN on When Did New York Stop Speaking Dutch?

Recent New York Books

battle of harlem hights
Ladies Day at the Capitol
voices of wayne county
CNY Snowstorm book front cover
The Struggles of Boston's Black Workers in the Civil War Era
Expanded Second Edition of Echoes in These Mountains
historic kingston book
Buffalo Sports cover re-re-sized.indd
With an Ax and a Rifle Vol I

Secondary Sidebar

preservation league
Protect the Adirondacks Hiking Guide