The Chronicle

A Publication of
The Ghosts of Bronxville

SPRING 2013

Bronxville, New York

INSIDE
History Comes Alive Jon Meacham Stars At Brendan Gill Lecture Welcome Aboard! Two new members join the board Halloween Preview Historic haunted house tour Full Steam Ahead! Eastchesters 350th anniversary celebration planning In full swing
Photo Credit: Nancy Vittorini

Brendan Gill Lecturer Jon Meacham engaging, smart, entertaining, memorable and charming.
By Bob Scott A near-capacity audience attended our 15th annual Brendan Gill Community Lecture on Friday evening, April 12th to hear Pulitzer-Prize-winning author, Jon Meacham. Marilynn Hill, lifetime co-chair, introduced Meacham to the near capacity crowd in the Reisinger Auditorium at Sarah Lawrence College. Combining his considerable historic knowledge of Thomas Jefferson and other founding fathers with the current state of American politics, Meacham began his remarks by putting Jefferson and other patriots in perspective. While we may regard them as giants, they were merely patriotic men facing the significant challenges of their day, some of which are still challenging us.

Giverny and Bronxville Two critical venues in an artists development Coming Soon Bronxville Natural Resources Report Goodbye Yellow Brick Road? Preserving a treasure A Memorable Memorial Day A great parade and much, much more Join/Rejoin! Membership definitely has its advantages

(l to r) Marilynn Hill, Lifetime Co-Chair, Bronxville Historical Conservancy; Jon Meacham; Dr. Karen Lawrence, President of Sarah Lawrence College

He went on to discuss two kinds of partisanship that existed then and now ordinary partisanship, disagreement on the merits or demerits of an issue; and reflexive partisanship, disagreement stemming from such motives as loyalty to a political party. Meacham spoke for an hour without any notes and concluded by offering a different perspective on how to judge our leaders, past and present. He suggested that we not look up at them adoringly, or look down on them condescendingly, but look them straight in the eye to truly understand the challenges faced and the decisions made.

Continued on page 3

Welcome Aboard!

By Bob Scott
Photo credit: Judy Foley

The Conservancy is proud to add two new members to the Board of Directors, Michelle McBride and Stafford Meyer. Michelle and her husband Vincent moved to Bronxville four years ago. Previously, they had lived on the Upper West Side of New York City for 10 years. They chose Bronxville for its outstanding school system for their three children and for it's proximity to New York City. According to Michelle, We loved the feel of Bronxville and appreciated the architecture and pristine setting that the village offers. We have found it to be the perfect place to raise a family. Michelle also is very busy with the Bronxville school, Junior League and the Cub Scouts. Recently, she had her scout troop complete the Conservancys Historical Scavenger Hunt. According to Den Leader Michelle, It was thrilling to watch the boys complete the hunt with great enthusiasm and newfound appreciation of how the town has evolved over the years. My 8-year-old son still reminds me that Value Drugs is where the school used to be! Stafford and her husband Doug first came to Bronxville 13 years ago to work on an interior design project and fell in love at first sight. Stafford explains, We appreciated the unique nature of the village and have lived in Bronxville ever since, except for our four-year stint in London. The Meyers have three children.

New Board Members Michelle McBride and Stafford Meyer

Stafford currently serves on the Elementary School Council as the Green Chair and recently joined the board of Concordia Conservatory where she has a special interest in their growing fine arts program. In addition to her community service, during the past 12 months, the Meyers have undertaken a renovation of their "Meadow Cottage," a 1904 Bates House. Stafford adds, It has been a fun and challenging project to modernize the house while keeping its unique characteristics in tact.

GHOSTS OF BRONXVILLE
By Erin Saluti

ow can we attract more families with school-age children to the Conservancy? This is the question Erin Saluti and the Conservancys newest board members, Michelle McBride and Stafford Meyer, have been wrestling with for the past several months. The trio had several brainstorming sessions to develop ideas that would draw families in. They knew exactly what they were after: an event that would bring the history of Bronxville to life, and truly engage children. Amid the flurry of ideas, it was suggested that spooky sells. If its spooky, they will come! became their mantra, and an exciting new event concept was born, The Ghosts of Bronxville. This October 18th, the BHC will introduce an authentically spooky, candlelight tour where families with children will be able to meet some of Bronxvilles most illustrious ghosts in their original historic dwellings. 5 homes within easy walking distance have

been secured for the appearance of the spectral figures: 3 on the Hilltop, and 2 at the base. Efforts are being made to keep the ghostly encounters realistic, convincing and historically accurate. With this in mind, it has been decided that the tour will be best suited for children ages 8-13, accompanied by chaperones. The evening will culminate in an afterparty offering traditional Halloween games and activities. The development of the Ghosts of Bronxville is a huge undertaking as Michelle McBride describes: Bringing to life the historic figures of Bronxville, while preserving their essence is no easy task. Stafford Meyer added, In terms of content, we are aiming to give the kids the most captivating bits of Bronxvilles history and lore, while at the same time ensuring that complicated logistics run smoothly. All three board members are enjoying the creative process, and are looking forward to that cool night in October, when history will come to life.

