To the Editor:

The two recent letters to this newspaper (Sept. 10, 2020) by Don Csaposs and Steve Wacksman encourage me to extend the comments I made about the Pyramid/Crossgates development. (See the Sept. 3, 2020 letter to The Altamont Enterprise.)

Of course I want the Pine Bush to be protected (I am a long-term member of Save the Pine Bush and have been an invited speaker at their meetings) as well as the interests of those living in the dozen remaining homes now surrounded by the proposed Pyramid/Crossgates developments as well as the interests of others in the region.

However, in my letter it is the historic and black community on Rapp Road that drew my attention. It is small, a Black community, therefore a minority community, it is located on a narrow residential road not suitable for a large number of cars, it is historic and it was seriously injured by the road network that was created for Pyramid.

The community was created by Blacks who escaped many decades ago from sharecropping in Mississippi. Its history is unusual and important, just as the history of the Underground Railroad is unusual and important. It is a living neighborhood and a historical neighborhood.

But adding my voice in support of the Rapp Road community’s interests does not make me blind to the large negative impact that the proposed development would have on the Pine Bush and the Rapp Road community.

The negative impacts of the proposed Pyramid development will be made much worse if the city continues to refuse to cooperate concerning the new roads to be constructed.

Therefore, until the city of Albany becomes cooperative the only sensible thing for the town of Guilderland is to scuttle the entire Pyramid project.  

Don Reeb

Guilderland