Hastings-on-Hudson, New York

This article is about the village of Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. The town of Hastings, New York is a different town, in Oswego County, New York.

Hastings-on-Hudson is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States. As a village, it is located in the southwest part of the Town of Greenburgh. It is a suburb of New York City.

History

The area that is now Hastings-on-Hudson was once the home of the Weckquaesgeek Indians, one of the Algonquin tribes. In summer, the Weckquaesgeeks camped at the mouth of the ravine running under the present Warburton Avenue Bridge. There they fished, swam and collected oyster and clamshells used to make wampum. On the level plain nearby (which is now Maple Avenue), they planted corn and possibly tobacco.

Around 1650 a Dutch carpenter named Frederick Philipse arrived in New Amsterdam. In 1682 Philipse traded with the Indians for the area that is now Dobbs Ferry and Hastings. In 1693 the English crown granted Philipse title to the Manor of Philipsburg, which included what is now Hastings. After dividing the area into four nearly equal-sized farms, the Philipses leased them to Dutch, English and French Huguenot settlers.

During the American Revolution, what is now Hastings lay between the lines of the warring forces and was declared neutral territory. In reality, the area became a no-man's land and was raided repeatedly by both sides. Following the Revolution, the Philipses, who had been loyal to George III, saw their vast lands confiscated and sold by the newly established American state. In 1785 the four farms comprising today’s Hastings were bought by James DeClark, Jacobus Dyckman, George Fisher, and tavern keeper Peter Post.

Around the same time, Westchester County, which had been established as one of the 10 original counties in New York, was divided into towns, and the area that is now Hastings became part of the Town of Greenburgh. The village was incorporated in 1879 and its name changed from Hastings-Upon-Hudson to Hastings-on-Hudson.

Stone quarrying was the earliest industry in Hastings. From 1865 to 1871, hundreds of Scottish and Irish laborers blasted huge quantities of dolomite marble from a white marble quarry. An inclined railroad carried the marble down to the quarry wharf where it was dressed by skilled stonecutters and loaded onto ships bound for cities like New York and Charleston, South Carolina.

By the 1880s, Hastings Pavement was producing hexagonal paving blocks which were used extensively in Central Park and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Between 1895-1900, Hastings Pavement produced 10 million such blocks and shipped them throughout the United States and to cities in Canada, Brazil and England. By 1891 National Conduit and Cable Company had established an operation on the waterfront producing cables for utility companies here and abroad. The Anaconda Company took over National Conduit in 1929, and a few years later acquired the Hastings Pavement property. By the end of World War II, Anaconda owned most of the industrial waterfront. Anaconda closed its Hastings plant in 1975, bringing to an end the century-long era of heavy industry on the Hastings waterfront.

Geography

Hastings-on-Hudson is located at 40°59′28″N 73°52′27″W (40.991102, -73.874114)Template:GR in an area of hills on the Hudson River opposite the Palisades cliffs, north of the city of Yonkers. The village lies along the banks of the Hudson River, and its several hills afford beautiful views of the river, the Palisades and Manhattan to the south.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of 7.5 km² (2.9 mi²). 5.1 km² (2.0 mi²) of it is land and 2.5 km² (0.9 mi²) of it (32.65%) is water.

Commuter rail service to New York City is available via the Hastings-on-Hudson train station, served by Metro-North Railroad's Hudson line.

Demographics

As of the censusTemplate:GR of 2000, there were 7,648 people, 3,093 households, and 2,090 families residing in the village. The population density was 1,506.6/km² (3,899.7/mi²). There were 3,193 housing units at an average density of 629.0/km² (1,628.1/mi²). The racial makeup of the village was 89.79% White, 2.35% African American, 0.17% Native American, 4.14% Asian, 1.82% from other races, and 1.73% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4.50% of the population.

There were 3,093 households out of which 33.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 57.0% were married couples living together, 8.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.4% were non-families. 27.5% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.47 and the average family size was 3.05.

In the village the population was spread out with 25.0% under the age of 18, 4.1% from 18 to 24, 26.1% from 25 to 44, 29.3% from 45 to 64, and 15.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42 years. For every 100 females there were 91.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 85.9 males.

