The Great Wall of Albany

BY BENITA LAW-DIAO

My first apartment in Albany was on Hudson Avenue between Lark and Dove Streets, just up the hill from the Hudson River. You could see the hills of Rensselaer County from our apartment. It should have been an easy walk or bicycle ride to the river from my apartment, but I had to navigate around the Empire State Plaza, which was like a meteor crater at the east end of Hudson Avenue, make my way to Madison Avenue, walk down the hill and figure how to get to the river once I passed Pearl Street and Madison Avenue. I felt like someone had put road blocks between where I lived and the river in order to keep me from getting there. I wondered how the people who lived closer to the river must feel with I-787 so close to their homes, and the river blocked from their view. 

As the years went by and I got to know people who grew up in Albany, I realized that very few of them venture down to the river. If their families have been here for several generations, surely they must know the river is there. It made me wonder what recent transplants to Albany knew about the river and how much they accessed it. I’ve lived in the Capital District for 32 years, and I’ve been blown away with how disconnected my Black and Latinx friends are from the waterways and their histories, including those who were born and raised in the area. For those who have been in the Capital Region for several generations, do they know their family histories and role the Hudson River played in their lives?

Residents of the South End face numerous obstacles to get to the waterfront.

Why has this river—which originates in Lake Tear of the Clouds in the Adirondack Mountains and flows south through or pass at least 15 counties and empties into the Atlantic Ocean—not played a bigger role in current Albany residents lives? As the South End and Arbor Hill communities have lost recreational facilities over the years, how has this natural resource been ignored? Have their families forgotten how Governor Rockefeller and Mayor Corning conspired to create the Empire State Plaza by destroying over 1000 homes and displacing over 7000 people? Visitors marvel at the Empire State Plaza and the Egg as they cruise into Albany on I-787, but they have no idea how these structures have impacted the city’s culture.

Whenever the Black community hears that the places we live in are going to be “REVITALIZED”, it usually means GENTRIFICATION and “Let’s move these BIPOC out of here.” We have grown to mistrust any so-called attempts to make our communities better because there are numerous BIPOC communities through history, and up to today, that have been destroyed and/or displaced in the name of “urban revitalization.” Has the BIPOC community become numb to the constant assault in Albany? Rockefeller built the Empire State Plaza despite the protests from the community. Many of my friends who live in the South End and Arbor Hill rarely, if ever, go to the Empire State Plaza and look at the structure as though it is a forbidden, inhospitable place that obliterated a thriving community.

Is their avoidance of the Plaza, a conscious form of protest against this massive structure [the Empire State Plaza] that seems to symbolize White money always wins? 787 is a symbolic wall that says, “Stay in your place. Only people who can afford recreational watercraft and cars to transport them to the river should enjoy the Albany waterfront.” For those who want to avoid the “urban areas”, I-787 facilitates their ability to breeze through the edge of the city to access their “nicer” communities up north.

YWCA Ride Against Racism at the Corning Preserve (Cheila Diao, Benita Law-Diao and Miki Conn)

The Albany Riverfront Collaborative feels more grassroots than what I have learned about the history of the development of the Empire State Plaza and I-787. The whole concept of “walkable communities” seems to be something that the federal and state governments are starting to hear. Through the years that I worked for the state, it always bothered me how our state agencies and even units within the state agencies work in silos. Agencies and programs don’t share information that would make projects more people-friendly, efficient, and viable. 

When I worked with the NYS Dept. of Health, we partnered with the NYS Canal System when they were trying to re-open the Erie Canal for recreational use. Several NYS Dept. of Health employees, including myself, rode bicycles on the tow path, while boats cruised through the canal from Albany to Buffalo explaining to city officials how the development of the canal would benefit the health of their community in numerous ways. Community members would greet us during our visits and tell us their vision for the canal. NYS Dept. of Transportation, the NYS Canal Corp. and others were partnering with the Health Dept. because they understood that the work they do impacts health. I wish this kind of collaboration occurred for the many botched projects that have ruined environments and communities around the country.

So now there is an opportunity to right one of the many wrongs that has impacted everyone in the Capital Region in some way. We need to teach true history to our community—the good, the bad, the ugly, so that we can learn, grow and avoid repeating the same mistakes. We are New York State’s capital and yet we don’t play up our history in an inclusive way that shows the contributions of everyone who has lived in this community. This would create community unity, pride, and respect. Instead, we hide the true history and create fictional scenarios and embellished heroes.

Stephen Myers, station agent on the Underground Railroad in Albany.

Black people did not just show up in the Albany area during and/or after slavery. There is so much BIPOC history throughout the Hudson Valley that has yet to be told and discovered. In 1613, a mixed race man from Santo Domingo named Juan Rodriguez appeared in a public record as the first African to live in Manhattan and to set foot in the Hudson Valley to trade with the indigenous people and deal with the  Dutch, four years after Henry Hudson sailed up the Hudson Valley. Black people have lived along the Hudson River as ship captains, enslaved laborers, freeman, soldiers, farm laborers, coachmen, etc. and survived and thrived since then. We should know the river and reconnect with it. 

Ms. Law-Diao kayaks on the Hudson River.

It would be incredible if the families of Arbor Hill and the South End could safely walk, ride bicycles, and live closer to the waterfront so they could see the river change through the seasons, observe the birds that live adjacent to the river and water fowl that gain sustenance from the fish and other organisms in the river, explore the landscape and grow to love and want to protect and preserve this living, breathing waterway that needs our undivided attention. To some people, new structures/infrastructure are a sign of progress, but not when they destroy communities, deforest green spaces, re-direct or place waterways underground, pit neighbors against one another, pollute the environment, dismantle a thriving economy, etc. A healthy, thriving community is achieved when everyone has a say in its development, and it serves everyone without discrimination. 

I want to see I-787 removed so we can start all over with input from everyone, regardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, income, color, religion, occupation, etc. Climate change is real, and we should not consider any development without taking into account its impact on the people and environment.

Why should Black people care about the accessing the Hudson River? What would access to the river do for them? How has lack of access to the river affected BIPOC? If we get involved in the Albany Riverfront Collaborative, we can learn and have a say in the future of downtown Albany communities. •

Benita Law-Diao is a leader at Outdoor Afro.