TROY

Rensselaer Park

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Michigan-based developers John J. Nyhoff and Alfred Howell, who came to Troy in 1919 ①, would create seven subdivisions in Rensselaer and Albany counties and routinely included racial covenants in deeds for lots in those subdivisions.

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​Nyhoff & Howell began advertising lots for sale in their first Troy subdivision, Rensselaer Park -- located in the City of Troy -- in May 1919 ②.  The first section of the development consisted of 122 lots on Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Avenues and Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Streets ③.  Lots in Section Two went on sale in June 1919 ④, and a third section extended from Ninth Avenue along Eight, Ninth, and Tenth Streets to the Boston and Maine Railroad (B&M) Railroad, with an additional 221 lots, including some on Tenth Avenue ⑤.  

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John J. Nyhoff and Alfred L. Howell transferred a deed for lot #116 on Seventh Avenue in the Rensselaer Park subdivision in 1919 that included the following racial restrictive covenant:

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Highland Park -- MORE TO COME

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Highland Park Heights

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​The opening of Highland Park Heights was announced in November 1919.  The subdivision was located in the Sycaway section of Troy on the north side of Hoosick Street, and included Roselawn, Cloverlawn, Granview, Meadowlawn, and Valley View Avenues.  61 lots were laid out on the plat map.

 

The following racial covenant was included in deed for lot #37 in the Highland Park Heights subdivision, which John J. Nyhoff transferred in 1932: 

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​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Burdette Heights

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In 1920, Nyhoff and Howell offered readers of The Troy Times "Five Good Reasons" to consider purchasing a building lot in Burdette Heights:

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Two of the five reasons proved to be true.  The Ford Motor Company would open a plant in 1923 in nearby Green Island, New York, where approximately 900 workers manufactured radiators and heater cores ⑥.  The subdivision was also restricted such that only Caucasians could own or occupy lots there, as illustrated by the following racial covenant found in the 1931 deed for lot #10 in Burdette Park signed by John J. Nyhoff: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The subdivision was located in Troy at the corner of Hoosick Street and Burdette Avenue and contained 64 lots on Burdette Avenue, Burdette Court, and Detroit and Michigan Avenues.

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Morningside Park

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Nyhoff & Howell submitted plat maps for Morningside Park in 1920 (Section “A”) and 1921 (Section "B").  The “highly restricted residential site” was developed on 50 acres of the former Betts farm in Sycaway ⑦ and would include 134 lots on 22nd, 23rd, and 24th Streets, with 13 lots fronting on Hoosick Street. The map of Section "A" contained the text that includes the highlighted racial covenant:

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Hampton Manor

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Hampton Manor, located in neighboring East Greenbush, was developed by H.G. Veeder Realty in three phases, beginning in 1925.  Advertised as a "purely American neighborhood ⑧," Veeder Realty made clear that it did not intend to welcome everyone to the neighborhood: "The most important thing about any residential section is the kind of people you are going to live with. RESTRICTIONS give HAMPTON MANOR residents the greatest protection possible. We absolutely refuse to sell to any but desirable people.  Every prospect must measure up to our best American standards, or he cannot buy a HAMPTON MANOR lot if he offers a million. You will find that your neighbors are the kind of people you like-friendly neighborly and worthy of your friendship and confidence. Anybody can live anywhere in the city, but not in Hampton Manor!”

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Hampton Manor was built on 187 acres purchased from the McCulloch Family.  The subdivision included Hampton Lake, a 14-acre lake that Veeder created in 1926 by damming the Vers Water Vly brook ⑨, and which supplied spring water to each of the 1506 lots.  More than 600 homes had been built in the subdivision by the 1950s ⑩.

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Section One consisted of 506 lots on Ontario, St. Claire, Western, Genesee, Hampton, Mohawk, Hudson, Washington, Madison, Spring, Maryland, Delaware, and Southern Avenues, Lake Shore Drive, and frontage along Columbia Turnpike.  Section Two added another 601 lots on Pinehurst, Tampa and Park Avenues, Hudson, Washington, Madison, Spring, and Maryland Avenues East, and McCulloch Place.  Section Three included 399 lots on cross streets Waverly, Summit, and Hampton Avenues, and Hudson, Washington, Madison, Spring, and Maryland Avenues East running between Summit and Eastern Avenues.

