Historical Amnesia at The Jefferson

If  you visit the archives of the Ardsley Historical Society, you will learn that Windsong Road was the name of the ancestral home in Whitehaven, Tennessee (now part of Memphis) of female broadcast pioneer Irene Beasley who at one time owned a 50 acre parcel in  Ardsley along Heatherdell Road.  (Elvis's Graceland is also located in Whitehaven).  Ms. Beasley, who after her career in radio ended, later operated a real estate brokerage office at 486 Ashford Avenue starting in 1960, donated the land that became Windsong Road to the Village of Ardsley on the condition that the street always kept that name. Her sister was named Agnes Conners.  That is where Agnes Circle comes from. Ms. Beasley's home in Ardsley belonged to Captain Israel Honeywell. Inside the house is a mural depicting hundreds of years of history of the house which she also called Windsong.   Ms. Beasely is the subject of an online exhibit hosted by the University of Maryland about female broadcasting pioneers.  Irene Beasley

King Street (off Ashford) is also in the Village of Ardsley.  It is named for the  King Pickle Works founded by Capt. John King. As stated in the Spring/Summer 2011 edition of the newsletter of the Ardsley Historical Society as told by a relative of the King family: "By inheritance and intermarriage, the King family became identified with the civic progress of Ashford-Ardsley. To mention but a few, Captain John King gave the land for the Methodist Church, Ralph’s uncle, John Peene King, served as the first local judge and was Sunday School Superintendent for many years. Ralph’s mother played the organ at Church. His uncle, Capt. George W. King, was a Civil War veteran and lived near our Little Red School House."

As has been written earlier on this blog, The Jefferson is located in the Chauncey Fire Protection District. Right across the street is a retail building called Chauncey Square where the New York Sports Club and Oasis Day Spa are located.

So who was Chauncey? If you study the linked map of Greenburgh from 1867 and enlarge it Greenburgh 1867

and look south of Ashford (Ardsley's name prior to its incorporation as a village in 1896), you will see the following names of what are most likely farms or estates in the general area where Chauncey Square is located : Henry Chauncey, Lawrence, and Danforth, the latter being current street names in the same area. The address of the Jefferson is One Lawrence Street. You can also see King's pickle factory on the map. 

The Putnam Division of the New York Central Railroad (the "Put") ran along what is now the South County Trail from the Bronx to Brewster in Putnam County. The chief drawback of the Put was its lack of a direct connection to Grand Central Station.  Nevertheless, at the time of its demise, Ardsley (which was known for nearly 60 years from the early part of the 20th century till 1958 when the last passenger car left Ardsley's train depot, as "Ardsley on Putnam") had a 300 member commuter group of riders.  A wonderful photograph of that sad event can be found in Ardsley's Village Hall. 

The station just south of Ardsley on the Put was Chauncey. Along the South County Trail, there is a historical marker recalling the station.  An online rail buff site describes Chauncey as follows:

"Originally known as Odell's, Chauncey was at one time among Westchester's most promising suburban communities. Named for Henry Chauncey whose estate was nearby, the village had its own hotel, post office and fire house.

Industries served by the "Put" at this stop included the Brussels Tapestry Company and Stauffer Chemical. Passengers traveling to and from Children's Village, founded as the New York Juvenile Asylum, also used the Chauncey Station."

An illustration of  what Chauncey was like can be found in the August 18, 1928 New York Times (under Social Announcements) which led off with the planned wedding on September 15 of Katherine Stuart Douglas to Henry Percy Douglas at Glenalia, the summer home of the bride's parents in Chauncey, NY.

As noted in "Pictures of Our Past," by Patricia and Fred Arone, a book about Ardsley, "a picturesque woodland area mid-way between Ardsley and Chauncey was known to local residents as Carroll's Woods. A small gazebo added to the charm of the setting."

A 1963 New York Times article about the closing of the post office in Chauncey revealed that Thomas Carvel lived in Chauncey.  Carvel's ice cream machine patents all used his Chauncey, NY mailing address. (Chauncey's homes (now having a Ardsley postal address) are located in the various Winding Roads section of unincorporated Greenburgh which still retains its rural nature). 

Even a newly built subdivision of single family homes in this section of unincorporated Greenburgh is called Chauncey Estates. 

So how does the name "The Jefferson" fit into the area's interesting history? It doesn't. 

As it turns out, for unknown reasons, JPI/TDI, the developer of The Jefferson, homogenizes all of its developments  under its "Jefferson" brand to wit, Jefferson Plaza in Farmingdale and the Jefferson Residences in White Plains. 

We hope it is not derived from Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States of America who had deep connections to Texas initially as a soldier in the Mexican War (where he was commanded by Zachary Taylor (who subsequently became the 12th President of the United States)) which began in 1846 and ended with the recognition by Mexico of US sovereignty over all of Texas north of the Rio Grande. In fact, Texas has 32 counties named for confederate soldiers including "Jeff Davis" County. Texas still has a state holiday called Confederate Heroes Day which is celebrated on January 19.

