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I said fine, I just want youto know all the possibilities here.I sat down with them all at ameeting at Emma s [Dickson] home.58When asked in a newspaper article why he should do whatever hecould to protect the Rapp Road community, first-generation RappRoad resident Alfred Woodard said, This [Rapp Road] has beenvery good to me. 59 As of 2004, the Pyramid Crossgates Companyowned five lots in the Rapp Road community; they are 7 Rapp Road,13 Rapp Road, 62 Rapp Road, 66 Rapp Road, and 70 Rapp Road.County Legislator Commisso had a plan for the communityif the mall expanded.He proposed changing Rapp Road at PineLane to a one-way road going back to Western Avenue.60 Thiswould route commuters away from the community and theywould have to drive all the way around to get to either WashingtonAvenue or Western Avenue.Commisso felt that the community, atthat point, had put up with developers long enough.61Ultimately the expansion of the Crossgates mall nevermaterialized because in 1999 Guilderland zoning laws squashedthe project; town laws limited malls to one million square feet.62Furthermore, plans were widely protested by both Albany andGuilderland residents who feared the larger mall would createmany problems.Yet Rapp Road members did not breathe a sighof relief when the Crossgates mall cancelled its expansion plansand even began selling off its Pine Bush property in 2001.63 Manyresidents still felt that another commercial developer could comealong with plans to buy out the black community.As a result of the commercial development all around theRapp Road community, the residents have acquired a type of siege 104 SOUTHERN LIFE, NORTHERN CITYmentality toward outsiders snooping around their area.On severaloccasions land developers and surveyors appeared on residentsland and took photographs and measurements without permissionfrom the landowners.A neighborhood watch was established andif any stranger showed up in the community for any reason theywere soon questioned and asked to leave.By 2000, development around the Rapp Road communityseemed to be at a standstill.Although Washington Avenue Extensionand Crossgates Commons were visible from the community, tallpine trees and other vegetation blocked sight of the Crossgates mall.This was only true in daylight hours, because at night Crossgatesparking lot lights lighted up the Rapp Road community.Despiteall this, the community was still intact and thriving.Second-and third-generation members moved back to Rapp Road andrefurbished the homes they grew up in.Community members wereaware of what they had almost lost and began seriously thinkingabout how to stop another land grab.Community member EmmaDickson felt that a historic district designation could help preserveher community for the future. CHAPTER 5 I Needed to Let PeopleKnow the CommunityWas Here From a historic standpoint [the Rapp Road community] is kind of funny.I remember the first time I ever actually drove through it.I got out ofthe car and walked it.It was the first time I was convinced that thisreally was an important place.Which is kind of funny because I readyour text [the research paper the book developed from] and I read otheraccounts and still had a lot of trepidation that this was something I couldnot sell [to the New York State Board for Historic Preservation].WhenI actually walked it, there is a feeling back there it s palpable.Whenyou get out of the car and begin walking the roads, you really get asense that this place is very foreign from the rest of the city of Albany,Colonie, and the region.There is a sense in the set back, in the waythe houses are designed, in their scale, in their orientation it s a dif-ferent place.I think that becomes the real character-defining feature forthat community.From a historic standpoint that is the most importantthing about Rapp Road. John Bonafide, New York State Historic Preservation ServicesCoordinator, in a 24 February 2004 interview with the authorThe Rapp Road community withstood the Pine Bush land grab,the development of Washington Avenue Extension, the Crossgatesmall, and Crossgates Commons.Residents knew that they werevulnerable targets for future developers and commercialization.To105 106 SOUTHERN LIFE, NORTHERN CITYhelp her neighborhood, community leader Emma Dickson turnedto public history to help document, preserve, and ultimately savethe Rapp Road community from outside forces.Historically, the application of African American historyarose out of the desire to promote a positive racial identity amongblacks, to challenge racist stereotypes, and to preserve a history indanger of being lost.1 African American history served the needsof the black community by acting as its cultural defender anddebating the merits of integration and separation.Furthermore,this type of history tended to prosper during times of social changewhen African Americans found history as a means of copingwith social upheaval.In the case of the Rapp Road community,the application of public history practices in the form of a historicdistrict designation served as a vehicle to promote, preserve, andprotect this African American community.In 1997 the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, andHistoric Preservation published the Guide to the Survey of HistoricalResources Associated with African Americans in New York Statebecause African American historic sites were underrepresented inthe state
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