ZIP Code 10503

Irvington, sometimes known as Irvington-on-Hudson, is a suburban village in the town of Greenburgh in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is located on the eastern bank of the Hudson River, 20 miles (32 km) north of midtown Manhattan in New York City. The population of Irvington at the 2020 census was 6,652. The village's half-mile-long (0.8 kilometers) Main Street area has been designated as a historic district by New York State and on January 15, 2014, was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 2010, Westchester Magazine ranked Irvington as the "Best Place to Live in West Chester". Before the area where Irvington is now located was settled by Europeans, it was inhabited by the Wickquasgeck, a band of the Wappingers, related to the Lenape (Delaware) tribes which dominated lower New York state and New Jersey. The Dutch came to the area in the 1600s, the land was part of the Bisightick tract of the Adrian Van der Donck grant. Early settlers in the Irvington area were Stephen Ecker, Jan Harmes, Captain John Buckhout, and Barent Dutcher. In 1785, the state of New York confiscated the Phillipse's land from his grandson, Frederick Philipse III, after he sided with the British in the American Revolution, and sold it to local patriot farmers. The King's Highway later the Albany Post Road, and now Broadway, was built through the settlement by the 1720s.

History

The area where Irvington is now located was inhabited by the Wickquasgeck, a band of the Wappingers, related to the Lenape (Delaware) tribes. Early settlers in the Irvington area were Stephen Ecker, Jan Harmes, Captain John Buckhout, and Barent Dutcher. The King's Highway later the Albany Post Road, and now Broadway, which connected New York City with Albany, was built through the settlement by the 1720s. It was at Odell's Tavern that the Committee of Safety, the executive committee of the legislature of the new State of New York, officially received the news that George Washington had lost the Battle of Long Island, and, later, British troops camped nearby. No major battles of the Revolutionary War were fought in the area, only minor skirmishes between residents and British soldiers. Irvington and the rest of southern Westchester County became an unofficial 30-mile wide zone separating British-occupied territory from that held by the Americans. The country is rich and fertile, but now marks the ruins of a country in the name of the rebels, all in the names of all the hunting and hunting households, all of which were destroyed by the British in the war. The area is now home to the New York State Museum, which is open to the public. The museum is located in the former home of Washington Irving, who lived in Irvington until his death in 1881. It is also the home of the National Museum of American History, which opened in 1913.

Geography

Irvington has a total area of 4.0 square miles (10 km²) of which 2.8 square miles is land. The village's main thoroughfare is Broadway (Route 9), originally an Indian footpath which gradually became a horse track and then a dirt road. Main Street begins at the Metro-North train station, just off the Hudson River, and travels uphill to Broadway. The southbound Saw Mill River Parkway can be reached via Harriman Road/Cyrus Field Road, past the village reservoir, or East Sunnyside Lane/Mountain Road through East Irvington. The New York State Thruway is accessible via Ardsley, and the Mario Cuomo Bridge is nearby in Tarrytown. As with all river communities in Westchester, Irvington is traversed by a stretch of the old Croton Aqueduct, about 3 miles (4.8 km) long, which is now part of the Old Croton Trailway State Park. The aqueduct is a National Historic Landmark. Bus service is provided on Broadway by the Westchester County Beeline Bus System via route #1T (The Bronx-Yonkers-Tarrytown) and #1W (The Yankees-White Plains- White Plains) The village is located on the East River, a tributary of the Hudson, which runs through the town of Yonkers and into New York City. It has a population of about 2,000, with about 1,850 acres (750 ha) of land.