 

Unsurprisingly, deeds in Hampton Manor contained racial covenants barring both non-citizens and Blacks, as illustrated in the example below, which transferred a lot from Harold G. Veeder to Hebert J. Winterborne:

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Sherwood Park

 

Beginning in 1925, Corliss Realty of St. Albans, Vermont, built several developments in and around Troy.  The first was Sherwood Park in East Greenbush, located “3 miles out on Albany-East Greenbush concrete road…. Up in the Rensselaer Highlands ⑪.”  Section One had 433 lots on Hauser, Maine, Vermont, Michigan, Wisconsin, Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Corliss, Cooper, and Philips Avenues, and along the Boston-Albany Turnpike.  Section Two added 624 lots on Utah, Ohio, Iowa, Maryland, Florida, California, Minnesota, Delaware, Maine, Cooper, Corliss, Start, and Hauser Avenues.  Some of the streets (such as Vermont, now Oregon, and Utah, Ohio, and Iowa, now Michelle Drive and Denise and Georgia Courts) have since been renamed.  It is notable that lots #434-655 do not appear on either of the two sections' plat maps.

 

As was typical for Corliss subdivisions across Upstate New York, Sherwood Park was advertised as "For Americans Only, ⑫" "Restricted to Americans Only, ⑬" and "A Strictly American Neighborhood ⑭."  

 

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In 1927, a deed was transferred for a lot in Sherwood Park that was signed by Bruce R. Corliss, President of Corliss Realty, and contained the company's familiar nativist and racial restrictive covenant:

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Herrington Heights

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Corliss Realty next built an extension of Sherwood Park in 1925 which he named Herrington Heights.  350 lots were created on Pittsfield, Brook, Terrace, Meadow, Hill, Greensbush, Sylvan, Maple, Utica, and Herrington Avenues.  Newspaper advertisements in both The Times-Union and The Knickerbocker Press declared Herrington Heights to be a "Strictly American neighborhood for Americans Only ⑮."

 

 

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Bruce R. Corliss transferred a deed for a lots #45 and 46 in the Herrington Heights subdivision in 1929 that included the standard company racial covenant:

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​​​Van Allen Park & Clinton Park

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Corliss Realty also developed Van Allen Park (mostly in North Greenbush) and Clinton Park (in East Greenbush) in 1926.  These development are notable for two reasons.  First, Bruce Corliss unfortunately used many of the same street names in Van Allen Park as in Sherwood Park in East Greenbush -- including Delaware, Maryland, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Missouri, Florida, California, and Minnesota Avenues -- which is reported to have "created decades of address confusion ⑯."

 

Second, curiously no evidence has yet been found of the use of racial covenants in either of the two subdivisions, despite at least one newspaper advertisement shown below describing Van Allen Park as "Restricted to Americans Only" :

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​Belmont Addition

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In 1926, N.P. Dodge purchased the Alfie Koon farm ⑰ in the Hamlet of Wynantskill, located in the Town of North Greenbush, where the company would develop its Belmont Addition.  Newspaper advertisements sought to attract homebuyers with promises of "Good schools, good stores, and churches right at the edge of the property, and city bus service..⑱,” as well as a community "restricted to white people for all time ⑲."

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The subdivision straddled the Troy & New England Railroad line and included 322 lots on Belmont, Marion, Twist, Russell, Hidley, Cook, Barringer Avenues, Fairfax, Powell, Kinney, Front, Koon Streets, West Sand Lake Road, and Creek Lane.​​

 

Nathan Phillips (N.P.) Dodge, President of the N.P. Dodge Corporation, transferred a deed for lots #136 and 137 in the Belmont Addition in 1941 that included the following racial restrictive covenant:

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Fairfax Addition

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70 acres of the Mollie Twiss farm in Wynantskill were purchased by N.P. Dodge in 1927 where the Fairfax Addition would be sited ⑳.  Located on a hill and accessible from a highway, this new subdivision promised "a magnificent view of the Berkshires," and -- thanks to innovations such as the ability of wage-earners to afford a car by making monthly payments, the expansion of bus lines, and the neighborhood store -- the N.P. Dodge Corporation predicted that living in the suburbs would become attractive and affordable to "people of moderate means" and accelerate both the building of homes and the trend of leaving the apartments and tenements of the cities for "the small house and large lot in the suburbs ㉑."

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Of course, this trend would not be available to African Americans who wished to move to subdivisions developed by N.P. Dodge​, due to the company's extensive use of racial covenants to ensure that their developments were for whites only.  The Fairfax Addition was no exception, with lots in subdivision advertised in The Troy Times in May of that year as "restricted to white people for all time ㉒."

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A deed for a lot in the Fairfax Addition signed by Nathan Phillips (N.P.) Dodge in 1931 included the following racial restrictive covenant:

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​Albany Country Estates

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John J. Nyhoff subdivided another tract of land in East Greenbush in 1929 to form Albany Country Estates.  The development had 267 lots divided into eleven blocks along Park, Berkshire, Highland, Point View, Oakwood, Elmwood, Pinewood, and Greenbush Drives, and Ridge Boulevard (now Birchwood Drive).  132 lots had frontage directly on a planned adjacent golf course and all lot owners and residents were promised membership in the country club ㉓.  A 1938 Times-Union article mentions the adjacent Van Rensselaer Country Club ㉔, but no such golf course exists next to the subdivision today.

