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The Enterprise — Elizabeth Floyd Mair

History in his hands: Wayne Crounse, who lives at 2071 Western Avenue, holds up one of the many intriguing objects from the past in his home: a Vapo Cresolene vaporizer that used kerosene to heat a coal-tar product called cresol with an open flame. Crounse  remembers a grassroots effort by housewives from Western Avenue in the 1950s who wanted a traffic light at the corner of Route 20 and State Farm Road. New Karner Road had not yet been built. ​ “This was a community of residents,” he said, recalling that the population approximately doubled after World War II. “The servicemen didn’t want to live in the city,” he said, referring to Albany and Schenectady. One side street where residents are dealing with development is Westmere Terrace, a cul-de-sac that lies parallel to Rapp Road, one block west. The site where Pyramid hopes to build a complex of 222 apartments and townhouses is at the end of that road, which residents describe as a quiet, long-standing residential neighborhood. Read the article.