It was established in 1813 by a charter signed by Mayor Philip Schuyler Van Rensselaer and the city council of Albany.

The Academy was chartered in March 1813 to educate the sons of Albany's political elite and rapidly growing merchant class.

In the Census three years prior, Albany was the tenth-largest city in the United States, and would remain so through the 1850s due to the prominence of the Erie Canal.

Two years later, in 1815, a purpose-built building was completed in present-day Academy Park, adjacent to the New York State Capitol.

The red-brick Academy building's marble cornerstone was laid by the then-governor of New York and future president Franklin D. Roosevelt.