The mood at the Underground Railroad Education Center (UREC) is celebratory as of the summer of 2024. Construction is set to begin on the center’s 14,000-square-foot annex, the Underground Railroad Interpretive Center, which will significantly expand the UREC’s footprint in Albany’s Arbor Hill neighborhood, as well as its programming capabilities. Designed by Hamlin Design Group, the interpretive center will not only provide visitors with immersive experiences, access to educational resources, and a host of community-oriented events, it will also serve as a model of efficiency and graceful design.
The new center is seeking Core certification through the International Living Future Institute’s Living Building Challenge after being awarded multiple grants, including more than $1.1 million from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) through their Building Cleaner Communities Competition (BCCC). Formerly known as the Carbon Neutral Community Economic Development (CNCED) program, BCCC supports projects that prioritize clean and resilient design and construction at the facility level.
While the performance of the building is important for meeting its sustainability goals, UREC co-founders Mary Liz Stewart and Paul Stewart have also worked to ensure that the new center fits within the fabric of the neighborhood and becomes a cornerstone to public life within the community. “It becomes a statement to the community that says, ‘This community is worth it,’” Mary Liz Stewart says. “This is going to be a building that our neighbors are going to be proud of and part of.”
The Underground Railroad Education Center
The UREC evolved out of a research project that the Stewarts began over 20 years ago. The married couple were initially interested in finding and formally marking locations around Albany that played a role in the Underground Railroad. However, they soon realized that Albany did not have the best track record with respect to historical preservation, and that many of the buildings that had been integral to the history of abolitionism and the Underground Railroad in the city had not survived into the twenty-first century. Rather than restoring or rehabilitating these buildings, they’re demolished, Mary Liz Stewart explains.
Given the city’s penchant for not preserving its older buildings, the couple decided to instead focus on period documents and the stories of individual abolitionists. The result was revelatory. “It was like opening a treasure trove,” Mary Liz Stewart says. “The voices and the stories of people who had been written out of history started emerging.”
Most of these voices were members of Albany’s Black community. Rather than being passive or supporting figures in the local abolitionist movement, they played central roles and were regularly in leadership positions. “What we were uncovering belonged to the community because we were uncovering voices of people who lived and worked and walked where we live and work and walk,” she says.
To better share their findings, the two decided to incorporate in 2003 as a nonprofit. Not long after, a fellow researcher found a flyer about an Albany Vigilance Committee meeting, which occurred at 198 Lumber Street. “Vigilance committees” were frequently organized in Northern cities prior to the Civil War to protect Black members of the community and to assist fugitive slaves as they sought their freedom. Though there was no longer a Lumber Street in Albany, the Stewarts determined that it had become Livingston Avenue after going through some old city maps and land records. Ultimately, they identified the house from the pamphlet as 194 Livingston Avenue, which was in foreclosure.