The Balding Avenue Historic District is located along the street of the same name, between Mansion and Marshall streets, in Poughkeepsie

Poughkeepsie (city), New York

Poughkeepsie is a city in the state of New York, United States, which serves as the county seat of Dutchess County. Poughkeepsie is located in the Hudson River Valley midway between New York City and Albany...

, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, United States. These four acres (1.6 ha) include 27 houses mostly built in the late 19th century.

Unlike some of the city's other residential historic districts

Historic district (United States)

In the United States, a historic district is a group of buildings, properties, or sites that have been designated by one of several entities on different levels as historically or architecturally significant. Buildings, structures, objects and sites within a historic district are normally divided...

, Balding Avenue was a middle class

Middle class

The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....

 neighborhood, and its houses still reflect that. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 in 1982.

Geography

The district consists of Balding Avenue between its southern end at Mansion Street and the next intersection to the north at Marshall Street, and the lots

Lot (real estate)

In real estate, a lot or plot is a tract or parcel of land owned or meant to be owned by some owner. A lot is essentially considered a parcel of real property in some countries or immovable property in other countries...

 of every house with a Balding address in that corridor. The southern end is just at the northern boundary of downtown Poughkeepsie, with several other historic buildings. The Queen Anne Style

Queen Anne Style architecture

The Queen Anne Style in Britain means either the English Baroque architectural style roughly of the reign of Queen Anne , or a revived form that was popular in the last quarter of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century...

 house at 73 Mansion

Building at 73 Mansion Street

The building at 73 Mansion Street in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States, was first built around 1890 as a single-family residence. It is next to the city's post office and across from the offices of the Poughkeepsie Journal, at the corner with Balding Avenue.It was built around 1890 by a local...

 is right on the corner (it was excluded from the district because it was a different size and shape from the Balding houses), and next to it is the Poughkeepsie post office

U.S. Post Office (Poughkeepsie, New York)

The main U.S. Post Office, Poughkeepsie, New York, USA, is located at the junction of Market and Mill streets downtown, . The Post Office serves the 12601 ZIP Code, which covers the city of Poughkeepsie, New York and those portions of the Town of Poughkeepsie adjacent to the city...

. Across Mansion are the offices

Poughkeepsie Journal Building

The Poughkeepsie Journal Building is the main office of that newspaper, in the city of Poughkeepsie, New York, USA. It is located at Civic Center Plaza, the north end of Market Street....

 of the Poughkeepsie Journal

Poughkeepsie Journal

The Poughkeepsie Journal is a newspaper based in Poughkeepsie, New York owned by the Gannett Company, who bought the paper in 1977. Founded in 1785 , the Journal is the oldest paper in New York state, and is the third-oldest in the nation...

. This block of Balding is shaded with large trees along the side of the street.

Within the district the houses are of similar designs, ranging from two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half stories in height. All have clapboard

Clapboard (architecture)

Clapboard, also known as bevel siding or lap siding or weather-board , is a board used typically for exterior horizontal siding that has one edge thicker than the other and where the board above laps over the one below...

 siding

Siding

Siding is the outer covering or cladding of a house meant to shed water and protect from the effects of weather. On a building that uses siding, it may act as a key element in the aesthetic beauty of the structure and directly influence its property value....

. Various Victorian

Victorian architecture

The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...

-era architectural style

Architectural style

Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...

s are in evidence, from Second Empire to Queen Anne

Queen Anne Style architecture

The Queen Anne Style in Britain means either the English Baroque architectural style roughly of the reign of Queen Anne , or a revived form that was popular in the last quarter of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century...

. Four houses in the Hudson River Bracketed style are arranged in a row from 6-12 Balding.

All exhibit a modest amount of ornament

Ornament (architecture)

In architecture and decorative art, ornament is a decoration used to embellish parts of a building or object. Large figurative elements such as monumental sculpture and their equivalents in decorative art are excluded from the term; most ornament does not include human figures, and if present they...

. Poughkeepsie's other historic districts recognize either the homes of the wealthy (Academy Street

Academy Street Historic District (Poughkeepsie, New York)

The Academy Street Historic District is located along that street between Livingston and Montgomery streets in the city of Poughkeepsie, New York, United States...

, Garfield Place

Garfield Place Historic District

The Garfield Place Historic District is a small residential neighborhood in southern Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. It is a area covering all properties on Garfield Place, which runs for two blocks between Franklin and Montgomery streets, as well as some on nearby sections of Montgomery...

) or the working class

Working class

Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...

 (Union Street

Union Street Historic District (Poughkeepsie, New York)

The Union Street Historic District in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States, is an area of eight blocks southwest of downtown and just north of the Mid-Hudson Bridge approaches. It is the oldest neighborhood in the city....

, Mill Street-North Clover Street

Mill Street-North Clover Street Historic District

The Mill Street-North Clover Street Historic District is located along those streets and Main Street in western Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. It is an irregularly-shaped area of between US 9 and downtown Poughkeepsie, located on the slope up from the Hudson River...

). This is the only one in a middle-class neighborhood, as suggested by the minimal use of decorative detailing on the houses.

Only one home, at 1 Balding, is not considered a contributing property

Contributing property

In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing resource or contributing property is any building, structure, or object which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, listed locally or federally, significant...

 to the district. It was built in 1924, after the district's period of significance, two decades after all the other houses had been completed.

History

An 1867 map of the city lists Balding Avenue as a proposed street. It must have been built shortly thereafter, as the first houses on it, 14 and 27 Balding, both in the Second Empire style, were built in 1872. Six more followed, mainly in the middle of the block, during the rest of the 1870s, and most of the district was built out over the 1880s and '90s. Local architect Percival M. Lloyd designed the classically-detailed 32 Balding, the only house on the street for whom the architect is known, in 1896.

In the 1900s 4 and 11 Balding closed out this building boom. The other corner lot at Mansion Street, 1 Balding, was finally built on in 1924. There has been no significant construction or modification since.