Sandy's Written Creations
Writings by Sandra Harrison including published and unpublished works of poetry, essays, children's and adult fiction and non-fiction work..
Famous People Born in White Plains
Carolyn Bessett-Kennedy (married to John F Kennedy Jr
Adam Bradley (Mayor of WP 2010-2011
Brian Burton (Known as Danger mouse, musician, songwriter and producer
Joseph Campbell (author and expert on myth and legend)
Frank Enea (musician, composer)
Erin Cardillo (actress)
Jennifer Damiano (actress in Next to Normal, Spider-Man, Turn off the Dark
Dan Duryea (actor, graduated WPHS)
Johnny Farrell (golfer, 1928 US Open Champion)
Noah Fleiss (actor)
Drew Dru-Ha Friedman (Hip Hop record executive of Duck Down Music Inc.
Channing Frye (Basketball NBA Forward)
Robecca Goldstein (writer: novels, short story, biographer, philosoher)
Shelley Hack (actress and supermodel)
Robert Harmon (American film and TV director)
David Harbour (actor)
Eric Holtz (Head Coach of Israel National Baseball Team)
Eric Holtz (Head coach of Israel National Baseball Team)
Bob Hyland (NFL lineman; Bar owner and ran for mayor)
Deacon Jones (Infielder MLB)
Jonathan Larson (writer Rent)
Mike McGlone (actor)
Emily McLaughlin (actress)
Kevin Meaney (Comedian, actor)
Chris Murphy (CT Senator)
Joseph Polchinski (theoretical physicist and string theorist)
Scott Reiniger (actor)
JD Roberto (Game show host, writer)
Alfred Romer (American paleontologist)
Vanessa Rousso (Poker player)
Roberto Schaefer (Cinematographer)
George E Smith (Nobel prize American physicist)
Ralph Waite (actor, Waltons) He is buried in WP in WP Rural Cemetery
Chris Watson (American-Israeli basketball player)
James Whitmore (actor)
Mark Zuckerberg (Founder of Facebook)
extra Extra EXTRAORDINARY
A friend to a friend
Loyal
Dynamic
Super
Other worldly
Powerful
Beyond Compare
extra Extra EXTRAORINARY
That’s Me
Yonkers New York History
Found on internet: I grew up in Yonkers and this is a bit of a history lesson and well written. From:
Hudson River Waterfront Present & Future- Historic River Towns of Westchester County, Westchester County Dept. of Planning June 1998
Larry James
Learned this from Buckout Road FB (Facebook) posting:
“This is Larry James.“
“At the racially charged 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, the former White Plains High School track star stood tall and won multiple Olympic Medals. The games were held just a few months after the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.
Known as “The Mighty Burner,” the 6′, 150 pound James achieved a silver medal in the 400 Meter Dash, and along with his teammates, captured Olympic gold by shattering the world record in the 400×4 relay. James ran the third leg of the race, clocking an astonishing 43.9 seconds. To put in perspective, Usain Bolt, who is known for his shorter distance runs, has a career-best time of 45.28 in the 400 meters, and the current world record, held by South Africa’s Wayde van Niekerk, is 43.03.
Shortly after the Olympics, the fastest man from Westchester County proudly joined the US Marine Corps and rose to the rank of major. In 2003, he joined Jesse Owens, Wilma Rudolph, and Carl Lewis in the National Track and Field Hall of Fame.”
There are videos on line for those interested.
Getting Rid of a Nuisance-Bottle Collectors
How can you get rid of nuisance in White Plains?
Bottle collectors go onto others property and often make a mess of recycle bins while making a lot of noise. Bottle collectors take over whole sidewalks with their bags and do not clean the recyclables as required so they often muck up the machines at grocery stores.
Get rid of them by taking off the labels of soda, beer and water bottles and punching holes in cans where barcodes are. Crush cans and water bottles so they take up less room in your bins.
It is actually illegal for people to enter your property to go through your bins and take things from your property. It is also illegal for them to take the recyclables left for city on sidewalks. Let teens go from door to door collecting cans and bottles so they can make summer money if you want your bottles/cans to go to someone.
Rye, New York
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Town of Rye or “Rye” began with three English settlers Thomas Studwell, John Coe, and Peter Disbrow moving on June 29, 1660 to Manursing Island, The island juts out into the Long Island Sound. They came from “Grenege” (Greenwich today) after purchasing the area known as Peningo from the Siwanoy on January 2, 1660 from the Mohegans of the larger Algonkian nation. Purchase was made with Shenarockwell, a Mohican chief. Land was along LI Sound between the Mamaroneck and Byram Rivers.
