Saratoga Springs Real Estate
The Town of Saratoga Springs was set apart from the Town of Saratoga in 1819. In 1826, it was incorporated as a village. On December 28, 1871, our Town Hall, designed by architects Cummings & Burt Associates at a cost of $109,999.46, opened to the public. The lions were added upon the buildings completion. In 1915 the Village and Town of Saratoga Springs were incorporated to form the City of Saratoga Springs.
Today’s City is over 28 square miles and has a year-round population of approximately 28,000. During the summer season, that number swells to over triple.
The City of Saratoga Springs’ has a commission form of government, also called the ‘Galveston Plan. This form was created in Galveston, Texas in 1901, as a result of a devastating hurricane in 1900. There are five at-large City Council members, all responsible for taxation, appropriations, ordinances, and other general functions. However, each Commissioner also has individual functions as the head of and specific to their respective departments. The five departments are Mayor, Finance, Accounts, Public Works and Public Safety. More information about each can be found by clicking on the ‘Local Government’ tab.
In 1863, Saratoga Race Course opened, moving to its current location the following year. Horse racing and its associated betting greatly increased the city’s attraction as a tourist destination at a time when horse racing was a popular national spectator sport. In addition, the Saratoga Springs area was known for its gambling, which after the first years of the 20th century was illegal, but still widespread. Most gambling facilities were located on Saratoga Lake, on the southeast side of the city.
During the 1950s, the state and city closed the famed gambling houses in a crackdown on illegal gambling. The closing and demolition in 1950s of some premier hotels, including the Grand Union and United States left Saratoga Springs damaged as a destination.
The city started to prosper again in the 1960s with the completion of the Adirondack Northway (Interstate 87), which allowed visitors from the north and south much easier access. In addition, the construction of the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in the late 1960s, which features classical and popular music and dance, furthered the city’s renaissance. The New York City Ballet and the Philadelphia Orchestra have summer residencies there, together with other high-quality dance groups and musicians. Since the early 1990s, there has been a boom of building, both residential and retail, in the west side and downtown areas of the city.
The Saratoga Performing Arts Center (known by its acronym “SPAC”) is a covered outdoor amphitheater located on the grounds of the Saratoga Spa State Park , with a capacity of 5,000 in reserved seating and 20,000+ on its general admission lawn area. SPAC is the summer home of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York City Ballet , and has hosted a weekend-long jazz festival since 1978. Since 2006, the Saratoga Native American Festival has been held on SPAC grounds each fall. SPAC is a stop for touring national recording artists: over 20 popular bands grace the stage every summer. Steps away on State Park grounds, the Spa Little Theater hosts the “Home Made Theater” as well as Opera Saratoga (formerly known as the Lake George Opera) during the summer.
Museums in the area include the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame , the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame , and the Saratoga Automobile Museum . There are more than 20 golf courses in the area. The city is notable for its vibrant night life. Caffè Lena was one of the first venues in the Eastern US at which Bob Dylan performed in 1961. Arlo Guthrie played at Caffè Lena early in his career and has returned for occasional benefit concerts, and the singer Don McLean was a frequent performer there early in his career. (Contrary to a popular legend, McLean has stated that his song “American Pie ” was not composed at a table in the Tin & Lint, a bar on Caroline Street.) Numerous other establishments are located on Broadway, Caroline Street (the Hamilton district), and the redeveloped Putnam Street.
Recently, Beekman Street (four blocks West of Broadway), once the center of a working-class residential neighborhood, has become an art district, housing four galleries, a restaurant, a pub and teahouse, and a bistro. Artists live and work in co-ops and arrange social events. While some take credit for “revitalizing” a “deteriorating” area, others consider such declarations an insult to the generations of minority and marginalized ethnicities who worked in the service jobs of the tourism economy, and were traditionally segregated to this once-remote quarter.
Saratoga Springs is home to Yaddo , a 400-acre artists’ community, founded by Wall Street financier Spencer Trask and his wife, author Katrina Trask . Since its inception in 1900, Yaddo has hosted 68 authors who later won the Pulitzer Prize and one Nobel Prize winner, Saul Bellow . Leonard Bernstein , Truman Capote , Aaron Copland , Sylvia Plath , and David Sedaris have all been artists-in-residence.The Yaddo grounds are adjacent to the backstretch of the Saratoga Race Course.
Saratoga’s New Year’s celebration First Night Saratoga is the largest New Year’s Eve event in New York outside of New York City.
Empire State College and Skidmore College are both located in Saratoga Springs; Verrazzano College (1969-1975) was also located there. During the summer, Skidmore is one of several hosts for the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth . Eastern Nazarene College , located in Quincy, Massachusetts , was founded in Saratoga Springs as the Pentecostal Collegiate Institute and Biblical Seminary at the turn of the 20th century.
The Saratoga Springs City School District is made up of: Six elementary schools (kindergarten through grade five) – Lake Avenue, Caroline Street, Division Street and Geyser Road in the City of Saratoga Springs; Greenfield in the Town of Greenfield; and Dorothy Nolan in the Town of Wilton One middle school (grades six through eight) – Maple Avenue Middle School in the Town of Greenfield One high school (grades nine through twelve) – Saratoga Springs High School located on the West side on Blue Streak Boulevard in the City of Saratoga Springs.
Private schools in Saratoga Springs include Saratoga Central Catholic High School , St. Clement’s Regional Catholic School, The Waldorf School of Saratoga Springs, and Saratoga Independent School.
Ballston Spa
Burnt Hills/Ballston Lake
Malta
Charlton
Milton
Greenfield Center
Saratoga Springs City
Wilton Town
Gansevoort
Saratoga Lake
Burgoyne Estates
Downtown
Downtown Saratoga Springs
Winding Brook Estates
Saratoga Pointe
Rolling Green Estates
Beaver Pond Village
Schuyler Pointe
Saratoga Springs
Louden Ridge
Oak Ridge
Meadowbrook
Homestead Estates
Geyser Crest
Saratoga Town
Pine Brook Landing
Huntington Ridge