In September 1911, Robert H. Jackson, age 19, moved east across New York State, from Jamestown in the southern tier to the capital city, Albany.
Robert Jackson enrolled at Albany Law School. It offered a two-year law school curriculum to high school graduates (some of whom had also attended college).
Jackson was only a high school graduate. But he had completed a year as an apprentice in a Jamestown law office. Albany Law School admitted Jackson with credit for that apprentice year, adding him to its senior class that would graduate the next spring. (For details on Jackson in Albany, as a law student and later, here is a downloadable article: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=744111
During his 1911-1912 Albany year, Jackson lived with two friends in a rented apartment at 267 Lark Street. This building—shown here in a photograph taken circa 1931—was about a six block walk from Albany Law School’s location in the heart of downtown.
In Albany today, 267 Lark Street still stands. It is a three-story building on the corner of Hudson Street in the historic Center Square neighborhood.
The building, except for its Chinese restaurant that opened around 1986, seems mostly unchanged from Jackson’s time. It contains, upstairs, four apartments. One—I don’t know which one—was law student Jackson’s.
And now the whole building can be yours, for about a million dollars.
Here is the real estate advertisement for the building, which notes the Jackson connection:
(Thanks to Fred Brodie for alerting me to this ad.)
I have enjoyed Chinese food from Amazing Wok, located on the ground floor of 267 Lark Street.
In 2012, I participated when Albany’s mayor, other city officials, and Albany Law School’s dean dedicated this Jackson plaque on 267 Lark Street.
And now, thanks to the realtor photographs, I have a better sense of some of the beauty that Jackson saw inside 267 Lark Street, in addition to his law books and notes.
