In 1867, when Lodge’s first opened, Albany had no shortage of department stores downtown.  Today, Lodge’s is Albany’s oldest retail store.  The Woolworth’s that once occupied the building out of which the chain restaurant-bar Jillian’s now does business has long since moved out of downtown, and more recently gone out of business entirely. But years later Lodge’s exists as a thriving family-run business in the heart of the city.

When it came time to upgrade the 1855 five-bay gable-roofed townhouse that was converted to a store in the 1890s—the building Lodge’s has called home for the past several decades—the owner took particular care to “Make sure everything was in keeping.”  Additionally, a decision was made that with the aid of a Downtown Development Grant the four storefronts on the Columbia Street side of 75 North Pearl Street would also be restored and put into active use for the first time since 1970.  Today all the shops are rented, and a barbershop just opened in the small Columbia Street storefront where one had been when all of the shops were converted to additional display windows for Lodge’s over thirty years ago.