New Rochelle Housing Discrimination

According to several 19th century documents, “Pugsley Hollow” was the first Black

neighborhood in New Rochelle, a sizable city located within southern Westchester. Named after

Hannah Pugsley, a slave who received her freedom after saving the life of her mistress, the area

had been inhabited by members of the Pugsley family up into the 1950s.1 Ironically, a Pugsley

descendent born in 1844 lived at 24 Railroad Avenue, just across the tracks from both the last

segregated school in Westchester County and the current location of Trump Tower.2 During this

period, a number of plainly racist attacks occurred in the area. In 1885, for instance, the New

Rochelle Pioneer reported that “a number of young men blackened their faces and otherwise

disguised themselves and proceeded to a house in Pugsley Hollow, to paint a colored man

yellow, as it was thought it would be better to have him a little nearer the color of the woman to

whom he had been married, who was a white woman.”3 Perhaps as a result of such encounters,

New Rochelle’s Black population prior to 1900 remained limited – amounting to just 272 people

in 1890.4

Through the 1930s, however, the phenomenon known as “the Great Migration”, shifted

the demographic profile of Westchester County. The Migration accounted for the six million

1
Thirteenth Census of the United States. Population, Volume III: Reports by States, Nebraska-Wyoming. Table 2, 240;
Fifteenth Census of the United States. Population, Volume 3, Part 2: Montana-Wyoming. Table 18, 300-301. (Although the
exact details of the story are debated, there is explicit evidence that a 1799 will from Hannah Pugsley granted freedom to her
slave of the same name upon her death.) Jeanne A. Forbes, Records of the Town of New Rochelle: 1699-1828 (New Rochelle:
Paragraph Press, 1916), 388 (prove that a mostly Black Pugsley family lived on streets identified within Pugsley Hollow during
the 1900s.)
2
Thirteenth Census of the United States. Population, Volume III: Reports by States, Nebraska-Wyoming. Table 2, 240;
Fifteenth Census of the United States. Population, Volume 3, Part 2: Montana-Wyoming. Table 18, 300-301; Brother Austin D.
Devane, “History of the New Rochelle Public Schools, 1795-1952,” PhD Diss., Columbia University, 1952, 446. (Closed in June
1889 as the last town in Westchester to officially maintain a separate school for Colored children.)
3
“Painting Yellow,” New Rochelle Pioneer, January 3, 1885.
4
Thirteenth Census of the United States. Population, Volume III: Reports by States, Nebraska-Wyoming. Table 2, 240. (Black
population was similar to the rest of Westchester County at this time)
African Americans who escaped racial violence in the South to pursue economic and educational

opportunities in Northern, Midwestern, and Western states.5 Headlines of local New York

newspapers frequently covered the movement.6 In 1931, for instance, the New York Amsterdam

News announced, “Negro population Boosted 11,987 in Decade… New Rochelle Leads All

Cities in County With 4,644 Colored Residents.”7 Indeed, the Black population of New Rochelle

had nearly doubled between 1920 and 1930. Although the total population of the city also

achieved record heights during this period, the Black proportion, which increased to 20.15% in

1930, exceeded every significant municipality in the County.8

As the Black community expanded, Westchester planners transformed earlier racial

boundaries into a structured racial order. Rather than terrorize new immigrant and Black

communities out of the suburbs, affluent areas prevented the infiltration of “undesirable”

residents by resorting to exclusionary zoning.9 Theoretically designed to protect the interest of all

citizens by restricting land speculation and congestion, zoning ordinances only existed in eight

cities in 1916. As Hugh R. Pomeroy, the Director of Westchester County Department of

Planning, explained, zoning used to “do no more than exclude acute nuisances from residential

