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. 9In 1978 an Albany Knickerbocker News article titled How to Make$1 Million in the Pine Bush discussed the probable developmentof the Pine Bush area. In retrospect, it seems almost inevitablethat the Pine Bush, Albany s last frontier, would attract this kind ofattention.For developers, the area certainly represented a source ofquicker profits than could be realized by rehabilitating a decayinginner city. 10WASHINGTON AVENUE EXTENSIONThe next major change that affected the Pine Bush and the RappRoad community was the building of the Washington AvenueExtension, built in 1971.This four-lane road, which runs fromKarner Road in Colonie to Fuller Road where it joins the oldersection of Washington Avenue, is approximately three miles long.This road opened up the entire area to new development.Stores,office buildings, condominiums, and nursing homes moved in.Thenew road cut across the Rapp Road community separating the twomost northern homes, owned by Joshua Burney and William andGladys Robinson, from the rest of the community.William andLibbie Toliver s house sat in the middle of where the WashingtonAvenue Extension is today.State officials told them they had twooptions: sell it, or move it.The Tolivers opted for the latter; thestate came and moved their house south about one hundred yards.It now sits on the end of Rapp Road, house number 8.11The new road through the community brought the firstdevelopment to the Pine Bush area.In a newspaper article, RappRoad resident Emma Dickson told the Knickerbocker News, Wenever had any traffic down this road.There were no strangers herebecause the road was a dead end.It didn t go anywhere.Since theybuilt Washington Avenue and all those nursing homes, traffic down CHANGE COMES TO RAPP ROAD 93this street has tripled. 12 Motorists use Rapp Road as a cut-acrossbetween Western Avenue and Washington Avenue Extension.To help the community cope with noise pollution fromWashington Avenue Extension, the state planted a single line oftall pine trees behind the houses that sit on the Frontage Road.(Frontage Road was created as an access road to WashingtonAvenue Extension.) Rapp Road residents claim that the singlerow of pine trees does not buffer out the noise from WashingtonAvenue Extension.If fact, residents say that on summer nightsthey can hear traffic from Washington Avenue Extension, the NewYork State Thruway, and I-87.13With the new development came people who had no ideathere was a black community living in the middle of the PineBush.Resident Emma Dickson remembers the public s reaction. When Washington Avenue Extension went in, people would goby and look in awe and think they must be lost.I wonder whatthey [all these black families] are doing way out here in the woods?And they re just driving by looking at us all strange.The samething still happens today.People who don t know we re out here,or don t normally go out here.If they see one person of colorout on their lawn, they think OK, but as they go down the road,more than likely they are going to see more African Americansoutside working on their lawn.Then they really start driving veryslowly.It surprises many people to see an African Americancommunity outside the city of Albany. 14 In addition to thecommercial development from the Washington Avenue Extensionthere was the emergence of vandalism.Vandals hit the communityseveral times ripping down resident s mailboxes, as well as streetand traffic signs.15 Also several times in the late 1970s and 1980s,carloads of teenagers drove through the community yelling racistslurs at community members.16 Commenting on the situation in anewspaper article, Emma Dickson said, change doesn t come easyin the Holy Land [Rapp Road community s residential nickname], 94 SOUTHERN LIFE, NORTHERN CITYneighborhood residents are quiet churchgoing people.They don tbother anybody and they don t want anybody to bother them. 17PYRAMID CROSSGATES CORPORATIONThe greatest threat to the Rapp Road community came in thelate 1970s with the Pyramid Crossgates Corporation shoppingmall.The Pyramid Crossgates Company was a subsidiary of thePyramid Corporation that was based in Syracuse, New York.The corporation had built several malls throughout UpstateNew York, in Ithaca, Cortland, Syracuse, Utica, Glens Falls, andSaratoga County.18 The company decided upon the Pine Busharea after seeing aerial photographs of the area.Clemmie Harris,a graduate student who investigated the environmental impact ofthe Crossgates mall wrote, The aerial photographs identified anideal location to Sproul [Robert Sproul, a former member of thePyramid Crossgates Company development firm] on which to buildthe mall.He saw approximately 170 acres of undeveloped land justsouth of the New York State Thruway; north of Western Avenue(a main thoroughfare between the jurisdiction of Guilderland andAlbany) and west of the Northway (I-87).This location made thePine Bush accessible to highway travelers. 19 Furthermore, oneof Crossgates business partners, Bruce Kenan, already owned ahundred acres of land in the Pine Bush.20In 1981 the Knickerbocker News published an article titled, Blacks Fear Crossgates Mall Will Mean Change for HolyLand. In the article, Emma Dickson served as the communityspokesperson.She said, The people out here [on Rapp Road] don twant trouble.They never put up a fuss because, so far, all thedevelopment s been over on Washington Avenue
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