To Councilwoman Lynda Walowit, Rexford is a fiercely independent community that takes care of its own.
To Doris Cole, Rexford is simply home, a home she has passed down through three generations.
Tied to Schenectady by a bridge and by name to Clifton Park, Rexford has endured rowdy times, fun times and now, quieter times.
Starting with the Erie Canal in the early 1800s, Rexford has grown into a village with a great sense of community -- and a heightened sense of its past.
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'Shoot the Chutes'
In his home on top of a hill overlooking the Mohawk River, Farrall pulled out a box of broken glass in shades of red, yellow and blue. One piece was shaped like a heart, he said, pointing to its rounded edges.
''Jackknives,'' he said, as he picked up an oval-shaped piece of wood from the box. ''I found these at the base of large trees.''
These trinkets and a few out-of-place pieces of cement are all the physical evidence left from Luna Park of the early 20th century, of Rexford Flats.
Stories of a dance hall, roller-skating rink, hotel, roller coaster and a water ride called ''Shoot the Chutes'' along the Mohawk could seem unbelievable, were it not for the pictures.
Piles of black and white treasures cover Farrall's coffee table and piano, fill labeled folders and binders. He has chosen over a hundred of them for the book he is writing about the park that, to him, still haunts the hill on Bluff Road.
Farrall picked up a two photos of an act called ''Dare Devil Oliver.'' One shows Oliver on top of a tall ladder. The second shows him next to a small pool he dives into, followed by his dog, Uno.
''He's just off the driveway,'' Farrall said of Oliver, pointing out his window, then to a map of the amusement park in its heyday.
A treeless path through Farrall's wooded front yard was once a trolley line, he said. The trolley brought people from Schenectady for a day of rides, swimming and dancing: 5,000 and more on a good day.
The amusement park was demolished in the late 1930s, as the age of the trolley was ending.
''When automobiles came along, people lost interest in amusement parks,'' Farrall said. ''They had other places to go.''
When he and his wife, Judy, moved to Rexford in the late 1970s, George Farrall knew only vaguely of the amusement park on the bluff. He bought the 20-acre lot on Bluff Road, even though it was bigger than he wanted, and then he began to hear the stories.
John Papp, a co-worker at GE's Research and Development division, introduced him to Francis Spoonogle. A former park worker Spoonogle, who has since passed away, provided the piles of photographs that now cover Farralls' living room.
''He just flooded me with information,'' said Farrall, who soon became the park's unofficial historian. ''I had no choice.''
Welcome to Rexford
(Town of Clifton Park)
Councilwoman Lynda Walowit doesn't live in Rexford. She joined the hamlet's women's club because she wanted to hear what they had to say. Now she's co-president.
''The thing I like about Rexford is their unique sense of community,'' she said. ''And they've never lost it.''
The community takes care of each other, Walowit said. They also have a sense of unity -- and separation from their home town.
''They tend to forget that they're part of Clifton Park,'' she said.
They did remember in 1984, when they tried to secede.
Please see,
REXFORD, page 8
''I think they really felt left out,'' said Councilman Roy Speckhard, who was supervisor at the time.
Rexford petitioned the town to become a village. They discovered that, as a village, infrastructure costs would triple, Speckhard said.
While the residents of the hamlet were split on whether they wanted to leave, the final decision was up to Clifton Park. The town said no.
''There was an unwillingness to part ways,'' Speckhard said. ''The town of Clifton Park without Rexford is not the town that I know or live in.''
Last January, what's now referred to as ''the Stewart's sign incident,'' added to this local lore.
After the Planning Board required a new Stewart's to erect a sign welcoming people to Clifton Park, Rexfordians presented the Town Board with a petition to change the wording.
They said the sign should include Rexford and specify that Clifton Park is the town that includes the community of Rexford.
The sign was replaced and now reads, ''Welcome to Rexford, Town of Clifton Park.''
In general, Speckhard said the secession effort led to a greater sensitivity to the western hamlet.
''It got healed very quickly,'' he said. ''There was a renewed effort on the part of the town.''
'Getting out of the razzle-dazzle'
Doris Cole moved to Rexford in 1969, to a house her parents built in the 1940s. She said she wanted to keep the house in the family.
''We love the small town -- not even a town -- I just loved the little village. ''It's like going back in time,'' she said.
Cole has watched the eastern part of the town grow, but has relished the quiet of Rexford, which she said has stayed out of much of Clifton Park's boom.
''It's really just getting out of the razzle-dazzle,'' she said.
She likes that her neighbors have lived in the town for generations.
''It makes for a nicer feeling of home,'' she said. ''People aren't moving in, moving out, moving in, moving out.''
As archivist of the Rexford Historical Society, Cole can trace the town's social history back to its church, built in 1839, and the Yacht Club, which once served as a canal store.
The church grounds included horse sheds at the turn of the century, which also sheltered people who took the trolley to Schenectady.
''People are just interested in the stories,'' Cole said.