districts.”10 By 1936, however, 85 percent of cities had adopted their own zoning regulations to
5
Tolnay, S. E. (2003). The African American “Great Migration” and Beyond. Annual Review of Sociology, 29(1), 209–232.
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.29.010202.100009
6
George Manning. (1951, July 29). 36,708 of New Rochelle’s 54,000 Are Native Born White, Census Data Shows. The
Standard-Star.
7
Negro Population Boosted 11,978 in Decade, Westchester Census Reveals. (1931, August 5). New York Amsterdam News.
8
Thirteenth Census of the United States. Population, Volume III: Reports by States, Nebraska-Wyoming. Table 1, 236;
Fifteenth Census of the United States. Population, Volume 3, Part 2: Montana-Wyoming. Table 15, 283; New York State
Education Department, Report of a Survey of The Public Schools of New Rochelle, New York (New Rochelle: Board of
Education, 1936), 20.
9
Archer, D. N. (2020). “White Men’s Roads through Black Men’s Homes”: Advancing Racial Equity through Highway
Reconstruction. Vanderbilt Law Review, 73(5), 1259–1277 (“Over the next few decades, highway builders often appropriated the
language of urban renewal to gain support for targeting and removing low-income minority communities that officials considered
‘undesirable,’ whether or not they were in urban renewal areas.”)
10
“Bringing Zoning Up to the Automobile Era,” 12-15 January,1954, Box 1, Folder A-0031, Hugh R. Pomeroy Collection,
Westchester Historical Society, Westchester, New York.
maintain property values.11 Even though the Supreme Court outlawed racial zoning in 1917,

affluent communities in Westchester maintained patterns of segregation on their own, using

private law rather than public law. By 1947, the majority of housing in Westchester had imposed

racially restrictive covenants, agreements prohibiting sales to African Americans.12 Particularly

exclusive towns like Scarsdale and Bronxville, which bordered the heavily Black and Latino

cities of New Rochelle and Yonkers, boasted about their numerous constraints. In a 1925 Home

and Garden magazine, developers in Bronxville proudly advertised, “Restrictions? Yes!”13 It

became evident that just a handful of areas in the suburbs of New York could provide suitable

housing for the thousands of Black families migrating north. Lacking access to the affluent,

white districts protected by exclusionary zoning, minorities concentrated in cities like New

Rochelle with more accommodating options. In effect, such agreements enshrined in property

deeds segregated adjacent neighborhoods by race and class, isolating Black populations and

ostracizing marginalized communities from the benefits of white suburbia.

Within New Rochelle, as well, housing frequently excluded immigrant and Black

populations. Wilmot Acres, a development constructed in the early 1940s, specified that

subdivisions could only contain single-family dwellings for use by no “persons other than [sic]

of the Caucasian race.”14 Additionally, a number of New Rochelle covenants imposed exorbitant

11
Stahura, J. M. (1986). Suburban Development, Black Suburbanization and the Civil Rights Movement since World War II. American
Sociological Review, 51(1), 131–144. https://doi.org/10.2307/2095482
12
Dean, J. P. (1947). Only Caucasian: A Study of Race Covenants. The Journal of Land & Public Utility Economics, 23(4), 428–
432. https://doi.org/10.2307/3158842
13
Hannah-Jones, N. (2012, November 2). Soft on Segregation: How the Feds Failed to Integrate Westchester County.
ProPublica. https://www.propublica.org/article/soft-on-segregation-how-the-feds-failed-to-integrate-westchester-county?
token=TSdqvO9HL82DHmwiEfjduPp53tEWwUlt
14
Westchester County Deeds, Liber 3938 (White Plains: Westchester County Clerk’s Office, March 17th, 1941), 216 & 219.
minimum house prices for the lots of residential venues.15 The constraint priced out almost the

entirety of New Rochelle’s Black population, which consisted of just one homeowner who

reported a house value at over $20,000.16 Rent prices, too, skyrocketed during the 1940s. An

apartment complex in New Rochelle, for instance, almost doubled the rental when they began

permitting the residence of Black individuals.17 While some families chose to live above their

incomes, “because they were unable to secure living quarters at a price that would balance their

earnings'', others spoke out about the housing shortage for African Americans.18 Civilians,

private organizations, and churches advocated for the prospective expansion of “colored homes.”

Black families desperate for housing in the meantime, however, overflowed into exceedingly

tight areas within New Rochelle.19 As a result, neighborhoods like Pugsley Hollow became

intensely overcrowded. The overflow of residents did not just prompt residential segregation, but

also the decline of quality housing. Ultimately, the inevitable deterioration transformed Pugsley

Hollow into the “slum areas'' interstate planners would soon seek to eliminate.

The Federal Housing Authority confirmed such assessment, deeming Pugsley Hollow, as

well as the rest of Downtown New Rochelle, unsuitable for federal funds or future investment.

