 Hartford's Upper Albany neighborhood is a large residential area extending on either side of Albany Avenue, one of the city's major traffic arteries, which runs through the center of the Upper Albany Historic District in a northwest-southeast direction and connects the area to downtown Hartford.Upper Albany is characterized almost exclusively by large, two-family frame houses built in the first two decades of the 20th century, when the area was developed as middle-class housing in the Queen Anne and Colonial Revival styles.Prior to the 1890s the land which is included in the Upper Albany Historic District was occupied by family farms or by large estates associated with some of Hartford's leading families; it was mostly open.