Posted on 10/21/2015 6:26:42 AM PDT by pabianice
YAPHANK, N.Y. — Here in this rural Long Island community, a Nazi summer camp once held parades before American flags and banners bearing swastikas. Nearby streets were named after Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and other leaders of Nazi-era Germany.
While the parades are gone and the streets have been renamed, one thing has not changed: The original owners of this tract of land kept a clause in its bylaws requiring the homeowners to be primarily “of German extraction.” That has kept this community of 45 families almost entirely white.
It has also left one family frustrated and headed to court to challenge the bylaws. Philip Kneer and Patricia Flynn-Kneer, a couple who lived in a two bedroom, ranch-style home along the main road, are suing the community organization that owns the land under their house, the German American Settlement League, alleging that the league’s housing practices are discriminatory and violate the Fair Housing Act. The complaint was filed on Monday in Federal District Court in Central Islip.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
This is strange since I used to own a house in Yaphank, which I sold to a black retired cop. No rules like that. There was a small alcove nearby where this ‘german town’ was, but not all of Yaphank. (I never went over there.)
The funny thing was when I bought the house my father said he was in Yaphank back in WWII, which was camp Upton at the time for boot camp I guess. Irving Berlin even had a song, “yip yip yaphank”.
You have to pay attention to the CC andRs
Those kind of restrictive covenants have been unenforceable for decades, under a Supreme Court ruling. They may still be in the recorded title records, but they are meaningless, void.
My boss’s father went for treatment at the VA and someone asked him if he served in WW2. He said he did and they asked which unit. No one could recall that unit so he told them to check German units. He fought on the Eastern Front but headed west to surrender. He was offered citizenship in exchange for fighting for the US in Korea.
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