North Greenbush is a
town
A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city.
The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...
in
Rensselaer County, New York
Rensselaer County is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 161,130. Its county seat is Troy, New York, Troy. The county is named ...
,
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
. North Greenbush is located in the western part of the county. The population was 13,292 at the 2020 census.
The town has three main
hamlets
A hamlet is a human settlement that is smaller than a town or village. This is often simply an informal description of a smaller settlement or possibly a subdivision or satellite entity to a larger settlement. Sometimes a hamlet is defined f ...
,
Wynantskill in the northeastern corner, Defreestville in the southern portion of the town, and
Snyder's Lake which occupies the majority of the town's eastern end. Each have strong identities and hinder efforts by the town to have a centralized identity.
[ Also hindering a unified town image is that North Greenbush consists of parts of four different school districts, only one of which (a one-room schoolhouse) carries the town's name; two fire departments (Wynantskill and Defreestville); and three ZIP Codes ( City of Troy, City of Rensselaer, and Wynantskill).][ North Greenbush is home to the southern part of the Hudson Valley Community College (HVCC) campus, including the Joseph L. Bruno Stadium, home to the ]Tri-City ValleyCats
The Tri-City ValleyCats are a professional baseball team based in Albany, New York. The ValleyCats compete in the Frontier League (FL) as a member of the North Division in the Atlantic Conference. The team was established in 2002, along with the ...
minor league baseball team; the RPI Tech Park; the La Salle Institute; the New York State National Guard Armory, headquarters for the Rainbow Division; and various Rensselaer County government institutions.[
]
History
North Greenbush was part of the Manor of Rensselaerswyck
Rensselaerswyck was a Dutch colonial patroonship and later an English manor owned by the van Rensselaer family located in the present-day Capital District of New York in the United States.
The estate was originally deeded by the Dutch West In ...
, and Albany County prior to Rensselaer County's creation in 1791. North Greenbush was created on February 23, 1855, from the town of Greenbush at the same time as the town of Clinton (today East Greenbush). At this time, North Greenbush occupied more than what it does today; it also covered what is now the northern section of the city
A city is a human settlement of a substantial size. The term "city" has different meanings around the world and in some places the settlement can be very small. Even where the term is limited to larger settlements, there is no universally agree ...
of Rensselaer and the southern section of the city of Troy.
The earliest settlers, in the early 1620s settled in Bath, a part of the town annexed to Rensselaer in 1902. Some settlement in what is today North Greenbush may have taken place in the 17th century as well, but most significant early settlement occurred just prior to the Revolutionary War. Early settlements in the town were at Bath, Wynantskill, and Defreestville. In 1874 Bath became incorporated as a village, and in 1902 it was annexed to Rensselaer. Wynantskill, in the northeastern corner of the town, was first settled around the end of the 18th century with a Dutch Reformed Church established , and a post office was established in 1820. Defreestville was originally called Blooming Grove until approximately 1830, when it was changed due to confusion with another Blooming Grove, in Orange County. It was named Defreestville for David M. De Freest and family who owned a tavern there. Defreestville and Wynantskill continue to be important hamlets
A hamlet is a human settlement that is smaller than a town or village. This is often simply an informal description of a smaller settlement or possibly a subdivision or satellite entity to a larger settlement. Sometimes a hamlet is defined f ...
in the town. Snyders Lake would, in the 20th century, also become an important community. Snyders Lake was developed as summer residences and continues to lack a central business district
A central business district (CBD) is the Commerce, commercial and business center of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides wit ...
.
During the 20th century, North Greenbush would begin to see more development due to an improved transportation infrastructure which led to increased suburban residential, office, and retail growth based on the automobile. In 1931, the road between Troy and East Greenbush was widened and the right-of-way straightened as US Route 4. The older, narrower, winding residential parts of the road were bypassed and is today's Bloomingrove Drive.[ Starting in the 1940s and 1950s, suburban growth along Route 4 would begin to displace farms and local businesses with national chains with an automobile oriented pattern of growth.][ This suburban growth would be encouraged by the construction of ]Interstate 90
Interstate 90 (I-90) is an east–west transcontinental freeway and the longest Interstate Highway in the United States at . It begins in Seattle, Washington, and travels through the Pacific Northwest, Mountain states, Mountain West, Great Pla ...
(I-90) and the Patroon Island Bridge in the 1960s, making North Greenbush an easy commute to Albany.[ I-90 would not have a direct exit to North Greenbush until 1996 though, when Exit 8 was constructed connecting US 4 and NY Route 43 to the interstate.][ In the 1970s ]Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (; RPI) is a private university, private research university in Troy, New York, United States. It is the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world and the Western Hemisphere. It was establishe ...
