Among the most extraordinary achievements of The Foundation was to plan, construct, and establish the New York State Bar Center in Albany, and then expand it in the late 1908s. The Foundation raised the equivalent of $25 million in today’s dollars to build what is widely considered one of the most remarkable structures devoted to the legal profession outside of the courthouses, described by Former NYSBA President Henry M. Greenberg as “a hub of civic virtue and the highest values of the profession.”
The design of the Center created a new structure comprised of five 19th century townhouses that together form a single, multifunction complex. This combination of 19th century architecture and award-winning contemporary design led Ada Louise Huxtable, the design critic of The Wall Street Journal and former design critic of The New York Times, to write that the Center “…is one of the neatest architectural achievements in the country…it is a sophisticated triumph in the most delicate, complex and poorly understood art of the environment: urban design.” The project won the 1969 Progressive Architectural Award from the American Institute of Architects.
Widespread acclaim has been received for preserving a portion of the historically significant Elk Street/Academy Park neighborhood, including the U.S. Department of the Interior’s designation of the Bar Center on the National Register of Historic Places.