More Than 350 Attend 15th Annual Brendan Gill Lecture

Continued from page 1

A reception hosted by the Conservancy followed the lecture. The audience was very enthusiastic about Meachams engaging humor, his outstanding command of history and his Southern gentleman style. People described him as engaging, smart, entertaining, memorable and charming. The event was characterized as the best ever, and it set a new standard for Gill lectures. Previous Brendan Gill lecturers have included architecture critic, Paul Goldberger; author George Plimpton; environmentalist Robert Kennedy, Jr.; preservationist Richard Jenrette; museum director Robert Macdonald; biographer Walter Isaacson; author and Civil War expert James McPherson; historian David

Halberstam; author Russell Shorto; biographer Robert Caro; JFKs legendary speechwriter Theodore Sorensen; noted Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer; journalist and author Cokie Roberts; and historian Kenneth Jackson.

Photo credit: Nancy Vittorini

Conservancy Co-Chair Judy Unis and George Unis

Anderson Kenny

? &Judy Foley

Erin & Joe Saluti

Conservancy Co-Chair Bill Dowling

John Hill & Bob Riggs

?, Donald & Kathy Gray

Annette Dowling & Cheryl Tague

Jane Johnston

Judge George McKinnis

Wendy Riggs

Pat Drew

Jane Staunton

KEEPING THE COVENANT

By Liz Folberth
he Celebration Committee for the 350th Anniversary of the Town of Eastchester, including the villages of Bronxville and Tuckahoe, has been formed to honor the rich history of this important and diverse community by documenting and celebrating the past threeand-a-half centuries. A Steering Committee of former officials, historians and history lovers (including many Bronxville Historical Conservancy members) is reaching out to libraries, schools, neighborhood and civic associations, and volunteer groups throughout the entire community to ensure involvement by all who are interested. A year-long festival of events and activities involving residents of all ages is in the planning stages. Some of the highlights include the publication of a handsome volume on little-known Eastchester history, trolley tours of the towns historical sites, and an exhibition in the OSilas Gallery of the towns oldest landmarks and an anthology of its most interesting residents. Importantly, all three public school districts will be offering educational programs for our students. Each school will adopt its own approach, plus some opportunities that will be open across district lines. Students at the private and parochial schools will be invited to participate as well. Dont be surprised if you see young people dressed up as Anne Hutchinson or John Adams (who lived here briefly with his family). The menu of suggestions, culled from activities used for National History Day, includes exhibits, research papers, performance pieces, and electronic media. Resources available for the beginning of the 2013-2014 school year include a website (under construction) and a packet of primary sources covering many national themes and local topics pertaining to Eastchester history. Imagine an entire town reading and discussing one book with the same enthusiasm that some now follow the latest Downton Abbey episode. This 350th Anniversary event is the OneBook/One Community Read Program sponsored by the three public libraries and Concordia College, showcasing 97 Orchard by Jane Ziegelman. In 97 Orchard, Ms. Ziegelman explores how five different immigrant groupsGerman, Irish,

Jewish, Russian and Italian brought their food passions to New York and managed the challenges of producing family meals in cold water flats. From the initial reading of the book, possibilities for community engagement are abundant: lectures, discussion groups, ethnic eating experiences, recipe sharing, cooking lessons and trips to 97 Orchard Street (home of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum) and Ellis Island. The projects goals are to encourage town residents to learn and share their own family histories and to encourage an appreciation of todays newest immigrants who make their homes and businesses here in Eastchester. The Anniversary Celebration aspires to make a lasting contribution to the rich cultural legacy of the Town of Eastchester. But to do this, broad community involvement is needed. For example, volunteers are pitching in to do the work, such as authorship and editing of a history book. Out-of-pocket expenses, such as printing the book, will be funded by contributions solicited by the steering committee, and not by the town or the villages. A not-for-profit corporation, Eastchester 350th Anniversary Inc., has been set up to accept tax-deductible contributions. The farm families who accepted the original deed to the town in June 1664 would hardly recognize the suburban residential community that is Eastchester today. But the spirit of the Covenant they made with each other (preserved in the Eastchester Town Hall vault) has inspired volunteerism and good governance that has characterized the Town throughout the years that followed. Keeping the Covenant, both literally and figuratively, will be the keystone for the Eastchester 350th celebration.

