Downtown Ossining Historic District
Encyclopedia
The Downtown Ossining Historic District is located at the central crossroads of Ossining
, New York, United States, and the village's traditional business district known as the Crescent. Among its many late 19th- and early 20th-century commercial buildings are many of the village's major landmarks—three bank buildings, four churches, its village hall, former post office and high school. It was recognized as a historic district
in 1989 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places
, as one of the few downtowns in Westchester County
with its social and historical development intact.
One of its contributing properties
, the First Baptist Church of Ossining
, had already been listed on the Register in 1973. The Old Croton Aqueduct, a portion of which passes through the district, was listed on the Register the following year and designated a National Historic Landmark
in 1992. Among the architects represented in the district are Robert W. Gibson
, Isaac G. Perry
and James Gamble Rogers
.
Ossining began at the crossroads in the late 18th century, and continued to prosper as industry developed along the nearby shore of the Hudson River
, along with Sing Sing
prison and the railroad. It soon became Westchester's first incorporated
village. The downtown area was fully developed by then, but two events later in the century reshaped it. The aqueduct was built through the area to carry water to New York City, requiring the demolition of some buildings. In the early 1870s several fires destroyed other buildings; most that remain thus date from that period to the early 1930s.
Later in the 20th century the buildings on the south side of Main Street were demolished as part of urban renewal
efforts. Some of the oldest buildings on the other side were also lost in another fire. Little has been built to replace them, and the village has only recently begun serious redevelopment
efforts although the area has become home to restaurants and home-furnishings stores that cater to the area's Latin American and Portuguese immigrant
populations. A comprehensive plan adopted in the early 21st century has led to new zoning
for the area meant to encourage mixed-use development
; it also calls for the expansion of the district.
At its northern end is the village municipal building along Croton Avenue (New York State Route 133
). It includes the bank building at the corner with South Highland and then crosses the street to follow the rear line of all the properties on Main Street, the area traditionally known as the Crescent due to the curve resulting from the area's topography
. This takes it to the southwest, crossing the aqueduct trailway. At Brandreth Street it veers westward to take in two properties on Central Avenue, then returns to take in the properties as far west as 119 Main Street.
Then it returns eastward along Main, crossing the aqueduct again to the north side of Church Street. It turns south to follow the rear lines of the properties along South Highland, two commercial buildings and Trinity Episcopal Church, then returns to South Highland at Maple Place. It follows the east side of the road to Emwilton Place, where it turns east to include Ossining United Methodist Church. Past the church it turns north again to include all the buildings of Ossining High School
while excluding its more modern athletic facilities. At the high school's north boundary it turns west again to the rear lines of properties on South Highland, and follows them back to village hall.
The 37 buildings and structures within these boundaries are overwhelmingly commercial structures, usually brick buildings of two or three stories. The rest are institutional, either religious or governmental in use. All but 14 are considered contributing properties
.
Within the district the land slopes slightly to the north and west, anticipating steeper drops of almost 100 feet (30 m) to the Sing Sing Kill gorge and Hudson respectively. As a result of its proximity to these bluffs there is a view across the Hudson, nearly three miles (5 km) wide at this point, to Hook Mountain
and other peaks of the Palisades between Nyack
and Haverstraw
in Rockland County
. To the east and south are the residential neighborhoods of Ossining. Just south of the district's southern boundary on the west side of South Highland is Highland Cottage
, also listed on the Register.
The village's 2009 comprehensive plan called for expanding the historic district boundaries, at least for local purposes. Four small areas have been proposed for inclusion. They include the additional properties on Central Avenue, a westward expansion along Main Street, Highland Cottage and the building to the east of the municipal building on Croton Avenue at the northeast corner of the district.
and redeveloping them.
who fled to England during the Revolution
. Afterwards, their vast landholdings in today's Westchester
and Putnam
counties were confiscated by the state of New York and divided among new owners. Elijah Hunter, an officer during the war, bought the tract just south of Sing Sing Kill. He also started holding prayer meetings at his house and those of others who came to settle, a group which formally became the First Baptist Church
in 1790.
The river shoreline became the hub of early development. Produce from the farms inland was brought there to be shipped to New York City via what is now Main Street, which connected to the Albany Post Road
, now US 9. To open the port to even more farmers, the Croton Turnpike (now NY 133) was built early in the 19th century.
Settlement and development began to concentrate around the crossroads. The Union Hotel, just north of the Croton Turnpike, became the travelers' stop identified with Ossining. The local Presbyterian congregation built its first meetinghouse at the present site of Trinity Episcopal Church in 1803. By 1813 it became Sing Sing, Westchester's first incorporated
village. The First Baptist Church built its first building at its current site in 1815. In 1820, a relocation of the Post Road a thousand feet (305 m) to the east benefited the new village at the expense of Sparta, the unincorporated hamlet a mile to the south, since Sparta was no longer on the road while Sing Sing and the Union Hotel still were. Five years later, the local economy was further bolstered when the state built Sing Sing
, one of its first prisons, was built on the river just to the southwest of the village. Marble quarried by convicts was used to build not only the prison but several other buildings in the area, including Ossining's oldest church, St. Paul's, now Calvary Episcopal Church, downtown outside the historic district, and elsewhere, such as the steps of the state capitol
and New York City Hall
.
The two churches grew with the village. In 1834 the Baptist church was renovated, and the Presbyterians built a new Greek Revival
church. Many of the commercial buildings in that style along Main Street west of the crossroads were demolished when the Croton Aqueduct, a masonry underground tunnel, was built in 1839 to connect Croton Dam with the reservoirs in Central Park
. The buildings in that style at 151–155 Main Street, built afterwards further east, survived and were the oldest buildings in the district when it was established, but are no longer extant. Only the clapboard
Italianate
house at 23 South Highland, one of the few residences in the district and now its oldest building, survives from the pre-Civil War
period.
