By 1927 approximately a hundred houses had been built, including one later owned by chemist Irving Langmuir, a GE researcher, for his later life.

It has subsequently been designated a National Historic Landmark in recognition of Langmuir's scientific accomplishments, including the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

The Plot is no longer so heavily dominated by GE employees, due to the company's greatly reduced presence in the city.

Houses in it remain highly valued, and residents pay some of the Capital District region's highest property taxes.

It is named for Charles Proteus Steinmetz, the German-born electrical engineer whose research made alternating current possible.

[1] In 1899 Union College announced that, in order to pay off a $30,000 ($1,099,000 in contemporary dollars[3]) debt, it would sell two adjacent tracts of land.

Prominent citizens of the city called for the land to be developed into a park, and a petition to that effect gained 2,200 signatures.

Shortly afterward, several members of the board of General Electric, which had grown rapidly since Thomas Edison had moved his Edison Machine Works to Schenectady in 1886, announced that the company would buy the land from the college for $57,000 ($2.09 million in contemporary dollars), retiring the college's debt.

They took their inspiration from New York City's Central Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux.

Another provision limited the height of any fence between properties to 3 feet 6 inches (107 cm), to make sure they were purely ornamental in purpose.

When the plans were finished, the property's surveyor claimed "We have here a suburban residential plot second-to-none between New York and Chicago, either in layout, restrictions, or the class of houses upon it.

[4] Every winter an area behind Brown School was flooded to create a skating pond for residents of the Plot, who received a special lapel tag to identify themselves.

[4] The original map of the plot shows three large parcels in the Oxford Street area to the east.

These lots lacked the covenants in the earlier ones, and as a result some of the houses on Rugby Road are closer together than the rest of the neighborhood.

Under the city's zoning regulations, any change to a historic building in a district that is visible from a public right-of-way must be approved by the commission.

It publishes a newsletter, The Plot Spotter,[7] sponsors a biennial house and garden tour[8] and works to maintain the neighborhood's historic character.