Bob Riggs, Co-Chair, 350th Celebration Committee

Guest Lecturer: Dr. E. Adina Gordon

In an Old French Garden: Mary Fairchild MacMonnies in Giverny

By Liz Folberth
n Sunday, March 10, the Conservancy hosted a lecture at the library by Dr. E. Adina Gordon entitled In an Old French Garden: Mary Fairchild MacMonnies in Giverny. Eighty people attended and were introduced to one of the most successful female artists of her generation. Following her second marriage to the muralist Will Hicok Low, she spent her last three decades living in Bronxville. The Lows lived at 25 Prescott Avenue, currently the home of Joe and Erin Saluti (a Conservancy board member), which was one of three artists studios featured on the Conservancys October 2012 house tour. In her introduction, former Conservancy Co-Chair Jayne Warman noted that she, while preparing for the 2012

house tour, got to know Dr. Gordon, who generously shared her extensive knowledge of Mary MacMonnies Low. Dr. Gordon, an art historian who specializes in American painting, sculpture and architecture from Colonial days to World War II, has authored art exhibition catalogues on Frederick MacMonnies and Mary MacMonnies Low, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and American artists who studied in Paris and formed the expatriate colony of artists in Giverny. Currently, she is writing two Catalogues Raisonn: one on the paintings of Frederick MacMonnies, and another on the paintings of Mary Fairchild MacMonnies Low. The St. Louis-bred Mary Fairchild, who in 1885 at the age of 27 went to Paris to study art, was already exhibiting her paintings in the prestigious Paris Salon by 1886. In 1887, she met the charismatic Brooklyn-born sculptor Frederick MacMonnies, five years her junior. They soon married. The 1893 Worlds Columbian Exposition in Chicago brought fame to both MacMonnieses. Mary won the commission of her life, to create Primitive Woman, one of two large murals for the Womans Building (the other was by Mary Cassatt); Frederick created the Expositions centerpiece, a sculpture of Columbia in her Grand Barge of State in the central fountain. After 1890, the MacMonnieses joined the lively international artists community in Giverny, a rural village on the Seine west of Paris where Claude Monet had settled in the early 1880s. Dr. Gordon characterized Mary MacMonnies as the hostess with the mostest, whose expansive, hospitable nature made her home in Giverny a social center for American artists such as Will Hicok Low and his wife Berthe. The MacMonnies home, called Le Moutier, was a converted priory with a walled garden. It was here that Mary began to develop her impressionistic plein air style, abandoning her large-scale studio work, to paint in bright colors in dappled sunlight. With the birth of her two daughters, Berthe (Betty) and Marjorie (a son died at age 2 of meningitis), MacMonnies began to paint women and children, a theme she pursued for two decades. Her garden became her studio and she painted it in every season. After Will Lows wife Berthe died and Mary MacMonnies divorced her husband, the two married and later moved to Bronxville. Here, Mary flourished as a painter of gardens, children and landscapes.

Photo credit: Bill Dowling

Dr. E. Adina Gordon

COMING SOON: Defining Bronxvilles Landscape

By Nancy Hand

n which of the five landscape types of the village do you live and what native plants and trees would thrive in your neighborhood? Did you know that the Norway Maple is considered an invasive species that grows in all conditions and emits a chemical that inhibits the growth of other nearby plants? Or that the wild geranium with its showy flowers in pink, white, and purple is a groundcover native to our area and is ideal for shade gardens and woodland slopes? These are just a few of the questions you will have answered in Defining the Landscapes of Bronxville, a Conservancy project which explores the landscapes in the village through the use of computer mapping. The purpose of the study is to investigate both the natural and cultural landscapes of Bronxville in order to better understand the unique physical patterns that exist here. The analysis of the natural landscape includes examining subsurface geology, hydrology, topography, slopes, soils and vegetation. The analysis of the cultural landscape includes patterns of development, transportation, neighborhood and construction

chronology, land use and zoning, and the unique characteristics of each area. The study identifies five unique landscape typologies in the village which include the Village Center, the Valley, the Hilltop, the Hillsides, and the Plateau. When the Landscape Typology Map report is published, residents will be able to understand the natural features that determine the character of each of these landscapes and the cultural features that have been overlaid on these natural settings. A series of approximately twelve maps identify these natural and manmade features which in turn will help develop strategies to preserve and enhance our environment in the future. The report will provide a list of two hundred native trees and plants annotated by landscape type. This can be used by residents as they make plans for their properties as well as by village officials and landscape architects. A shorter list of approximately thirty-five of the most common native plants and trees will also be included along with pictures and a brief description of each one. In addition, the study will give a descriptive list of invasive species that will aid residents in understanding what types of plants they might want to avoid.