More specifically, FHA agents designated neighborhoods such as Scarsdale and Bronxville green

on the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation maps to show that they were considered minimal risk

for banks and other lenders.20 Pugsley Hollow, however, was classified as red to identify the area
15
Westchester County Deeds, Liber 3507 (White Plains: Westchester County Clerk’s Office, July 24th, 1935), 398; Sixteenth
Census of the United States. Housing. Volume I: General Characteristics. Table 16, 298; Sixteenth Census of the United States.
Housing. Volume I: General Characteristics. Table 24, 372.
16
Sixteenth Census of the United States. Housing. Volume I: General Characteristics. Table 16, 298. (In the 1940 census, there
were only 162 nonwhite-owned home out of approximately 1400 nonwhite dwellings)
17
Seeks Housing Project In City: New Rochelle Group Cites Home Shortage. (1937, April 3). The New York Amsterdam News.
18
“Seeks Housing Project In City” The New York Amsterdam News, 1937.
19
“Seeks Housing Project In City” The New York Amsterdam News, 1937.
20
Nelson, R. (2021, October 11). Mapping Inequality. https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/
as “hazardous.” Providing greater description, FHA agents characterized Pugsley Hollow as “An

old portion of the city in which many of the homes are being converted into two and three family

dwellings. Particularly in the north, structures are quite congested,” naming “deterioration of

neighborhood and inhabitants” as a particularly high-risk influence. Although the FHA did not

specify how residents, themselves, could “deteriorate,” agents did mention an “infiltration” of

“mixed foreign and Negro” inhabitants.21 The assessment demonstrated that the federal

government viewed Pugsley Hollow as an undesirable area requiring measures more severe than

zoning restrictions to rehabilitate. In effect, the neighborhood would have to be torn down and

rebuilt for residents to easily access mortgage financing and, thus, become homeowners.

By the 1950s, planners at the county level, too, began doubting whether zoning

ordinances could restrict “undesirable” residents to the confines of areas like Pugsley Hollow.

Pomeroy stated in 1953, “It should be recognized that this device of the application of high

standards of low density to confine the expansion of urban areas can not be relied on to establish

a permanent limit of urban expansion, since population pressures may be expected to push the

line ever outward.”22 At a separate Planning and Development Conference, Pomeroy proceeded

to state that, “By its very nature, adaptable to change, zoning would give way at the time it

would be most needed.”23 For political figures seeking to satisfy the demands of affluent, white

constituents, who strongly advocated for racial and class homogeneity, an enduring physical and

symbolic buffer was required to maintain the elitist character of Westchester County. If zoning

21
Robert K. Nelson. “Mapping Inequality,”.
22
“Changing Communities” 13 May, 1953, Box 1, Folder A-0031, Hugh R. Pomeroy Collection, Westchester Historical
Society, Westchester, New York.
23
“Dispersion by Reason or by Ruin” 30 November, 1948, Box 1, Folder A-0031, Hugh R. Pomeroy Collection, Westchester
Historical Society, Westchester, New York.
could not remain the vehicle of residential segregation, planners felt obligated to find a new

one.24

The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956

Fortunately for them, the postwar shift in economic and social conditions provided state

leaders an opportunity to take advantage of a highly resilient barrier capable of withstanding

laws that may otherwise facilitate integration– the Interstate Highway system.25 On June 29,

President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. The new law

authorized the construction of 41,000 miles of interstate expressways, forming a network of

highways that spanned across the nation. Allocating 25 billion dollars, the federal government

agreed to pay for 90 percent of the cost of highway construction.

With limited oversight checking the influence of interest groups or emphasizing

discrimination concerns, the lack of regulations imposed on state engineers became particularly

damaging. Although the federal government provided most of the funding for the construction of

interstate highways, state highway departments working with local officials selected the actual

interstate routes. Only required to work within federal traffic engineering guidelines, highway

builders at the state and local level could route expressways in the direction they found most fit.26

Fortunately for engineers, their designs typically aligned with the priorities of national planners.