The median income for a household in the village was $83,188, and the median income for a family was $111,227. Males had a median income of $76,789 versus $50,702 for females. The per capita income for the village was $48,914. About 1.5% of families and 3.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 2.7% of those under age 18 and 1.9% of those age 65 or over.

Attractions and recreation

Hastings-on-Hudson has many attractions and places for recreation, including:

• Chemka Pool, a public swimming pool
• Hillside Woods, a large wooded area with hiking and biking trails
• Sugar Pond, a small pond located in Hillside Woods; open to ice skating in the winter
• Numerous playing fields including the Burke Estate, Zinsser Field, Reynolds Field, and Uniontown Field
• Hastings High School, where there are often theatre productions and other shows
• Downtown Hastings, which offers a variety of retail stores, selling for example: shoes, toys, stationery, and pizza.
• "Ever Rest", the homestead and studio of Hudson River School painter Jasper Cropsey (1823-1900). The home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in New York.
• A large public library

Famous Hastings residents

• Michael Brecker, jazz saxophonist
• Billie Burke, actress best known for playing the Good Witch of the North in The Wizard of Oz
• Kenneth B. Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark, Influential civil rights pioneers and psychologists
• Stephen Collins, Actor
• Jasper Francis Cropsey, painter
• Albert Dekker, actor
• Henry Draper, astronomer and author; first to discover that oxygen is present in the sun
• John W. Draper, served as the first president of American Chemical Society between 1876 and 1877.
• Daniel Ellsberg, author of the Pentagon Papers
• Bonnie Fuller, editor of Star Magazine
• David Farragut, American Civil War Admiral
• Peter Frampton, Grammy winning rock musician
• Giuseppe Garibaldi, a key figure in Italian Unification
• Martin Gardner, author of the "Mathematical Games" column in Scientific American
• Seth Godin, author of numerous business and marketing books
• Lewis Hine, an American photographer.
• Ricki Lake, actress and television talkshow host.
• Jacques Lipchitz, sculptor
• Antonia Maury, astronomer
• Abel Meeropol, an American writer best known under his pseudonym Lewis Allan, under which he wrote the anti-lynching poem Strange Fruit which he subsequently set to music and was famously performed by Billie Holiday.
• Robert Meeropol, is the younger son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Meeropol was born in New York City. His father Julius, an electrical engineer, was a member of the Communist Party. His mother Ethel (née Greenglass), a union organizer, was also active in the Communist Party. When Robert was six years old, his parents were executed for conspiracy to commit espionage.
• Robert C. Merton, 1997 Nobel prize laureate for Economics
• Frank Morgan, an American character actor best known for his portrayal of the title character in the film The Wizard of Oz.
• George Newall, co-creator, composer, executive producer for the children's educational television series, "School House Rock"
• Keith Olbermann, an American news anchor, commentator and radio sportscaster. He currently hosts Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC.
• Edmund Phelps, Columbia University professor who won the Nobel Prize in Economics
• Thomas J. Preston, Jr., Princeton University professor of archeology. He married Frances Cleveland, widow of President Grover Cleveland.
• Leo James Rainwater, nobel prize winning physicist
• Margaret Sanger, an American birth control activist, an advocate of certain aspects of eugenics, and the founder of the American Birth Control League
• Alan Schneider, Broadway Director
• Max Theiler, Nobel prize laureate
• William Vickrey, was a Columbia University professor, who was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. He died three days after the announcement, and was awarded the prize posthumously.
• Fats Waller, jazz pianist
• Florenz Ziegfeld, an American Broadway impresario who achieved fame by perfecting the United States revue. He is best known for his series of theatrical spectaculars, the Ziegfeld Follies, based on the Folies Bergères of Paris.

External links

• Village of Hastings-on-Hudson official website
• Hastings-on-Hudson official school district website
• Famous Hastings Residents from the Hastings Historical Society
• Hastings-on-Hudson Town Page
• InTown Westchester Magazine
• The Journal News, the local newspaper

Spencer Fox: voiced Dashielle Robert Parr in the Pixar animation, The Incredibles