As election time nears, my thoughts turn to politics and the role that money and influence plays in getting candidates elected. I was recently paging through the annual issue of Forbes Magazine's wealthiest Americans; it's a kind of Sports Illustrated "swimsuit edition" for those who prefer ogling wealth. Toward the end, I came to those individuals whose wealth was a mere billion and actually found myself starting to feel sorry for them – until I remembered how many million make a billion.
When I was a young boy my family often went for rides on Sundays. Often, the ride would lead around the Tarrytown Lakes, past the pump house, then through a beautiful tree-lined street that made a canopy over the road. Off on the right side of the road was a large mansion, but what fascinated me most was a life-size bronzed statue of a prancing horse. I would wonder, “Who owns that house?” I would like to tell you the story of the man that owned and made the estate he called Eastview Farm.
Written by Henry John Steiner Friday, 21 May 2010
The historic Tarrytown Train Station is 120 years old this year, and I recently reflected on my earliest experience with this landmark.
It was back in the early to mid-1950s, when I was a kid living in the Crest. On rare evenings, my mother would bundle her children into the backseat of the family car — a 1949 Plymouth — and drive down to the Tarrytown Train Station to meet my dad. There were no car seats or seatbelts then; I think my sisters and I used to stand or kneel on the backseat and watch the scenery through the windshield as the sedan cruised down Neperan Road and onto Main Street. On that stretch we could feel the rails of the old trolley line under the car tires. Usually, at that late evening hour, Main Street was subdued and dark, except for some bars, the marquee of the Music Hall, and the old incandescent street lamps.
Written by Henry John Steiner Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Sleepy Hollow, Tarrytown, and Irvington are Hudson River towns, and, like all the river towns that stretch up the Hudson to Albany and beyond, they share a common industrial history that connects them to the largest of the river towns – Manhattan. We can even see the lives of our own towns mirrored in the great metropolis and in its decline as a manufacturing center.