Black communities were heavily concentrated in areas with the oldest and most dilapidated

24
“Zoning as a Means of Implementing a City’s Development Policies” 26 February, 1958, Box 1, Folder A-0031, Hugh R.
Pomeroy Collection, Westchester Historical Society, Westchester, New York (“In this, zoning is not the "prime mover." It is a
measure that becomes one feature of a program…Zoning does not and can not stand alone.. The relation of zoning and the
automobile gives rise to considerations of thoroughfare planning.”)
25
Archer, “White Men’s Roads Through Black Men’s Homes” 1281-1282 (discusses how Birmingham and Atlanta officials
responded to challenges to racial zoning laws in the 1940s and 1950s by constructing Interstate highways that represented the
previous boundaries). Fotsch, P. M. (1999). CONTESTING URBAN FREEWAY STORIES: RACIAL POLITICS AND THE O.
J. CHASE. Cultural Studies, 13(1), 110–137. https://doi.org/10.1080/095023899335392. (“Local authorities planned freeways so
they would create barrier between the downtown of corporate headquarters and nearby racially mixed neighborhoods.”)
26
Rabin, Y. (1980). Federal Urban Transportation Policy and the Highway Planning Process in Metropolitan Areas. Annals of
the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 451, 21–35; Rose, M., & Mohl, R. (2012). Interstate: Highway politics
and policy since 1939 (3rd ed.). Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press; Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, 70, United States
Congress, 23 (1956).
housing. These neighborhoods were also where land acquisition costs were comparably low and

organized political opposition was weakest.27 Without explicit and rigorous statutory

requirements restraining local discretion, cities and states could route interstate highways

through low-income areas and use federal funds to reclaim real-estate within the central cities.

By placing roadways through urban centers, the Interstate Highway System would clear slum

neighborhoods, remove Black families to “second-ghetto” areas, redevelop central business

districts, and alleviate traffic congestion all at once.

By the 1960s, federal highway construction was demolishing 37,000 urban housing units

each year. Across the country, interstate expressways disproportionately displaced Black

households, tearing through vibrant communities and destroying churches, schools, and

businesses in its path. Residents of Pugsley Hollow, a close-knit Black community located

within New Rochelle, endured the consequences of the segregationist strategy. Crossing an

especially diverse region of Westchester County, Interstate 95 displaced hundreds of families in

the historic Black neighborhood, leaving behind a trail of economic deprivation and geographic

isolation.

Pugsley Hollow

Following the passage of the Interstate Highway Act, New York and Westchester

officials saw an opportunity to achieve a number of development goals, beyond alleviating traffic

congestion, by placing an expressway through Pugsley Hollow. The lack of representation for

marginalized communities in the legislative process, and the extraordinary discretion afforded to

27
Archer, “Transportation Policy and the Underdevelopment of Black Communities,” 2139; Karas, D. (2015). Highway to
Inequity: The Disparate Impact of the Interstate Highway System on Poor and Minority Communities in American Cities.
University of Delaware, 7; Kuswa, K. D. (2002). Suburbification, Segregation, and the Consolidation of the Highway Machine.
Journal of Law in Society, 3, 31–66.
engineers, allowed state and municipal planners to eliminate a “slum neighborhood,” push new

immigrants and Black families into a “second-ghetto,” and reclaim real-estate situated in the

central New Rochelle.

By 1957, state engineers had relocated and widened the New England Thruway,

transforming it into the modern Interstate 95. According to the city assessor, Anthony J.

Rizzardi, the value of property acquired by the state and the county for the Thruway right-of-way

totaled $2,398,150.28 Although highway construction either demolished or relocated 140

structures, Rizzardi proudly announced that the Interstate had not caused the city any financial

hardship. Mayor Vergara further asserted that a rise in property values wiped out the city’s tax

losses on the land used as a right of way. The Thruway also strengthened the city’s reputation

among corporations and commuters. A number of businesses that previously considered leaving

New Rochelle decided to stay when they “found it could centralize its activities near a Thruway

interchange.”29 Many applauded the city’s hefty investment in New Rochelle’s financial future.

The economic significance of interstate construction was not lost on political figures and

planners alike. Still, civilians and certain media outlets noticed the cultural impact of the

superhighway.