Demographics

As of the census of 2020, there were 6,652 people and 2,141 households in the village. The average cost for a one-family house in 2010 was $585,780, below the Westchester County average of $725,000. Bloomberg ranked Irvington 54th in its March 2017 profile of "America's 100 Richest Places". In the 2018 survey, it ranked 67th of the over 6,200 places covered. There are approximately 1,180 single-family homes in Irvington, as well as 100 mutli- family homes. Although Irvington primarily consists of single family homes, there are eight condominium complexes, 13 cooperative ones and 17 apartment buildings, totally almost 1,100 units altogether. As of February 2012, the village had passed a local ordnance requiring new developments to provide affordable housing. The cost of housing in Greenburgh was pushed upwards by Greenburgh's town-wide re-evaluation of property values, which was initiated in 2016. In the village, the population was spread out, with 31.2% under the age of 18, and 14.4% who were 65 years of age or older. 54.9 percent of the population is female. The median income for a household in theVillage of Irvington was $145,313, Males had a median income of $85,708 versus $50,714 for females. The per capita income for the village was $74,319. About 7.1% of the village were below the poverty line.

Economy

Irvington is an affluent suburban "bedroom community" with a large number of people commuting into New York City to work. There are several notable businesses and institutions located in the village, such as BrightFarms, a company that grows salad greens.Columbia University's Nevis Laboratories is a research center specializing in the preparation, design, and construction of high-energy particle and nuclear experiments and equipment which are transported to accelerators such as Fermilab, CERN and Brookhaven National Laboratory. Monte Nido Treatment Center, a residential treatment center for eating disorders, was announced in May 2014 to be planned for Irvington. The organization has residential facilities in Malibu and Agoura Hills in California and in Boston, as well as a day-clinic in New York. In January 2021, Verve Medical Cosmetics announced that it will open Verve Loft Westchester in a left space on Bridge Street. The space features panoramic views of the Hudson River and a 6,000-square-foot main space. In August 2016 it was announced that a 9,000 square-foot (840 m2) event space on the top floor of a three=story warehouse at 2 Astor Place in Irvington would be available beginning at the end of September for weddings, parties and other events. It is expected to open on February 4, 2021. The student center, a community website for teenagers and college students, has offices on Main Street. In 2015, X-Caliber Capital, a national, direct commercial real estate lender, opened its first company-owned factory.

Government and politics

Irvington is one of six incorporated villages that lie within the town of Greenburgh. The village is governed by a mayor, who is elected every two years in odd-numbered years, and four trustees, who also serve two-year terms. A paid village administrator is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the village, assisted by a clerk-treasurer. Irvington is protected by its own 22-person police department, along with a volunteer fire department and volunteer ambulance corps, all of which are located on Main Street. The controversial 2005 Irvington mayoral election was held on March 15, 2005, but was not decided until October 27, 2005. The race between incumbent Dennis P. Flood and Democratic challenger Erin Malloy ended up being decided "by lots", as required by New York state law when a village election is tied (847 votes for each candidate). To comply with state law, the village had to use random lots to decide the winner. Eight quarters were used. Flood was represented by four quarters with the Statue of Liberty on the back, while Malloy represented a bald eagle. The mayor appoints one of the trustees to be deputy mayor each year. The administration is divided into eleven departments: administration, building, public works, parks and recreation, theater, fire, water and Sewer, finance, planning, finance and planning. The board of trustees is in discussion with a possible technology provider for the initial phase of the microgrid system, which would make the village 80% power self-sufficient.

Education

Irvington is part of the Irvington Union Free School District, which also includes East Irvington, an unincorporated area of Greenburgh, and the Pennybridge section of Tarrytown. The schools are Dows Lane School (K-3), Main Street School (4&5), Irvington Middle School (68), and Irvington High School (912) The Middle School and High School are sited together on a combined campus on Heritage Hill Road off of North Broadway, on the site where the Stern castle, "Greystone", once stood. The Immaculate Conception School, a Catholic elementary school, was closed by the Archdiocese of New York in June 2008, after 100 years of existence. In the 2009-2010 school year, John Cardinal O'Connor School for students in grades 2 through 8 with learning disabilities, which had formerly been St. Ursula's Learning Center in Mount Kisco, moved into the vacant building. Columbia University maintains in Irvington its Nevis Laboratories, which specializes in the preparation, design, and construction of high-energy particle and nuclear experiments and equipment, which are transported to major laboratories worldwide. The grounds also hold an agricultural research center and the offices of Columbia University Press. In 1890, schoolteacher Mary F. Bennett founded the Bennett School for Girls in the village. The school offered a six-year course of study: four years of high school and two of higher study. In 1907 it moved to Millbrook in Dutchess County, and dropped the high school grades, becoming a junior college.

