Rapp Road Community Historic District
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Rapp Road Community Historic District
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Front elevations, 67 and 68 Rapp Road, 2012
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| Location | Albany, NY |
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| Coordinates | 42°41′46″N 73°51′12″W / 42.69611°N 73.85333°WCoordinates: 42°41′46″N 73°51′12″W / 42.69611°N 73.85333°W |
| Area | 14 acres (5.7 ha) |
| Built | 1930 |
| Architectural style | Bungalow/Craftsman |
| NRHP reference # | 02001620 |
| Added to NRHP | December 27, 2002 |
The Rapp Road Community Historic District is located in the Pine Bush area of Albany, New York. It is a 14-acre (5.7 ha) residential neighborhood. In 2002 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
It was established in the 1920s by Rev. Louis W. Parson, an African American minister, and his wife, who had moved north from Mississippi in the Great Migration out of the rural South to industrial cities, originally settling in Albany's South End. He was followed by other members of his . Neither he nor they liked urban life much, and eventually he bought the land along Rapp Road where they all moved.
Half of the original purchase was taken by the state for road projects in the 1970s. The remaining half, today's historic district, has many of the original buildings. Most of the original families' descendants still live there. It is a rare intact example of a chain migration community from the Great Migration, although many such communities formed in northern cities.
Rapp Road is located in the long, narrow western protrusion of Albany known as the Pine Bush. The portion of the street on which the district is located lies between Pine Lane and the South Frontage Road of Washington Avenue Extension. It is just north of the boundary between the city and the Town of Guilderland.
To the southeast is Crossgates Mall. Wooded lands on the east and west serve as a buffer between the historic district and the mall and various other commercial and office developments in those directions. It is isolated from any other residential neighborhoods by Interstates 87 and 90, both part of the New York State Thruway, to the north and east. The land is generally level.
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