State engineers routed Interstate 95 through the historical and commercial heart of New

Rochelle. As the New York Times noted in 1955, “Other cities experiencing impacts of the state’s

billion-dollar Thruway generally have been only scratched on outer rims. Instead of counting its

profits in multimillion-dollar new developments on virgin land beside the Thruway… New

28
Don Ross. (1957, October 16). Thruway “Shot in Arm” for New Rochelle. New York Herald Tribune.
29
Ross, “Thruway ‘Shot in Arm’ for New Rochelle,” 1957.
Rochelle is figuring its losses.”30 Indeed, the interstate route only marginally affected the

predominantly upper-class, white communities that surrounded the city. In New Rochelle,

however, the state demolished a variety of important sites. The landmarks razed included the

O’Brien Warehouse, St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, an Evangelical Covenant Church,

and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union building.31 Additionally, the interstate route

crossed over the 1693 Huguenot Cemetery and the adjacent Allaire Cemetery. Henry

Schmeckpeper, the project manager for Thruway contractors, even received court orders to

remove hundreds of graves and headstones and relocate them to the other side of the New York,

New Haven and Hartford Railroad tracks.32 Although state and county planners conceded that

concerns over landmark destruction were valid, they argued that no neighborhood welcomed the

challenges of highway implementation.33 Still, planners deemed certain areas as better suited to

bear the burdens of expressway construction. The racial and socioeconomic makeup of New

Rochelle undoubtedly contributed to their status as a favorable region for interstate placement.34

After all, the political strength and economic resources of marginalized residents paled in

comparison to the members of neighboring, predominantly white communities.

In addition to destroying cultural sights, the Thruway disproportionately affected housing

for Black and new immigrant populations. The Standard Star, a local newspaper based in New

Rochelle, noted that the New England Thruway project destroyed approximately 400 dwelling

30
Merrill Folsom. (1955, March 1). Thruway to Cut a Painful Gash Across Heart of New Rochelle. The New York Times.
31
Changing Face of New Rochelle. (1955, September 13). Standard Star.
32
Folsom, “Thruway to Cut a Painful Gash Across Heart of New Rochelle,” 1955.
33
Plans, Planners, and People: Case Reports from Westchester County on Some of the Human Aspects of Thoroughfare
Planning,” 1955, Box 1, Folder A-0031, Hugh R. Pomeroy Collection, Westchester Historical Society, Westchester, New York.
34
Elisabeth Davis. (1958, January 28). $18 Million Road Plan O.K.D. (Expressways proposed through New Rochelle’s “North
End”, the more affluent, white region of New Rochelle, failed after mass protests… “The expressway will destroy some of the
city’s top value residential areas.”)
units.35 The majority of those displaced were never adequately rehoused. According to a state

report on housing problems, a significant percentage of the city’s 76,000 residents were “living

with friends, relatives or even strangers in sublet rooms, floors and wings of buildings.”36

Furthermore, municipal authorities evicted another 110 families in the area to rehabilitate their

homes. Most of these residents, too, never returned to the restored dwellings. According to the

article, “these temporary moves have usually resulted in completely different and permanent

shifts, not a return to the refurbished unit.”37 Given the shortage of housing available to Black

residents, the impact of displacement was exceptionally damaging. Just a few years prior to

interstate construction, it was reported by the League of Women Voters that New Rochelle had

20 percent more families than it had housing units.38 Residents knew that New Rochelle could

not afford to displace any more families without exacerbating an already dire situation.

Nevertheless, since national planners failed to link relocation efforts with interstate construction,

there was little the Black community could do to prevent engineers from aggravating the severe

housing shortage.

With practically unlimited influence on highway placement, local planners prioritized the

concerns of those most powerful and confronted the consequences of displacement retroactively,

if at all. In response to civilian complaints, Mayor Stanley W. Church declared that “the

Thruway is essential to relieve the Boston Post Road of a daily traffic load of 25,0000 pleasure

cars and gargantuan interstate trucks… We’ll have a renaissance in downtown business when the

35
Henry Lienau. (1960, January 6). Overcrowding Problem Acute In City Housing. Standard Star.
36
Lienau, “Overcrowding Problem Acute In City Housing,” 1960.
37
Lienau, “Overcrowding Problem Acute In City Housing,” 1960.
38
LWV Favors Mid-Income Housing in Renewal Area. (1962, May 29). Standard Star. (In the remainder of Westchester
County, there are seven percent more families than housing units)
new road is completed next year.”39 By 1969, several media outlets reported that the new-

intensity of displacement had particularly harmed New Rochelle’s nonwhite population. The

city’s Human Rights Commission stated that, “Non-whites live to a shocking degree in

overcrowded and substandard conditions and are highly ghettoized.”40 Indeed, in 1960, one third

of the units occupied by non-whites were substandard. Additionally, 90 percent of all non-whites

lived in only 6 of 16 census tracts, forming a “belt” bordered by the Pelham line on the west, the

