The Riverside Club and Freihofer Bakery stand on the bank of the Hudson in Troy's Lansingburgh section, the oldest village in America and onetime home of Herman Melville.
The bakery, built in 1913, employed generations of Trojans. Built in 1895, the shingle-style Riverside Club was once the scene of bowling and boating parties.
TheTroy History Action Network has waged a seven year crusade to preserve the bakery and club. Preservationists seemed to suffer a crushing defeat on May 13, 2005, when the Troy Planning Commission declined to recommend that the City Council recognize the buildings to be landmarks. On the next day, the buildings' owner, a subsidiary of the George Weston Company, filed for a demolition