Culture

Irvington is one of several "Rivertowns" in Westchester County, New York. The Town Hall Theater, opened in 1902 and restored in 1979-80, is located in the village's "Town Hall" Irvington is home to a number of members of the Unification Church, including several high-ranking families. There are several Church-owned estates and buildings located in Irvington and in the neighboring village of Tarrytown. Irvington has four Christian churches, three of them clustered together on Broadway, just north of Main Street. The Jewish community is served by three nearby synagogues: the traditional/non-denominational Chabad of the Rivertowns, the conservative Greenburgh Hebrew Center in Dobbs Ferry and the dual reform/conservative synagogue Temple Beth Abraham in Tarry Town. The Westchester Buddhist Center, whose executive director is interior designer Stacy T. Curchak, is also based in the Village of Irvington. The Calvary Chapel of Westchester (Evangelical) is located on South Buckhout Street and the Immaculate Conception Church (Roman Catholic) is on East Sunnyside Lane. The Irvington Shakespeare Company seeks to decolonize and perform Shakespeare's plays in ways that everyone can understand, aiming to showcase local talent in the greater Hudson Valley, and throughout New York State. In 2021, a lifelong resident, Kamran Saliani, founded the Irvingtonakespeare Company and signed into an Arts Partnership with the Irvingon Theater.

Local media

From 1912 to 1998, Irvington's daily newspaper was the Tarrytown Daily News. In 1998, the Gannett Company combined all their area local papers, including the Daily News, into The Journal News. From 1975 to the present, the Rivertowns Enterprise, a weekly newspaper, has reported on local government, schools, sports, arts and business in Irvington as well as Ardsley, Dobbs Ferry, and Hastings-on-Hudson. The Hudson Independent, a monthly free newspaper begun in 2006, serves Irvington, Sleepy Hollow, and Tarry Town, an area also covered by the River Journal, an online news site, and RiverTowns Patch. The Irvington Gazette was published on Aqueduct Street "in the interest of the village of Irvington and vicinity" from 1907 to 1969. The village was also served by TheIrvington Gazette, a week-long newspaper which was published in the village from 1907 until 1969. It was published by the Irvington Press, a local newspaper based in the town of TarryTown, New York. The Gazette's last owner was the New York Post Company, which published the paper until the end of the 20th century. It has since been replaced by The Hudson Journal, which is published by Hudson Publishing, a subsidiary of The Associated Press, and is based in New York City. The River Journal is a free newspaper that was founded in 2006. It is published monthly and serves the village and surrounding areas.

Historic Irvington

Irvington is home to a number of historic landmarks and an historic district. In 2018, the village board of trustees passed local legislation which sought "the protection and enhancement" of landmarks and historic sites. The law will be enforced by an architectural review board which will designate "sites, structures, buildings, markers and objects" that "cannot be duplicated or otherwise replaced" and that are "illustrative of the growth and development of our nation, our state and our Village" A village master plan recognized around 200 hones dating from 1859 to 1930 which were worthy of consideration in 2003. The cornerstone of St. Barnabas was laid on May 29, 1853, and was designed by the Reverend Dr. John McVickar, a professor at Columbia College and the General Theological Seminary. In 1897, John Brisben Walker, who had a general interest in the magazine Cosmopolitan, bought a free walk away from Irvington and built a three-story stone revival building topped by three small domes. The Cosmopolitan Building is now the headquarters for the New York Cosmopolitan magazine, which moved from New York to Irvington when the magazine moved to New York in 1897. The "Lich Gate" entryway dates from circa 1896, andwas designed by A. J. Manning, who later designed the Irvington Town Hall. The gate is made of solid oak on a stone foundation and was a memorial to Mrs. H. Worthington, who once lived in Irvington.