Larchmont line on the east, Mayflower Avenue and Barnard Road on the north and Main Street

on the south.41

The HRC report recognized two factors responsible for the “ghettoization” of nonwhite

areas in New Rochelle: the median nonwhite family income, which was little over half of the

general population income, and racial discrimination in housing. It is precisely because of these

two factors, however, that interstate construction had such a dramatic effect on the racial

landscape of Westchester County. After facing disproportionate levels of displacement, the

Black community lacked the financial resources or access to improve their living conditions.

Employers frequently denied Black people from entry to well-paying jobs. Moreover, highway

construction often claimed the only asset many Black families owned– their homes, as they were

repeatedly forced to sell below market value.42 Ultimately, both these economic constraints and

39
Folsom, “Thruway to Cut a Painful Gash Across Heart of New Rochelle,” 1955.
40
Housing Shortage Hurts City 5 Ways. (1969, October 19). Standard Star.
41
U.S. Census Bureau. Race, 1960. Prepared by Social Explorer. (Accessed January 2 09:45:03 EST 2022). See Appendix 3.
42
Archer, “White Men’s Roads Through Black Men’s Homes” 1289; Brief for the Ohio Conference of the NAACP and the
National Institute for Urban Entrepreneurship as Amicus Curiae Supporting Appellants, 9, City of Norwood v. Horney, 853
N.E.2d 1115 (Ohio 2006) (stating that “the fact that particular property is identified and designated for ‘redevelopment’… almost
certainly means that the market is currently undervaluing that property or that the property has some ‘trapped’ value that the
market is not currently recognizing”)
Westchester’s history of exclusionary zoning left the Black population crowded into

economically deprived and isolated regions of New Rochelle.

Additionally, white owners residing within neighborhoods rumored to be impacted by

highway construction began selling their homes to Black buyers at extraordinary rates.

According to the Housing Committee chairman Jacob C. Seidel, “the almost solid reluctance of

white real estate brokers to show homes for sale to prospective white buyers” in these

communities precluded further progress toward racial stabilization. In this way, the Interstate

System reinforced racial segregation by compounding white fears that their neighborhoods

“would become run-down and turn almost solidly Negro.”43 Although national planners likely

anticipated these effects on minority communities such as New Rochelle, they chose to sacrifice

the stability of Black neighborhoods to feed the expansion of White America.44

Perhaps the impact of Interstate 95 would not have been as severe if displaced residents

were accommodated by the several redevelopment projects constructed to refurbish New

Rochelle’s image and replace “blighted” buildings. The relocation of displaced families in such

developments, however, rarely occurred. As an article from the Standard Star notes, “the housing

shortage has been further aggravated by demolition for the New England Thruway and other

projects. New construction… has been for families able to afford more than $25,000 for a house

or rentals of about $40 per room. For families most in need, the high cost of housing intensified

the existing shortage.”45 One notable development, the Cedar Street Urban Renewal project,

demolished the historic Pugsley Hollow neighborhood. Still, state and county planners deemed

43
Jacob C. Seidel. (1955). Report of the Housing Committee.
44
Archer, “Transportation Policy and the Underdevelopment of Black Communities,” 2129-2131.
45
“LWV Favors Mid-Income Housing in Renewal Area,” 1962.
the development a vital feature of New Rochelle’s “parade of progress.”46 Unfortunately, the

Cedar Street project only produced 150 low-rent and 150 middle-income housing units. The

development would need another 350 units to house all of the residents who had been displaced

by interstate construction.47 Although the project aimed to improve traffic patterns and update

utilities in the area, many argued that “two goods are correcting some wrongs but not the wrong

of an unhoused population.”48

Notably, of the 274 families on New Rochelle’s Municipal Housing Authority's public

housing waitlist, who were not residents of the Cedar Street area, the vast majority were Black.49

The racial makeup of this waitlist illustrates who really endured the burdens of displacement. By

failing to include nondiscrimination language in the Interstate Highway Act and providing

localities with extraordinary discretion, national planners ignored the acute housing shortage

facing Black and new immigrant families. In other words, in its effort to rehabilitate “slum

areas” and modernize American travel, the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 permitted state

engineers to exploit the lives of those most marginalized in society.

