Today 92% of its nearly 600 buildings are 19th-century rowhouses in different architectural styles, predominantly Italianate, many built as speculative housing for the city's middle class.

Urban decay still affects the district, and the city has spent federal grant money on revitalization and stabilization efforts.

This stretch of the road rises from the flatlands next to the Hudson River to the plains of the city's western neighborhoods, first steeply up the side of the bluff known as Sheridan Hollow, then more gently to the Quail intersection, a total climb of 190 feet (58 m).

Through here, Clinton remains unusually wide for Albany (briefly divided at its eastern end, where it receives traffic off Interstate 787 from the nearby Dunn Memorial Bridge.

Three rowhouses along the south side of Livingston are included; the rest of this neighborhood is part of the Arbor Hill–Ten Broeck Triangle Historic District.

[2] South of the Clinton-North Pearl intersection, the boundary takes in the two remaining rowhouses on Clinton Place, the oldest extant buildings in the district.

Of the 556 contributing buildings, 530 (or 92% of the total) are two- or three-story brick rowhouses, built over a century and reflecting different architectural styles.

A decade before the Revolution, Stephen van Rensselaer II had the area just north of the city surveyed and laid out a grid plan for future growth.

This transformed the Western District of the Manor of Rensselaerswyck into the town of Watervliet, which incorporated the lands north of Patroon Street.

[4] The neighborhood in this town along the north edge of Patroon Street would be incorporated as a municipality under the name of Colonie in 1791 but would stay within Watervliet.

On December 29, 1828 notable residents Israel Smith and Samuel Pruyn, among others, petitioned the Common Council to improve the junction of Clinton and North Pearl streets,[8] an area increasingly visible to visitors to the city.

[12] During the 1830s, many of the dilapidated colonial-era houses around the square were demolished and the first rowhouses, their decoration reflecting the contemporary Greek Revival style, built on Clinton Place overlooking the park, along with a church.

The oldest rowhouses along the street, the three buildings between 65 and 75, were part of a group of six built as speculative housing by local landowner Thomas Ludlow in 1845.

Development pressure on the west end of Clinton Avenue came later in the 1850s when Erastus Corning combined many of the state's railroads into the New York Central.

To handle the new road's maintenance needs, he began building a yard north of Clinton Avenue west of Northern Boulevard.

This increase in services prefigured the 1870 annexation of the land on the west of Northern Boulevard, putting the entirety of Clinton Avenue within Albany city limits.

Construction began to come up Lark Street, the first one west of downtown Albany that crossed the Sheridan Hollow ravine (since filled in) at grade.

The Gothic Revival style made an appearance in 1883 when the former St. Luke's Methodist Church was built at the northwest corner of the Lexington intersection.

Most buildings in early 20th century styles were public ones, like the Classical Revival police station built at 222 Pearl Street in 1911.

The 1931 opening of the Palace Theatre at Clinton and North Pearl, where its history began, gave the district its newest contributing property and ended its period of significance.

[2] The district was never targeted for wholesale urban renewal, and after some demolitions in the east end it became eligible for Community Development Block Grants (CDBGs) in the late 1970s.

[17][18] In 2011 the Preservation League of New York State loaned $100,000 to a local developer, Orion Enterprises, to restabilize the former police station at 222 North Pearl.