(RPI) began developing the RPI Tech Park on Route 4 as a business incubator
A business incubator is an organization that helps startup companies and individual entrepreneurs to develop their businesses by providing a fullscale range of services, starting with management training and office space, and ending with venture ...
, today it has over of office space.[ A connector highway will eventually also go from Exit 8 parallel to US 4 north through the RPI Tech Park and meet US 4 near Hudson Valley Community College (HVCC) at the Troy city line.][
Not all suburban growth has been well received in the town, however. In the late 1990s, the RPI Tech Park became the focus of regional and statewide push to get a chip fabrication factory (chip fab plant) built. The RPI Tech Park site originally met little opposition from the town.] But as time progressed, opposition grew in response to concerns about potential impacts on traffic and the environment. The RPI Tech Park site, which by October 1999 had become one of only nine sites still being marketed by the state, was terminated when the North Greenbush town council voted to terminate the review process. Another instance of NIMBY opposition to development occurred after the construction of I-90's Exit 8 when that location became well-primed for commercial development. Local developer Frank Nigro, with Nigro Company, proposed a high-end shopping center for the northeastern corner of the intersection of routes 4 and 43. This led to lawsuits and a failed push by residents of Defreestville to incorporate as a village in order to stop the development; and a counter-move by the developer and certain landowners to attempt annexation to the neighboring city of Rensselaer where the development would be better received.
The Defreest Homestead was listed on the National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
in 1977.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...
, the town has a total area of , of which is land and (1.74%) is water. The western section of the town is steeply sloped and cut by various ravines; the clay bluffs rise between 100 and above the river with little to no flood plain. The central and eastern parts consist of more gently rolling hills and valleys. The Hudson River is the river of the town, though it is inaccessible to the public at this time;[ the Wynants Kill in the northeastern section is a creek of some respectable size. Snyder's Lake near the eastern border is the largest lake in the town and is accessible to the public.
The west town line is marked by the ]Hudson River
The Hudson River, historically the North River, is a river that flows from north to south largely through eastern New York (state), New York state. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains at Henderson Lake (New York), Henderson Lake in the ...
with Albany County on the opposite shore. The city of Albany shares a brief common border with the town, the rest of the western boundary in the Hudson River is shared with the village of Menands within the town of Colonie. To the north is Troy and the town of Brunswick with the towns of Poestenkill and Sand Lake to the east. Most of the southern border is shared with East Greenbush, while the city of Rensselaer's northern section is partially surrounded by North Greenbush in the town's southwestern corner.
Demographics
As of the census
A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...
of 2000, there were 10,805 people, 4,161 households, and 2,916 families residing in the town. The population density was . There were 4,336 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the town was 96.81% White
White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...
, 1.01% African American
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...
, 0.09% Native American, 0.76% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander
Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...
, 0.24% from other races, and 1.08% from two or more races. Hispanic
The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...
or Latino of any race were 0.85% of the population.
There were 4,161 households, out of which 30.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 57.5% were married couples living together, 9.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29.9% were non-families. Of all households, 25.2% were made up of individuals, and 11.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.47 and the average family size was 2.97.
In the town, the age distribution of the population shows 22.6% under the age of 18, 5.8% from 18 to 24, 27.7% from 25 to 44, 25.0% from 45 to 64, and 18.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 41 years. For every 100 females, there were 89.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 86.9 males.
The median income for a household in the town was $82,227, and the median income for a family was $62,845. Males had a median income of $40,872 versus $29,743 for females. The per capita income
Per capita income (PCI) or average income measures the average income earned per person in a given area (city, region, country, etc.) in a specified year.
In many countries, per capita income is determined using regular population surveys, such ...
for the town was $24,025. About 2.0% of families and 3.0% of the population were below the poverty line
The poverty threshold, poverty limit, poverty line, or breadline is the minimum level of income deemed adequate in a particular country. The poverty line is usually calculated by estimating the total cost of one year's worth of necessities for ...
, including 3.0% of those under age 18 and 2.5% of those age 65 or over.
Notable person
* John Evert Van Alen, U.S. Representative
Communities and locations in North Greenbush
* Defreestville – A hamlet in the southwestern part of the town at the junction of US 4 and NY 43. The community derives its name from the local DeFreest family. The Sharpe Homestead and Cemetery and John Evert Van Alen House are listed on the National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
.
* Snyders Corner – A hamlet north of Snyder's Lake and southeast of Wynantskill at the junction of West Sand Lake and Snyders Corner roads.
* Snyder's Lake – A hamlet occupying the majority of North Greenbush's eastern side.
* Wynantskill – A hamlet on the northern town line by the town's northeastern corner.
References
Further reading
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External links
History of North Greenbush, NY
North Greenbush Town Court
{{Authority control
Towns in New York (state)
Towns in Rensselaer County, New York