The Siwanoy had farmed the area growing corn, pumpkins and beans and pumpkins but their diet also included sea food and small game found in abundance along the shore and inland areas. Their homes were wigwams that were easy to construct and move. They were built with easily readily available wood and made by lashing bent poles together and covering them with bark or thatched reeds.
The settlers later purchased Manursing Island and named their settlement Hastings. By 1664, more settlers arrived and found more land on the mainland to build cabins where Playland and Rye Town Park are today and named the area Rye. In 1665, Hastings and Rye merged and the village on Manursing Island was abandoned. Town was named after Rye, in Sussex, England. The settlers were Puritans.
In 1672, Robert bought land from Philip Galpin on Peningo Neck about the time Thomas Merritt and Peningo Neck is now the business section of the City of Rye. Also developed was the Saw Pit area on the Byram River that is now Port Chester and part of the City of Rye (1868).
During Colonial times, the Town of Rye was part of the British Colony of Connecticut. For about seventy years their were boundary disputes between the Dutch and the English and between NY and CT. After the Dutch left NY in 1674, the English took control of the area and Rye continued to be part of NY and CT till 1731 when the borders were finally settled.
Men from Rye settlement settled in other areas like White Plains (1683) and Harrison (1696) that became villages of the town.
Like the indigenous people before them, Colonial Rye was a small farming community. Situated along the King’s Highway and later know as the Boston Post Road made it an important post and stagecoach stop. The business district moved from the Long Island Sound area to the King’s Highway. One of the taverns Strang’s Tavern and the Square House that is a museum today were located on the Post Road
Besides farming, residents during the winter months became tradesmen serving as wheelwrights, carpenters, saddlers, tailors, hatters, weavers and rope makers. The population remained small throughout this period, ranging from 722 in 1710 (including both Rye and Port Chester) to 986 in 1790.
With its many brooks, Rye had a number of mills with the first was built in 1656 on the Blind Brook near Oakland Beach Avenue. At the time of the Revolutionary War, 15 or 20 mills were operating in Rye and Port Chester, including one behind the Square House.
The Post Road, King Street, and the Grace Church Street were some of Rye’s earliest carriage paths. Water transportation and stagecoach linked the early settlers with the outside world. Active ports were at Milton Harbor and Portchester that transporting people and goods to and from LI and Manhattan. There were ferries at what is Guion Road today. The first wharf was built on Milton Harbor in 1679.
The area was under constant attack from the native Americans and the winters were often severe. Besides farming people fished, logged and traded goods. Logs were cut at the Saw Pit for the shipping industry The years during the Revolution from 1776 to 1783 were also difficult with constant raids by both the British and the Americans. The loyalist raiders were called cowboys. These cowboys would raid homes, fields, steal livestock and even killed people. As a result, many residents fled the area and their homes and fields fell into ruin. It would take a long time to recover after the war was over.
With the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, farming declined as NYers got their farm goods from western NY.
Like much of Westchester, the coming of the railroad in 1849 changed everything. With the railroad came the wealth New Yorkers looking for a place to get away from the hot city in the summer building large luxurious country estates with many along the shore. Many of these homes were in the area that is now the City of Rye.
By the late 1800s, the area where Playland and Rye Town Park are now located become a summer resort where one could find hotels, small summer bungalows, restaurants and amusement parks. In 1909, Rye Town Park opened and in 1928 Playland would open.
By the early 1900’s, some became yearly commuters to the city and the train depended on this for fares and advertised heavily to attract more to the area. Rye became a bedroom community or the suburbs of NYC and by the 1920’s people were using cars. Areas that were once the large estates of the wealthy were subdivided into smaller lots to be sold for people to build homes.
Jared Peck on the Boston Post Road in 1860 was subdivided into Loudon Woods in 1910. Indian Village was developed around that time as the Halsted property near the Knapp House. The Brevoort “farm” became Greenhaven during the 1920s, and many families from publishing and the motion picture industry settled here.
Villages of White Plains and Harrison separated from Town of Rye after the Revolution.
Beginning in 1868, Port Chester separate from the Town of Rye becoming an incorporated village.
In 1895, Mamaroneck became a a village in Town of Mamaroneck. It had been Rye Neck in the Town of Rye.
In 1904, Rye Village incorporated but in 1942 it became a city and is no longer part of the Town of Rye. Rye City is the youngest city in NY with a population of about 16,000.
Village of Rye Brook remained part of the Town of Rye till it incorporated on July 7 1982.
Sources:
What Side of History Do You Want to Be On?
