It is a census-designated place, formerly known as Greenbush and then Blauveltville, in Orangetown, Rockland County, New York, United States.
It is located north of Tappan, east of Nauraushaun and Pearl River, south of Central Nyack, and west of Orangeburg.
The etymology of the name probably comes from the coat of arms adopted by the first Blauvelt, Pieter Blauwveld, a prominent trader in the Netherlands.
The first Blauvelt in America was a peasant farmer who cultivated tobacco on the estate of Kiliaen van Rensselaer, the first patroon of the Manor of Rensselaerswyck near Albany, New York, in 1638.
The property was later used by the YWCA, ROTC, Columbia University and the U.S. Army for various purposes before being abandoned following World War II.
[7] In 1972, Robert Salvia and Professor Dr. Paul Olson of the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory, a research unit of Columbia University located on a 157-acre (0.64 km2) campus in Palisades, New York, discovered several 200-million-year-old dinosaur tracks that were identified as being from the coelophysis.
The fossils date from the Triassic period and are claimed to be the only dinosaur tracks ever discovered in the state of New York.