Mapping Black Households in 1950 Greenburgh: A Study of Suburban Segregation

Several years ago, I wrote a blog post mapping Greenburgh's African American home ownership using data from the 1940 U.S. Census.  My purpose then was to investigate whether Black homeownership patterns in mid-20th century Greenburgh gave evidence of housing segregation.  I concluded that essay writing that  the cumulative impact of examples I offered of segregation practices, such as the widespread use of restrictive covenants in Westchester, the practice of steering, changes to zoning codes, and incidents of neighborhood intolerance highly suggested that the ownership patterns illustrated by that 1940 map did not result from freely made housing choices by Black home buyers.  

Now that the 1950 US Census has been released, we can reexamine that question a decade further on. 

I. Where did Black people live in 1950 Greenburgh?

Sources: https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1950/population-volume-1/vol-01-35.pdf ;   https://www.ancestry.com/ ; https://www.familysearch.org/en/.  [Note: on both familysearch.org and ancestry.com, the 1950 US Census transcriptions are replete with errors and should be confirmed before cited],  

TOV (unincorporated Greenburgh):  
Black population in Census Enumeration Districts 117 (Parkway Gardens/north east Greenburgh) and 119 & 120 (Fairview):    2,101                                                                                                              Black population in remaining TOV (Hartsdale, Edgemont, Ardsley TOV, North Elmsford):     232.  This number includes 102 residents of the Fulton Park apartment buildings.   Of the remaining 130 TOV Black residents, 86 are domestic employees living in white households (including a few country club employees living on premises). 

While Black people comprised just over 6% of the Town of Greenburgh in 1950, 91% of Black residents lived in one of four neighborhoods, as follows:

1.  Tarrytown Village downtown:  nearly the entire Tarrytown Black population lived west of Broadway and north of what is now 87/287, with the focus being "downtown" Tarrytown centered on Wildey St. and Mechanics Ave.  
2.  Elmsford Village north/east of Main St./ Tarrytown Road.  It is startling that the 1950 Census shows no Black people living in the half of Elmsford Village south  of this line.  
3.  North-east Greenburgh: the Presidents streets neighborhood of Parkway Gardens and also Parkway Homes, partially in the Valhalla School District. 
4.  "Fairview"the square (about 2/3 of a miles on each side) strictly defined by Knollwood Ave on the west,  Prospect Ave and the Metropolis Country Club on the south, Hillside Ave on the east, and Old Tarrytown Road on the north.  In 1950, 1,958 -  2/3 of Greenburgh's Black residents - live in this compact area.  

II.  Charting Black "Households" in 1950 Greenburgh. 

Now that the 1950 census has been released and is indexed, we have the opportunity to measure changes, if any, over the interim decade. An exact comparison is impossible, however, because the 1950 US Census, unlike the 1940 Census, does not identify home ownership.  

When looking through the 1950 Census population lists, there is the quandary of domestic workers.  About 111 Black people in Greenburgh living outside the green shaded areas were domestic employees living in white households or sometimes at country clubs.   It would be misleading to include the residences of these domestic employees - typically in the wealthiest white neighborhoods -  in a study of segregation patterns.  In response to this problem, I decided to map "heads of households." 

For each residence, the 1950 Census identifies a "head."  The head of a household could be a home owner living with a family in single family house, or one person living alone in an apartment.  

Black heads of households in the Town of Greenburgh, 1950

The green-shaded areas are the four neighborhoods with large concentrations of Black residents that I listed above.  The figure in each green area is the number of Black heads of households in the particular area.  The red dots represent Black "heads of households" located outside of the four green-shaded neighborhoods. The largest red dot (on the east-side edge of the map) is the Fulton Park apartments with twenty-two households comprised of 102 Black residents. 

In 1950, 94% of Black-led households in the Town of Greenburgh were located in the green-shaded neighborhoods.

When examining these households more closely we see de facto segregation in operation on the ground level, specifically its impact on  the town's school districts.   It is startling to see that no school-age Black children live in Ardsley and Irvington villages in 1950. In fact,  the Census identifies no Black residents in Ardsley village in 1950.  A Black 18 year old woman lives in Dobbs Ferry in an apartment on Broadway with her 25 year old sister and another woman -the only Black headed household in Dobbs Ferry -  but the census does not indicate if Evelyn Davis still attended school.  The other six Black residents in Dobbs Ferry village are domestic employees living in white households. In Irvington village has one Black household consisting of the three Patterson siblings - each 55 years or older. The remaining 14 Black residents in Irvington in 1950 are adult, domestic employees  living in white households.  

