RoadsideThoughts
A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
Home >> State of New York >> Rensselaer County >> East Greenbush >> Tidbits & TriviaIndex...

Outdoor Activities ...

As we travel, we like to pursue some of our interests (such as astronomy and bird watching).

When in East Greenbush, we use the following websites to find information relevant to East Greenbush and the surrounding area.

  • Weather ...
  • Astronomy & Satellites ...
    • Whether using binoculars, a small telescope or the naked-eye, the Heavens-Above website can help you to find your way around the night-time sky. In addition to detailed sky charts, their website will help you find planets, asteriods, comets, satellites and their tracks across the sky.
    • To give accurate results, Heavens-Above requires the latitude and longitude of your location. As a starting point, when we link to Heavens-Above, we pass this GPS location for East Greenbush:
    • 42.590913, -73.701786
    • Once you're on the Heavens-Above website, you can improve its accuracy by giving a more precise longitude and latitude as your actual position.
    • Open the Heavens-Above website centered on East Greenbush
  • Bird Watching ...
    • We enjoy finding new spots for bird watching and we use the eBird website for local sighting reports and to help identify hotspots.
    • The eBird website is organized on a county-by-county basis. We have selected Rensselaer County as the starting point when you click on the link below:
    • Open the eBird sighting report for Rensselaer County
    • Since East Greenbush is near Albany County and also Columbia County, we have provided a link to their eBird sighting reports:
    • Open the eBird sighting report for Albany County
    • Open the eBird sighting report for Columbia County
  • Waymarking ...
    • Looking for somewhere out of the ordinary? Find a unique place and want to share it with others? Then it's time to visit Waymarking.com:
    • Open the Waymark.com report for East Greenbush

Communities Also Named East Greenbush ...

We found one communities that are also named East Greenbush.

There is one other community in New York that is also named East Greenbush.

Beyond New York.

  • Communities Located In New York ...
    • Washington County
      • We found mention of this community, but have little information.<1> For the information that we do have, please visit our profile page for the New York community of East Greenbush [Washington County].

Curious and Interesting Names Near East Greenbush ...

As we travel, we always see a community with a name that gives pause. While there are names which are interesting or familiar, some catch our attention or strike our fancy. We always wonder about such a name. If time permits and the community is not too far, we'll usually try to make a side-trip.

  • Beaver Dam
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southwest)
    • Beaver Dam is located in Albany County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Beaver Dam
  • Best
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Best is located in Rensselaer County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Best
  • Cedar Hill
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Cedar Hill is located in Albany County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cedar Hill
  • Luther
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the east)
    • Luther is located in Rensselaer County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Luther
  • Maple Grove
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
    • Maple Grove is located in Rensselaer County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Maple Grove
  • Normansville
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northwest)
    • Normansville is located in Albany County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Normansville
  • Stony Point
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the southwest)
    • Stony Point is located in Rensselaer County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Stony Point
  • Van Allen Park
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the north)
    • Van Allen Park is located in Rensselaer County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Van Allen Park

How Far From East Greenbush to ...

We spend a lot of time looking through Gazetteers & Almanacs that were published in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Many of the Gazetteers include the distance from a community such as East Greenbush to various places of note, such as the White House.

With a nod to our favorite Gazetteers, the straight-line distance<2> beginning in East Greenbush and extending to:

  • Troy, which is the Seat of Rensselaer County, lies 9 miles [14.5 km]<2> to the north. If you could walk a straight line from East Greenbush to Troy, with an average speed<3> of 2.2 miles [3.5 km] per hour, it would take four to five hours to make the trip. A horse and buggy averaging 3.2 miles [5.1 km] per hour would take a little over three hours.
  • Albany, which is the State Capital of New York, lies just to the northwest (NW).
  • The White House (Washington, DC) is 308 miles [495.7 km] to the southwest (SW). Driving, with an average speed of 63 miles [101.4 km] per hour, would take five to six hours, a buggy would take 12 days and walking would take 18 days.
  • The shortest distance<4> to Jerusalem (specifically the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock) is 5,605 miles [9,020.4 km] and it lies to the northeast (NE).<5>
  • The distance to the Great Mosque of Mecca (specifically the Ka'bah - or Kaaba ) is 6,318 miles [10,167.8 km] and it lies to the east northeast (ENE).<6>
  • The distance to Saint Peter's Basilica (The Vatican) is 4,194 miles [6,749.6 km] and it lies to the east northeast (ENE).<7>'

Footnotes ...

<1>If we encounter the name of what might be a community, our methodology is to add that name to our Gazetteer as a placeholder. As we find more information about that community, it will be added to our Gazetteer.

Just as a reminder: Our definition of a community is rather broad and includes those places (or areas) where several families lived and had a name which identified that place. For example, you might hear somebody say that they are going over to Mile's to see Pete ... Mile's is just a gas station and a couple of homes at the crossroads. While it might not be on the map, everybody in the area knows it by that name.

Places of interest include buildings at a crossroad, several families clustered in a hollow or maybe the location of a way station. It also includes places like mines, lumber camps, ferry crossings, etc. The community might still exist, is now gone or only existed for just a short period of time.

Also keep in mind that East Greenbush could have been on the original document by mistake, misspelled, the original/alternate name of a community that we've listed elsewhere or was placed in the wrong county. Sometimes a post office or train station would have a different name than the community where it's located, so two names might be referring to the same community - we're working to straighten it all out.
<2>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- East Greenbush) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.
<3>While we have tried to pick reasonable speeds, the rate of travel is very theoretical - obstacles like fences, hills, lakes, river crossings and rest stops have been ignored. When we say 'Days' of travel, we're assuming 8 hours of travel per day.
<4>The shortest line can be visualized by stretching a string on a Globe from Point A to Point B - this is known as a Great Circle Route. Where you might expect the shortest route from East Greenbush to the Middle East to be East and South, the Great Circle Route actually lies to the North and East.Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in East Greenbush. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 42.5909, Longitude: -73.7018       In this case, the coordinates for East Greenbush have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
<5>The calculated bearing (or angle) to Jerusalem is 305.541 degrees.
<6>The calculated bearing (or angle) to Mecca is 301.371 degrees.
<7>The calculated bearing (or angle) to the Vatican is 301.659 degrees.