Historic Hilltop Roads Under Threat

By Bill Dowling
The Lawrence Park Hilltop, developed by William Van Duzer Lawrence in the late 1890s and early 1900s as an art colony and listed in the national register of historic places, lingers among us a century later as a welcome fragrance, wrote Brendan Gill. The Hilltop today still gives us a glimpse into the past with its centuries-old oaks, unique shingle-style architecture and charming yellow-brick and cobblestone roads. But today those historic roads are under threat of being buried under asphalt. In February the Department of Public Works notified the Lawrence Park Hilltop Association that some of the roads, in particular the northern portion of Park Avenue from Wellington Circle down to the bottom of the hill, had deteriorated so badly that the bricks would have to be removed and the road graded and paved with asphalt. The old bricks, they stated, would most likely crumble when being removed. At that point, the Association reached out to the Conservancy to ask for advice and assistance. The Department of Public Works reported that they could not source replacement brick pavers to match the existing ones and even if they could, there was no money in their budget for any type of road surface other than tar macadam. The Conservancy met with the Mayor and Director of Public Works and asked that they delay the paving of the downhill portion of Park Avenue until we could research the bricks and find a company that could supply old bricks or reproduce pavers to match the originals. The Conservancy has contacted the New York Landmarks Conservancy and leading preservation architects who specialize in this area and is currently interviewing a half dozen companies who are capable of manufacturing reproductions of historic brick, or sourcing antique brick pavers, to see which company might be best suited to supply the village. Once that source is identified and an estimate is made of the cost, the next step for the Conservancy will be to work with the village on funding the project.

Emphasizing the Memorial in Memorial Day

Five years ago, in order to reemphasize the memorial In Memorial Day, two village residents, Conservancy board member Jane Staunton and Cindi Callahan, asked the Bronxville Historical Conservancy for a small grant to help them initiate a veterans commemoration at the Bronxville Womens Club two weeks prior to Memorial Day. They assembled a remarkable collection of newspaper articles, letters, photographs and biographies of local residents dating back to World War I. This material was supplemented by framed photos of veterans with their service records, a collection donated by Eastchester historian Michael Fix. This original Bronxville Veterans Memorial display, however, attracted fewer than 75 people when it was presented on a Sunday in the middle of May. With the Conservancys encouragement, the creators agreed to make the exhibit available on Memorial Day. Since 2011, the Commemoration was displayed in the school gym for five days surrounding the Memorial Day weekend. Nearly all of the schools students are guided through the exhibit and large numbers of residents have helped the attendance soar to well over a thousand people who paid their respects to our veterans. Thanks to Jane, Cindi, Michael, the Parent Teacher Association, and the Bronxville School administration and faculty, the Veterans commemoration will again be presented in the school gym this coming Memorial Day weekend.

Oldies, But Goodies!

ne of the visual delights of the Bronxville Memorial Day Parade is having it led by a large contingent of antique Model A cars from the Model A Ford Club of Westchester, a parade entry sponsored by the Conservancy. This year, as usual, on Monday, May 28, the Model A Fords will gather at 8 a.m. on Studio Arcade. Other cars, age 25 years and older, are welcome to join the parade. If you would like to participate with your car, please call Richard Schearer at 914-770-0044 to register, or be at Studio Arcade before 8:15 A.M.

Membership growing! 80 new members and counting!

The Bronxville Historical Conservancy is dedicated to an understanding and appreciation of the heritage and culture of Bronxville.
I wish to become a member.
Enclosed is my check payable to The Bronxville Historical Conservancy Or join online: www.bronxvillehistoricalconservancy.org $50 Lawrence Friend $250 Prescott Patron $100 Chambers Champion $500 Underhill Fellow $1,000 Masterton Benefactor

Each membership, at any level, is a household membership for the calendar year. Corporate memberships are also available. Please print clearly: First Name(s)__________________________________Last Name_____________________________________ Address _____________________________________________________________________________________ Telephone____________________________________Email__________________________________________ Please mail your check to Bronxville Historical Conservancy, P.O. Box 989, Bronxville, NY 10708

P. O. Box 989 Bronxville, NY 10708

The Bronxville Historical Conservancy was founded in 1998 to further the understanding and appreciation of the history and current life of the Village of Bronxville, New York. The Conservancy furthers its mission through the presentation of programs, publications, lectures and special events that foster an awareness of the villages architectural, artistic and cultural heritage and lends its support for projects designed to strengthen and preserve those legacies.

The Chronicle
Spring 2013
Editor: Bob Scott Associate Editor: Liz Folberth Designer: Ken Gudaitis Contributing Editors: Bill Dowling, Liz Folberth, Nancy Hand, Marilynn Hill, Erin Saluti Contributing Photographers: Bill Dowling, Judy Foley, Nancy Vittorini,

Submissions welcome! 8