The village of Hastings, however, is somewhat of an exception with all 21 Black residents of the village living in one of three households headed by Black men.  Interestingly all three of these Black men who are heads of households are immigrants.  Dr. Albion Chase and Dr. Cyril Dolly, both born in the Caribbean, lived with their families in adjacent single family homes on Pinecrest Rd. The third household is headed by a Brazilian married to a woman (and a stepson) listed as from Puerto Rico and who are not listed as Black by the census taker, but instead as Philipino which was probably the census taker's stand in for "Latin,"  It is not known if children from these three families attended the Hastings public schools.

While 1950 shows minimal integration improvement over 1940 in household locations, the segregation patterns along school district lines suggested in 1940 is well-established in 1950.  There were no Black children residing in what would have then been the Hartsdale Schools District or the large portion of the Ardsley school district located in unincorporated Greenburgh, and there was one four-year-old child in the Edgemont School district in 1950.  While there were 622 Black children of 18 years or younger in unincorporated Greenburgh in 1950, if it unclear if any - and certainly not more than a two or three Black students - attended the Hartsdale, Edgemont and Ardsley school districts where about one-half of the TOV population resided.  Anecdotes support this perception: the Hartsdale School District was described by the New York Times on April 21, 1966, as having 850 enrolled but only one Black student.  A memoir of growing-up in Edgemont recalls the late 1950s appearance of a black transfer student from Yonkers as notable and novel.  Ardsley schools were only "integrated" in 1965 when a teenager from South Carolina was brought north to live with a white Ardsley family as part of an educational program.   https://patch.com/new-york/tarrytown/first-african-american-integrate-school-1965.  

Greenburgh will undergo enormous growth (from 47,527 in 1950 to 76,213 in 1960), but to map the impact on Black residential choices,  we'll have to wait until 2030 for the release of the 1960 US Census.  

Greenburgh Central School District Enrollment in the 21st Century: A School District in Transition

Takeaways:

1.   From 2000 to 2023, Greenburgh Central School District (GC) K-12 enrollment declined 19%: from 1,893 students in 2000-01 to 1,527 in the current school year.   During this same period, adjacent school districts had enrollment increases: Edgemont +15%; Elmsford +15%; Ardsley +7%; White Plains +6%. 

2.  GC's enrollment decrease is led by a steep drop in K-12 students identified by the district as Black: a 56% decrease from '02-'03 (1,074 students /57% of total enrollment) through the current school year (473 students/ 31% of total enrollment). 

3.  Unlike a similar drop in "white" enrollment (which mostly occured in a short period from '00-'01 to '03-'04) during the time period examined, the decline in Black enrollment has been steady since '02-'03 (declining in 18 of the past 20 school years)  suggesting not "flight" but a myriad of complex factors discouraging young families from remaining or moving into the school district, including housing prices, cost of living for working families, and school district reputation, etc.  

4.  The number of students identified as Latino/Hispanic (according to NYS Education Department definitions) has grown, although not entirely steadily, from 298 students (16% of total enrollment ) in '00-'01 to 737 (48% of total enrollment) in the current school year. Assuming current trends persist, GC will have a majority Hispanic enrollment in the coming school year or two.  This milestone becomes significant when reflecting on the apparent lack of Hispanic representation on the district school board (one member) or in school district admiinstration and senior leadership.    

5.  NYS Education Dept's statistic tracking "economically disadvantaged" students has varied from 47% to 64% of GC's enrollment over the past dozen years.  NYSED definitions for this category have changed over the past two decades, however, making long-term trends difficult to infer.  

6. Students with disabilites (per NYSED definition) have varied from 15% to 19% of K-12 enrollment since '05-'06, and is currently 16%.

source: https://data.nysed.gov; current year

Note:  

1. Although these categories may be awkward and even offensive, NYSED guidelines define students as: 1. American Indian or Alaska Native; 2. Black or African American, 3. Hispanic or Latino, 4. Asian or Native Hawaiian/ Other Pacific Islander, 5. white, or 6 Multiracial.  Multiracial was added in the 2000s and its use varies widely among school disticts. It is a growing catetory in GC and currently accounts for 42 (2.7%) of K-12 students. 

2. It should be noted that GC had a K-12 enrollment increase of 20 students from 21-22 (1,507) to the current school year (1,527). 

3. At least in recent years, departure for non-public schools has not caused GC enrollment declines.  Private/parochial/home school enrollment among school-age children residing within the Greenburgh Central school district has also declined in recent years:  e.g., from 577 in '16-'17 to 437 in '21-'22.  

