There’s a development in what started years ago as the “cheese grater” story, but it has nothing to do with the big aluminum front that hides the facade of one of the oldest buildings in downtown Albany.
The fabled “cheese grater” on Albany’s First Avenue — a sign of progress in the 1960s and now considered an architectural atrocity — is staying up there, at least for now.
You won’t be looking at the famous “cheese grater” at 415 First Avenue W. for much longer. The downtown urban renewal agency Wednesday gave the building’s tenants $10,000 toward refurbishing the building’s front the way it looked after it was built around 1866.
I don’t remember who first came up with the description of the aluminum front that hides the handsome architecture of No. 415 on Albany’s First Avenue West. But now, the days of the “cheese grater” may finally come to an end.
Downtown beat: Another restoration’s complete
It was four years ago that “1st Hand Seconds,” a downtown women’s second-hand clothing shop with a mission, moved from one historic Albany address on First Avenue to another, on Second. Now it’s ready to celebrate the remodeling of its 1929 building with a Saturday open house.
Tags: 1st Hand Seconds, cheese grater, downtown Albany, Historic buildings, remodeling, SEcond Avenue, wedding gowns