St. Vincent’s Male Orphan Asylum (LaSalle School)

Founded in 1854 amidst a wave of cholera deaths, St. Vincent’s Male Orphan Asylum provided a home, an education, and vocational training to orphaned and abandoned boys. (A sister facility, for girls, was at 106 Elm Street.) Its founder was John McCloskey, at that time bishop of Albany and later the first American cardinal. To raise funds to support the orphanage, a paying school was founded elsewhere in Albany; today, we know it as Christian Brothers Academy.

The orphanage added buildings over the years to accommodate as many as 350 boys in its care. The oldest buildings you see here date from the first decade of the twentieth century.

In the 1920s, the facility changed its name to LaSalle School. And though it is no longer an orphanage, LaSalle still holds to its mission of helping boys through difficult times: It is now a residential and outpatient treatment center.