4.  Greenburgh Central historic enrollment K-12 (post-merger)  the 80s saw nationwide school enrollment declines after the late 60s/early 70s "baby bust.."  Unlike nearby districts, however, where enrollment boomed in the 90s, GC only recovered a small portion of it's earlier losses. 

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Greenburgh Town Democratic Party Convention: close results for the second Town Council spot enliven the evening

The Greenburgh Town Democratic Party held its its nominating convention for candidates for town offices this past Thursday, February 23, 2023.    Greenburgh has 81 electoral districts (EDs) with two district leaders (DLs) for each ED.   119 of the 156 DLs (there are currently 6 vacancies) gathered and (with two party officials not voting) 117 DLs (75%) voted to endorse candidates for town supervisor, town judge, town clerk, town board and county legislators.

Paul Feiner for Town Supervisor and Dolores Braithwaite for Town Judge were each unopposed in their re-election bids and were accordingly endorsed by the town party.  David Imamura (running for the county seat vacated by recently elected Assemblymember Mary Jane Shimsky) and Jewel Williams (running for reelection) were unanimously endorsed to represent their respective county legislative districts. Town party leadership has turned decisively against longtime incumbent town clerk Judith Beville, as reflected in a vote of 101 DLs for challenger Lisa Marie Nero to only 14 DL votes for Beville.  Beville lost the Town Democratic Party endorsement for town clerk by a narrower margin 4 years ago and still ran and won re-election.  Beville was first elected town clerk in Nov. 2007 when she beat then incumbent Alfreda Williams.  Beville also won contested Democratic primaries for town clerk in 2013 and 2011.  It is assumed that she will run again this year.  

The main event came last: the four way race for endorsement for two Greenburgh town council seats.  This bout did not disappoint.  First came the surprise withdrawal from the race of Bishop Wilburt Preston. Preston, a Feiner ally and longtime head of the Greenburgh Housing Authority, was clearly a distant fourth in the predicted voting among DLs. He preserved his dignity by pulling out instead of risking the ignominy of receiving just a handful of votes.   The next surprise came with the nomination from the floor of Manni Areces, head of the Juniper Hills Civil Association, to the bemusement of the audience.  As expected, incumbent Gina Jackson lead the voting comfortably and Areces did about as dismally as might have been expected of Preston.  The highly anticipated contest came between Joy Haber of Dobbs Ferry and Jonathan Campozano of Hartsdale for the second of the two town council endorsements.   Here are the results as I count them::

Haber pulled off a very narrow victory over Campozano to receive the town party's second endorsement for town council. While each reached the 50% threshold of weighted votes necessary to receive the party endorsement, Gina Jackson had already sewn up one endorsement, leaving the other candidates to vye for the remaining spot.  

The performance gap among the incorporated villages DLs and the unincorporated DLs, as indicated above, is significant.   Incorporated villagers are almost entirely removed from Greenburgh town government.  They pay only nominal amounts of property taxes to the town and receive few services in return.  In contrast, DLs representing the unincorporated areas are evaluating candidates for town board who, if elected, will set their town property tax rates and impact their home values and standard of living through planning and zoning decisions.  It is revealing that unincorporated DLs favored Haber, a villager, over a fellow unincorporated resident, Campozano, while village DLs reversed that ranking.   It is reasonable to conclude that at least a few unincorporated area DLs felt more comfortable entrusting their budget and tax rates with Haber, who has years of county government employment, over Campozano who had more limited local government experience. 

Greenburgh public school enrollment stabilizes (and even increases courtesy of Elmsford)

Greenburgh's ten public school districts (with three that include areas outside of the town) cumulatively saw an enrollment increase of .5% after three years of declines.  Surprisingly, the biggest increase from last year- in both percentage and absolute numbers - came in the small Elmsford School District.  Notably, Greenburgh Central saw a small increase after six consecutive years of declines.  GC fell from 1,757 in '15-'16 to 1,507 in '21-22, for a 14% K-12 enrollment decrease over those years, plummeting to its lowest enrollment on record last year.   On the decline side, Ardsley peaked after several years of rapid growth and Edgemont in now the leader in enrollment decrease this year and over the past three years (taking away that distinction from GC).  Still, the school districts (with the exception of Elmsford and, effectively, Dobbs Ferry) have not yet recovered their pre-COVID '19-'20 enrollments; these enrollments are reported to the State Education Department in the fall, so '19'-'20 numbers were reported prior to the impact of COVID in the spring of 2020.  All these numbers come from http://www.nysed.gov. and are reported by the school districts.