“History tells us that, at the end of the day, there actually is a “right side of history.” For instance, most of us would likely agree on the following: The abolitionists in pre-Civil War America were on the right side of history. The suffragettes who fought for the rights of women in the electoral process were on the right side of history.
Reference: www. psychologytoday.com/us/blog/darwins-subterranean-world/201803/the-right-side-history
What side of History do you want to be on?
One that works to make the world a better place or one that works to
destroy it?
One that supports friends or one that takes them for granted?
One that challenges our enemies or one that seeks to destroy them?
One that wants to destroy the Earth or the one that wants to save it?
One that wants to be part of a global society or one that stays out of world affairs.
One that listens or one that makes all the decisions.
One that respects the needs of others or one that tramples on the
disadvantaged.
Don’t know which side of history you want to be on but I sure want to live in the world where there is a place for everyone to live their best lives.
White Plains Poem
Where once pigs and horses roamed
To a park with benches and fountains
Where once marches and streams flowed
To a concrete jungle of paved streets and glass buildings
Where once the volley of cannon fire was heard on a hillside
To homes along streets named for those of the Revolution
Where a Post Road meets a Road to Mamaroneck
This was the Village of White Plains
That is today’s City of White Plains
Old Leather Man
Found this info at Trailside Nature Museum up in Ward Pound Ridge Reservation in Pound Ridge, NY. It is possible that the Leather Man wandered in White Plains in the northern sections where there are still woods.
Sandy's Written Creations 
To “Citizens to be Heard” a City activist group.
Posted on July 18, 2021 by sandraharrison1954
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Wow, don’t understand what this group’s purpose is for anymore. Got attacked on their Facbook Group for wanting my neighborhood of Eastview to be as nice as the rest of the City. It is full of shopping carts, traffic from car dealer, litter, dumped items, storm drains filled with debris and lots of noise by barking dogs, cars zooming down the hill and businesses like the diner that don’t care that they are stinking up the air because they do not properly filter their air vents. My concerns were called petty. This was compared to saving one tree at WPHS or about someone wanting to find a contractor?
Is the Citizens to be Heard Group for people who want to promote their businesses or to find a missing dog by equating it to looking for a person? By the way, Eastview has lost a number of its trees one that was well over a hundred years old due to a strange lighting hail storm. But, other plants and trees came down just because the city wanted them down. And, they were never replaced. Our trees and bushes are home to hundreds of birds and other creatures.
I thought when I met the group at City Hall when I went to a hearing about The Collection that many on my street were against though they remained silent and City just approved anyway, I found a place to have a voice. But, instead I got called a Karen though the definition doesn’t fit me and there were more important things to complain about than a clean environment.
I also was concerned about our City that is losing its historic character one building at a time. When I wrote about what was still here from our past, I was amazed at how much was here but when I published my book after starting a blog in 2012, I had no idea how many of our older buildings would be knocked down to be replaced with high rise luxury rentals where tenants have little voice in how their buildings are run. Don’t want to leave White Plains as many suggested I do just cause I complained. Should we all just run away when we can’t improve things or make our lives better? Retired Special Educator who spent 31.5 years trying to educate the City’s forgotten but when I moved her could not afford a house. I just moved my mother to The Bristal and have lived in two neighborhoods.
Sadly, the block that I lived on in the Highlands on Davis from 1980 to 1988 but frequently go to my doctors has also become an ugly mess of litter, dog feces and broken sidewalks. The hospital took over a house and made it into a parking lot and the hospital hasn’t put in enough parking so it is impossible to find parking on the street with cars parking in driveways. But, this seems to be okay with some and my wanting our City to be cleaner, less noisy and less polluted isn’t.
What is the purpose of this Group?
I guess, I will just continue to go as an individual to make changes in our City. And, they are not just cosmetic. These are a few of the things that got done after complaining to City.
If one does not complain directly to City, nothing changes. Report individual complaints with very specific info on City system for reporting complaints, used email and send pictures and call. Calling is often difficult and do not always get a great reaction or response. One woman in Parking informed me that I was correct that parking was not being enforced on my block of Franklin on weekends and rarely on weekdays. Police also were not ticketing cars at night but this issue is still on going. Parking on street does not allow for cleaning and street is horrible with litter in storm drains and dumped on sidewalks from parkers.
Voting alone will not change things and most people do not vote. Only about 6 thousand vote in this community of 57,000 or more. People who do not live in City can also report issues. Many work here.
If you are having trouble with your building not doing repairs etc, contact the Building Department. They did help me and I had damage from leaking not fixed by building not just inside but on outside where the water was entering.
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