The Arts Center of the Capital Region was founded in 1962, as the Rensselaer County Council on the Arts, at the invitation of the New York State Council on the Arts. Our first priority was to promote the arts throughout the region. In 1963, with the help of the Junior League, RCCA organized its first big event – Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic at RPI fieldhouse for area children.
We built support quickly, and just three years later, seven families personally secured our first mortgage to purchase a building on Troy’s Washington Park. By 1965 we were …