Alternatively, the use of the Jefferson brand may be  intentional for as many local residents and current and former Ardsley officials have observed, the proposed 272 unit project will radically and existentially change the character of Saw Mill River Road and the Ardsley School District.  

As Robert Apter of Ardsley aptly observed in his terrific letter to the Rivertowns Enterprise last week, the  name "Jefferson" should only be known in Ardsley "as being our third President and the title character of a television show from 1975 to 1985."

Let's hope the developers of The Jefferson are reading the Rivertowns Enterprise in Irving, Texas.  

Incidentally, Irving , Texas is named for famed Amercan writer Washington Irving who apparently never set foot in Texas. 

Texas Shill Game

If you watch the Town Board's work session prior to the first scoping session, you will learn the developer of The Jefferson (JPI/TDI) asked the Town Board  to close the  initial scoping session after the public hearing which would  have foreclosed the second public scoping session now scheduled for February 10, 2016.

We wonder which of the following "owners' values"  (listed below) JPI/TDI was channeling when they sought to limit the input of Greenburgh residents which environmental impacts should be included in the final scoping document:

THE OWNERS’ VALUES

• Be faithful & obedient to God
• Be respectful to & help develop all people
• Be committed to excellence
• Be committed to service
• Be a person of character
• Grow profitably

We are certain first and foremost is the one about profit. 

That JPI/TDI doesn't  care much about the environment is not surprising  - its former CEO was one of the largest campaign contributors to former Texas Governor Rick Perry who maintains that climate change is a hoax. As noted in prior blog postings, The Jefferson project does not appear to have a solar energy component and it is not seeking LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, which is the hallmark of green building construction. 

In their various filings with the Town, JPI/TDI is presenting The Jefferson at Saw Mill project as  being a Transit Oriented Development ("TOD") because of its proximity to  the South County Trail which its tenants would use to commute to work.  This nonsense was thoroughly discredited at the first scoping session. It is also the case that JPI/TDI is doing virtually nothing to improve the infrastructure of the South County Trail. Instead it seeks to exploit it as a marketing gimmick. This is nothing short of green "bait and switch."

According to the "experts" at JPI/TDI, the intended residents of The Jefferson are mere millennials who want to live in TODs near walkable downtowns.  This would hardly fit the site they have chosen for The Jefferson (at the corner of Lawrence Street and Saw Mill River Road) which is almost three miles away from the Dobbs Ferry train station. Only one Bee Line bus (the 5 line) appears to service the location.

So it is rather curious to learn that JPI/TDI's current counsel (Neil Alexander of Cuddy & Feder) who is telling us and the Town Board that The Jefferson is the right project (even going so far to claim that no one they met with before presenting it for public consumption was against it) co-wrote an article published in the  November 3, 2015 edition of The New York Law Journal entitled 
"Land Use and Planning: Preventing Flight of Millennials" in which he claims that "Unless suburban municipalities plan to attract the millennial generation, employers will not relocate to the suburban areas."

He then asserts that in order to compete with the the "aesthetic draw to New York City," 
"Westchester, Fairfield, Long Island, and other suburban municipalities must reexamine their local planning goals and transition from "bedroom" communities to communities that facilitate an efficient working and living environment."

The accuracy of these contentions (unlike climate change) is highly debatable. If you look at study after study, the truth is no one knows from year to year what the so called millennials (including the millennials themselves) want or where they desire to live. Moreover, businesses expand or contract for many reasons. Office parks were once the flavor of the day. Now, as is true with, for example, the relocation by General Electric out of  suburban Connecticut, they want to be near a technology hub like the City of Boston. Housing for millennials was not a factor. 

Even before the millennials were discovered as a marketing tool to get municipalities to bend over backward to accommodate developers and ignore the quality of life concerns of local residents, Westchester County and  in particular Greenburgh (in Ardsley and Tarrytown) developed a strong bio-tech presence. Decades earlier and at the very location where The Jefferson is planned to be built, giant chemical companies like Ciba-Geigy, Stauffer Chemical and Azko Nobel had extensive manufacturing and research facilities. Greenburgh Town Board councilmember Diana Juettner's late husband, Paul Juettner, was a patent attorney for Stauffer Chemical. This is why the property is zoned for General Industrial use.

Alexander then writes about JPI/TDI's recent TOD project in Farmingdale, NY in Nassau County on Long Island, Jefferson Plaza where he was also their legal advisor:

"Most important to the attraction of millennials, the development is located diagonally across the street from the Farmingdale train station of the Long Island Rail Road, and is also one block away from Farmingdale's Main Street retail corridor that includes a variety of charming shops and restaurants."

Nevertheless, Alexander and JPI/TDI (whose East Coast office is in Irvington across the street from its train station in true TOD style), are pushing the fiction that The Jefferson,which is nowhere near a train station or a block away from "charming shops and restaurants" is both necessary and good.  

Yes, its good for those who are peddling the snake oil that The Jefferson will help our community "facilitate an efficient working and living environment."

At the next scoping session, lets ask that it include the cost of giving these hucksters a one way ticket  back to Irving, Texas.