We stumbled across this photo today and found it interesting, so maybe you will also: It's an aerial photo of a large section of downtown Albany from 1937. It's via the New York State Archives, and over on its website you can zoom into the photo for much more detail.

There are so many interesting bits about this photo -- the way the neighborhood replaced by the Empire State Plaza once ran flush up against State Street by the Capitol, the state of the waterfront then, all the open space across the river, and more.

As we've mentioned before, the State Archives photo collection has a handful of old aerial photos of Albany that are worth a look. (For that matter, the State Archives has a bunch of interesting photos online -- aerial or otherwise.)

Earlier on AOA:

+ A view from above, back then

+ Downtown Albany, before and after

photo: New York State Archives. Education Dept. Division of Visual Instruction.