Albany

One can forgive the residents of Arbor Hill for walking with slightly swelled heads and a bit of a swagger on Wednesday, after the American Planning Association announced that the neighborhood was chosen as one of the 10 great neighborhoods in America for 2014.

"There was nothing but blight, crime, shootings and murder along the Lexington Avenue corridor a few years ago and we've turned it around," said Mark Robinson, 51, a Common Council member who represents Arbor Hill. He has lived in the neighborhood for more than 40 years and has renovated his own home and helped family members renovate others. He has his own personal story of redemption.

"We're taking this neighborhood back one block at a time and there's a good spirit in the air here," he said. "It's a labor of love for those of us who've lived here a long time."

"This is quite an honor and it's finally giving Arbor Hill its due," said Mary Liz Stewart, co-founder with her husband, Paul, of the Underground Railroad History Project. Their group is restoring the 19th-century brick home of noted abolitionists Stephen and Harriet Myers on Livingston Avenue, a stop along the Underground Railroad.

"This recognition is a thank-you to those people who continued to live in Arbor Hill and hung in there in the tough years and represent the foundation of the community," she said.

They won't gloat, but Arbor Hill residents have every right to adopt an I-told-you-so attitude after enduring decades of naysayers and negativity that focused on ongoing problems with poverty and crime rather than a perspective that accentuated the positives of community spirit, new development and a celebration of great potential.

That's what the APA did with its selection of Arbor Hill, which joins a list of 230 neighborhoods, streets and public spaces chosen since 2007 in its "Great Places in America" designation that highlights "a true sense of place, cultural and historical interest, community involvement and a vision for tomorrow."

"The strong effort at rehabilitating housing units and the historical connection were factors in the selection of Arbor Hill," said Roberta Rewers, a spokeswoman for the APA. "We were impressed by the collaborative efforts to keep the community moving forward."

The only other previous recipient in the Capital Region was the historic Broadway corridor in Saratoga Springs in 2012.

Arbor Hill is in some impressive company this year, chosen along with neighborhoods that include Adams Morgan in Washington, D.C.; Fields Corner in Dorchester, Mass.; Fremont in Seattle; the Fan District in Richmond, Va.; and the Victorian District in Savannah, Ga.

"We have a lot of positive energy going on here. It's one of the hidden jewels of our city," said Arlene Way, director of the Arbor Hill Development Corp., a not-for-profit neighborhood preservation organization. She's lived there since 2006 and is a former president of the Arbor Hill Neighborhood Association.

"I love the neighborhood. It embraces everybody," Way said.

"I don't want to say it's about time, but that's how I feel," said Kristen Holler, executive director of Albany Barn. The not-for-profit group renovated the long-vacant, blighted former St. Joseph's Academy building at the corner of North Swan and Second streets and turned it into Academy Lofts, with 22 apartments for artist-tenants and work studios for 24 more artists.

The APA cited the Academy Lofts as one of the highlights of the Arbor Hill recognition and a focal point of $77.5 million in public and private revitalization efforts since the Arbor Hill Neighborhood Plan was put into place in 2003.

"I'm really excited that people are finally noticing and recognizing the jewel that Arbor Hill actually is," said Jillian Altenburg, executive director of the Ten Broeck Mansion. "There was a lot of stigma that had to be put behind us."

The 1797 Federal-style mansion is the headquarters of the Albany County Historical Association and was cited by the APA in its designation. The Ten Broeck Mansion is a link to the Gilded Age of Arbor Hill in centuries past, when its elegant mansions and town houses in the Ten Broeck Triangle and beyond were owned by the city's lumber barons. It was known as the Lumber District, with its steeply sloped hill leading to lumber warehouses along Hudson River wharves.

Starting with the widespread urban "white flight" of the early 1960s, coupled with the displacement of the construction of the 98-acre Empire State Plaza, Arbor Hill became an impoverished, predominantly African-American enclave. In recent years, an influx of artists, newcomers and devoted old-timers — along with not-for-profits and government programs — have spurred the revitalization particularly along once-blighted portions of North Swan Street, Lexington Avenue, Clinton Avenue and Henry Johnson Boulevard — where a recently constructed branch of the Albany Public Library has become a community hub.

As with other examples of reclamation and gentrification across the nation, most notably in Brooklyn, artists and the creative class are in the vanguard of Arbor Hill's renaissance and they possess a pioneering spirit.

"So many people want to see this neighborhood succeed and believe there's beauty and tremendous untapped resources and great opportunities here," Holler said. "I put the challenge we have to the artists living and working here to be louder than the voices who focus on a silly after-school fight or a routine car break-in. I've worked here four years, I walk around the neighborhood all the time and it's a friendly, neighborly place. Crime happens in the suburbs, too. I'm tired of the focus on that."

"This is great, but I'm not surprised," said Steven Longo, executive director of the Albany Housing Authority, which has taken the lead on the neighborhood's 200 new and rehabbed units. "We got together all the stakeholders, but this was Arbor Hill's plan. There was discussion and disagreement, but in the end it was done right because they had ownership. It's exciting for the neighborhood."

Mayor Kathy Sheehan praised the work of the city's planning department and for making Arbor Hill's case with the APA. "This is another example of pride of place," she said. "People who live in Arbor Hill and invested in the neighborhood deserve to have a great deal of pride. This is a reaffirmation of an authentic neighborhood, something a lot of cities would love to have."

"This is a very positive distinction, and I'm happy for it," said the Rev. Damone Paul Johnson, pastor of the Metropolitan New Testament Baptist Church on Second Street. The 71-year-old church draws about 800 people to its Sunday services and the growing congregation completed a multimillion-dollar, 19,000-square-foot addition in 2012.

"The people of Arbor Hill are the key to this honor," Johnson said. "Everyone is banding together. We have a long way to go, but we've made tremendous progress."

pgrondahl@timesunion.com • 518-454-5623 • @PaulGrondahl