Nestled away in Albany’s Pine Bush, a stone’s throw from Crossgates Mall, the historic Rapp Road community is a treasure-chest of local history.
The 14-acre residential neighborhood traces its roots back to the “Great Migration.” Reverend Louis Parson was one of many of its original residents who came north from Shubuta, Mississippi, in the 1930s and 1940s .
Beverly Bardequez of the Rapp Road Historical Association says Parson arrived in the Capital Region intent on attending a revival. “And he hooked up with three women who had a prayer circle. And with these three women, they started a storefront church down in the South End. And he wanted to grow his church. He was a young man and he had worked for a lumber company and he got injured. And as a result of that injury he ended up having a rather large settlement.”
Bardequez says Parson realized it wasn’t a good idea for a black man with a large amount of money to remain in Mississippi. “So he and his wife Frances headed to Cleveland, Ohio. He had a sister that lived there. And they went to Cleveland. He didn’t like Cleveland. So he told Frances, he said ‘Frances let’s just keep heading east,’ and he ended up at this revival. It was at the Union Missionary Baptist Church down on Morton Avenue, which is still there. And that is where our church was established, as a result of that revival. Our church is now known as Wilborn Temple.”
The Parsons settled down. Bardequez, a third generation Rapp Road resident, says Louis and another man, William Tolliver, put their money together and bought what is now the Rapp Road community from a farmer for $400. They began parceling out the land, offering it to migrants living in downtown Albany. “Some of them were not satisfied and weren’t comfortable with living in the South End. There were a lot of gambling, a lot of bars and brothels in the area at that time. And these were a church faith-based group, and it wasn’t conducive to where they wanted to raise their families. So some of them opted to move back to Mississippi. In an effort to keep his parishoners here because he was trying to grow his church, he decided he needed to find a place where they felt comfortable. The irony of it is that where they settled in the Pine Bush on Rapp Road, looked just like where they had come from in Mississippi.”
Between 1942 and 1963 they built dirt roads, 22 modest new houses and new lives.
From time to time developers have made bids for Rapp Road land. Some of it was taken to be used for a roadway in the early 1970s. Stephanie Woodard is one of the trustees of the Rapp Road Historical Association. “One of the houses that we show during our walking tours, which we have generally in the fall, was actually moved when they developed the Washington Avenue Extension. So it was originally on the side of where Home Depot was. So people who lived along that side who were all part of the great migration, they were asked, you know, through eminent domain, ‘you can either have your house torn down and we will pay you or you can have your house moved.’ One family decided to have their house moved to be closer to what we now consider the Rapp Road Historical District. The significance of this house was this was once the prayer house for the women of Rapp Road. So when people came from the South to the North they were very, very, very religious, and they couldn’t get to church, which was located in the South End of Albany, so one of the homeowners opened their houses to daily prayer in the afternoon. And if the house was demolished they would have to decide which other house would be available for daily prayer, and they actually had their house moved.”
In 2002 the district was listed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places. In 2017 the neighborhood was listed among “Seven to Save” endangered places by the Preservation League of New York State.
The Historical Association has been working to establish a cultural center.
Woodard and Bardequez say that to this day, residents take care of each other, and those who still live there work to keep their chunk of Rapp Road intact, rising to the occasion to attend public meetings and fight for the community whenever the word “development” is whispered. They’ll likely appear at Wednesday night’s scheduled Guilderland Town Board Meeting where town officials will look at plans Crossgates Mall is submitting to build a 222-apartment residential complex on 20 acres of land it owns near Rapp Road. The locals fear it will worsen an already difficult rush hour traffic flow along Rapp Road.
