To the Editor:

On Monday night, I attended an Albany Common Council public hearing on an ordinance to change the zoning of Sandidge Way (formerly Loughlin Street) from a single family low-density residential district to a multifamily high-rise residential district.  

The cast of characters involved in this veritable rogues gallery includes, but is not limited to, Alain Kaloyeros, SUNY Poly, Columbia Development, and Dawn Homes.  The single-family houses on the street are currently “slated for demolition.”  My interest in this was initially due to my living on the next street and the effects demolition and a year and a half of construction would have on my and my neighbors' quality of life and health.  It is about more now.  

When the street was renamed Sandidge Way, ostensibly to honor the Sandidges, I started looking into who they were.  In 1961, when Jesse and Teresa Sandidge wanted to buy a home in Guilderland, they were not only not welcomed, but among other things, teenagers chanted, “Not for sale…not for sale.”

They ended up on Loughlin Street.  Some white people left and other black families moved in.  However, some white families stayed.  Loughlin Street became something that was very rare in the 1960s: a harmoniously integrated community.

The Sandidges are an important and treasured part of local black history.  Unfortunately, black history is often obliterated.  In this case, the obliteration will be by physical destruction.  Changing a street name while bulldozing the houses on it is not honoring the Sandidges.  It is dishonoring them.  Their history matters.  Black history matters.

Carol Waterman

Guilderland

Editor’s note: See related story.