[2] Over the course of the 19th century, the city's development followed Union, one of the major through roads to the east, as it industrialized and expanded out of its colonial core on the banks of the Mohawk River.

On the west, closer to downtown Schenectady and the Stockade neighborhood, the oldest in the city, buildings are a mix of pre-1850 commercial, institutional and residential properties, mainly brick.

East of the college the street becomes more uniformly residential, with frame the preferred material for houses built in Victorian styles from the later 19th and early 20th centuries.

[1] Schenectady, founded by 17th-century Dutch settlers as a trading outpost to deal with the Iroquois tribes to the west, remained a small riverside village not much larger than the present Stockade District for the years after the Revolution.

[1] The growth this spurred began to follow the toll road that is today Union Street, which at the time connected Schenectady with Watervliet and Troy to the east.

Started when Thomas Edison moved his machine works to Schenectady in 1886, the company grew into the leading manufacturer of electric appliances by the 20th century.