In addition to displacing hundreds of Black families, Interstate 95 isolated the Black

community in New Rochelle, entrenching residential segregation and walling off economic

opportunity. Following the Great Migration, Lincoln Avenue became a vibrant center for African

American life. The commercial corridor hosted a variety of successful Black-owned businesses

46
Stanley W. Church. (1960, January 12). Big Things Ahead for New Rochelle. Standard Star.
47
Henry Lienau. (1960, January 5). 650 Housing Units Asked for Critical Needs Here. Standard Star.
48
Lienau, “Overcrowding Problem Acute In City Housing,” 1960.
49
Henry Lienau. (1960, January 7). Housing, Welfare Units See Waiting Lists Grow. Standard Star. (Most worked in
manufacturing, construction, domestic services, retail, and transportation fields and reported substandard features in their present
housing accommodations).
and surrounded several streets of single-family homes.50 Additionally, the region housed a

number of prominent African Americans, including actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, jazz

musician Branford Marsalis, Olympic athletes John Woodruff and Lou Jones, and Presidential

medal of Freedom recipient Whitney Young Jr. Furthermore, the Lincoln Elementary School,

located just blocks from the Lincoln Avenue shops, had become a symbol of civil rights progress

as the first Supreme Court school desegregation case outside of the American South.51

Interstate 95 cut off Lincoln Avenue from New Rochelle’s downtown area, transforming

an informal boundary that segregated New Rochelle’s Black and white populations into a

physical divide. Quoted In Mark Lungariello’s 2021 article, “Roads to Inequality”, city historian

Barbara Davis explains, “These families were just totally upended and then for this no-man’s

land that never got developed…It was partly poor planning and it was more just lack of humanity

to think it would be OK for the greater good for putting in a highway to wipe out these

neighborhoods."52 Additionally, planners never completed urban renewal plans to extend

Memorial highway to connect the Interstate to the Cross County Parkway, compounding the

problem of isolation.53 Lungariello’s 2021 piece goes on to quote longtime resident and advocate

Linda Tarrant-Reid, “not only were houses and yards wiped away, but those who remained in the

neighborhood were cut into an island. Suddenly, Black-owned retail shops that were once around

the corner could only be accessed by navigating thoroughfares and walking across an

50
Lincoln Avenue Corridor. (2021). Race and Space.
51
“Lincoln Avenue Corridor,” 2021; Kaufman, I. R. (1963). The New Rochelle Decision: The Facts. The Journal of Educational
Sociology, 36(6), 262–271. https://doi.org/10.2307/2264699
52
Mark Lungariello. (2021, April 29). Roads to inequality: How white supremacy was built into New York’s parkways. The
Journal News.
53
Elisabeth Davis. (1958, January 28). $18 Million Road Plan O.K.D.
interstate.”54 In effect, Interstate 95 fortified social boundaries, separating the affluent, white

communities and the low-income, minority families with a jarring, six-lane barrier.

The exclusionary impact of the highway would outlast the laws and zoning ordinances

that facilitated segregation at the time. In fact, from 1950 to 1970, the racial divide in New

Rochelle would noticeably expand. The African American proportion of residents in census

tracts surrounding the interstate increased by approximately 15% while the overall population

size declined by 5,000 individuals. Across the same period, the white population in census tracts

bordering the affluent town Scarsdale, situated farther from the expressway, grew slightly. The

population in this region almost doubled in size. Furthermore, in just over the ten years since the

governor of New York opened Interstate 95, the tracts surrounding the highway reported an

average family income, adjusted for inflation to the year 2020, of just below $70,000. Under the

same conditions, the predominantly white regions of New Rochelle reported an average family

income of over $170,000. Although the implementation of Interstate 95, alone, may not account

for all such demographic shifts, it certainly played a significant role in intensifying residential

segregation and preserving the racial wealth gap throughout a period of civil rights progress. In

the end, the Interstate became an embodiment of the discrimination that long preceded highway

construction; this time, however, such racial exclusion was authored by the federal government.

54
Lungariello, “Roads to Inequality” 2021.
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