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John J. Nyhoff, transferred a deed for a Lot #6 and one-half of Lot #5 in Section “I” of the subdivision in1932 that included the following racial restrictive covenant:

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​West Woods Camp Sites, Burden Lake

 

Despite there being classified ads in the late 1930s referencing lots in a restricted residential park at Burden Lake (including a "Christian, residential park" ㉕), no ​​information directly related to Thomas O'Connor's West Woods Camp Sites appears to have been preserved in online newspaper archives.  The 1936 plat map of Section #2 delineates 8 lakefront building lots on Helenwood Drive in the Town of Nassau (approximately 12 miles southeast of Troy) along the western shore of Burden Lake.  Deeds for the lots contained the following racial covenant:

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​Point View Park

 

John J., Nyhoff, 1939.  Nyhoff's home was located at 20 Point View Drive, in East Greenbush, NY.  MORE TO COME

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Rosedale Park

 

Rosedale Park included # lots on Tibbetts, Euclid, and Rankin Avenues, Trubel Place, and Carry Court, and fronting on Lake Avenue in the City of Troy.  John J. & Clara A. Nyhoff and Alfred L. & Marie K. Howell, transferred a deed in the Rosedale Park subdivision that included the following racial restrictive covenant:

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①  The Troy Times, April 6, 1928, p. 9.  Accessed via fultonhistory.com

②   The Troy Times, May 29, 1919, p. 6.  Accessed via fultonhistory.com

③   “Map Showing Subdivision of a portion of Rensselaer Park, Troy, N.Y.”, 1919 (Drawer 28, Map 11, Office of the Rensselaer County Clerk, Rensselaer County, NY).

④  The Cohoes Republican, 27 June 1919, Page 3.  Accessed via nyshistoricnewspapers.org

⑤  “Map Showing Subdivision of a portion of Rensselaer Park, Troy, N.Y. Addition No. 3”, 1919 (Drawer 28, Map 12, Office of the Rensselaer County Clerk, Rensselaer County, NY).

⑥  https://villageofgreenisland.com/history

⑦  The Troy Times, Oct. 18, 1920, p. 9.  Accessed via fultonhistory.com

⑧  The Courier (Chatham, NY), 1925, p. unknown.  Accessed via fultonhistory.com

⑨  East Greenbush Conservation Advisory Council (May 2023), Hampton Manor Lake Assessment, [https://cms2.revize.com/

revize/eastgreenbushny/Documents/Boards%20&%20Committees/Conservation%20Advisory%20Council/Hampton_Manor_Lake_Assessment_May_2023.pdf]

⑩  https://hudsongreenway.ny.gov/system/files/documents/2021/05/5-hampton-manor-east-greenbush.pdf

⑪  Times-Union (Albany, NY), June 6, 1925,  p. 20.  Accessed via fultonhistory.com

⑫  Times-Union (Albany), May 8, 1926, p. 15.  Accessed via fultonhistory.com

⑬  Ibid.

⑭  Times-Union (Albany, NY), June 6, 1925,  p. 20.  Accessed via fultonhistory.com

⑮  The Knickerbocker Press (Albany, NY), November 1, 1925, p. 9.  Accessed via fultonhistory.com

⑯  Bath-On-Hudson (Rensselaer, NY): Van Allen Park.  Accessed via http://bathonhudson.blogspot.com/2011/09/van-allen-park.html#:~:text=In%201926%2C%20Elizabeth%20sold%20the%20land%20for,of%20Corliss%20Realty%2C%20Inc.%2C%20St.%20Alban's%2C%20VT.  

⑰  The Troy Times (Troy, N. Y.) undated, circa 1927.  Accessed via fultonhistory.com

⑱  The Troy Times (Troy, N. Y.), June 7, 1930, p. 16  Accessed via fultonhistory.com

⑲  Cohoes American (Cohoes, NY), Sat., June 19, 1926, p. unknown. Accessed via fultonhistory.com

⑳  The Troy Times (Troy, N. Y.) undated, circa 1927  Accessed via fultonhistory.com

㉑  Ibid.

㉒  The Troy Times (Troy, NY), Sat, May 21, 1927, p. 9.  Accessed via fultonhistory.com

㉓  Times-Union (Albany, NY), April 30, 1933, p. 6-A.  Accessed via fultonhistory.com

㉔  Times-Union (Albany, NY), April 17, 1938, p. 8-B.  Accessed via fultonhistory.com

㉕  The Times Record (Troy, NY), August 5, 1939, p. 15.  Accessed via fultonhistory.com

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© SEPTEMBER 2026.