's pill factory
. Industries that had been a source of Ossining's early growth, such as boat-building on the riverside and transportation-related businesses like hotels along Albany Post Road, suffered. In 1850, the First National Bank built its first building at what is today the same site occupied by its successor at South Highland and Croton.
Little new construction took place during the 1860s, due to the war and its aftermath. The Second Empire Olive Opera House at 63-67 Central Avenue, built around 1865, remains the district's oldest non-residential property. Croton Avenue saw some development at that time, particularly the rowhouses at 4 and the commercial building at 12. On Main Street the buildings between 157 and 161 also date to this time, but those that remain have been altered enough to no longer be contributing. The building at 121 Main Street, built around 1865, does retain enough integrity. After the war, the village built a monument to the 42 men who had been killed in action with the Union Army
at South Highland and Croton.
, were prosperous for Ossining. While shipbuilding and river shipping finally faded as an industry when the railroad, now part of the New York Central
, was fully established, quarrying continued. The village had became an industrial center, with over a hundred businesses located downtown or on the waterfront, from Brandreth's pill factory
to pickle and sleigh manufacturers.
Near the end of that decade the church congregations began thinking of expanding again. The Presbyterians needed a larger building. They sold their building to the new Trinity Episcopal Church, who had split from nearby St. Paul's over differences of opinion on the war. The lot at the Maple Place intersection was ideal for their new building designed by Isaac Perry, later New York's state architect. The stone-trimmed brick structure has design features common to Perry's other churches, all designed during this period, and in particular with the First Congregational Church in Binghamton
, where he opened an office in 1872, two years after finishing his Ossining church.
It was the first of four churches built in downtown Ossining in the late 19th century. The other buildings in the district were primarily built in the wake of four fires. The first, in 1871, primarily affected the corner of the Post Road and Broadway (then called Mill Street) to the north of the district. Its primary casualty was 217 Main Street, rebuilt in brick instead of frame
later that year; however, the village's records, all stored in the basement, were lost. In 1872, the next fire destroyed all the buildings on lower Main Street. In its wake, the Barlow family, who had operated a hardware and furniture business in the original building since 1844, built the block named for it at 129–139 Main Street, retaining the original's bracketed
cornice
and adding pediment
s. The Barlows intended for it to be the central commercial location in Ossining.
In 1874 another fire started in the Olive Opera House at Brandreth and Central, seriously damaging it and the neighboring buildings. In the subsequent rebuilding, 145 Main Street was redone in the Renaissance Revival style, with bracketed cornices and pediments and stone trim. On the other side, 61 Central retained its cast iron
storefront with columns on high plinth
blocks, the only example of that design element in the district.
Further up the street, 187 Main was built in 1874 as well, featuring splayed brick lintels in addition to its bracketed cornice. Across the street, the Baptists replaced the twice-renovated Greek Revival frame church where they had worshipped since 1815. Brooklyn architect J. Walsh's brick Gothic Revival design is one of the highest applications of that style in Ossining.
The last fire, in 1876, burned that block across Main from the Baptist Church, an area the previous fires and the aqueduct construction had left untouched. Again, the rebuilding provided a chance to apply newer architectural styles. The buildings at 191 and 193 Main became Palmer Hall and the Stayver Building, brick structures with Neo-Grec
detailing in their metal trim. Italianate detail was added to 199 Main Street, which became the Keenan Building when it was finished in 1878.
In the 1880s, the space left vacant next to the aqueduct along the north side of Main was refilled by 165 and 173–75 Main. Both have since been modified but retain their original metal cornices and segmental-arched lintels. Further east, another Renaissance Revival building, 127 Main Street, was completed in 1885. Its elaborate detail includes two-story brick pilaster
s supporting a metal roof cornice, and an intermediate cornice supported by cast iron pillars.
That same year the Methodists, who had previously held services in a building on Spring Street, outside the district, finished their new church. That building, at the corner of Highland and Emwilton, was designed by Ebenezer Roberts, architect of several Manhattan churches, and Lawrence P. Valk. The Ossining Methodist church is distinct from Roberts' earlier, more Gothic, churches (all subsequently demolished). Polychrome
bands of stone on the exterior, and more elaborate detailing, put it within the High Victorian Gothic
style. It features an engaged corner tower and transitional Queen Anne
and Shingle Style elements. Louis Comfort Tiffany
signed one of the Favrile glass windows he designed for the interior.
The last of the downtown churches was Trinity. After almost two decades in the Presbyterians' former building, the breakway Episcopalian congregation needed its own new building. It commissioned Robert W. Gibson
, whose design was the fifth in a series of English Gothic churches begun in 1884 with Albany
's All Saints Cathedral. Trinity has elements in common with the other churches in the series, such as its mix of materials and large rose window, but is unique among them for its U shape, the result of a later expansion. It was completed in 1891, the only Neo-Gothic Revival religious building in the district.
At the beginning of the next decade, another longstanding building from the early years of Ossining, the Union Hotel at South Highland and Church Street, was demolished. A Romanesque Revival doctor's office building replaced it. In 1892 the corner section of the Barlow Block was separated internally from the rest of the building so it could serve as Ossining's post office, the first of two former locations for that facility within the district. The next year the village's electric trolley
system was established, with its main line going down Croton Avenue from the then-undeveloped Ossining Heights area in the northeast corner of the village to Main Street, where a spur ran down to Sparta, and then continuing to the train station. Residents could more easily travel downtown, and Ossining Heights soon became the suburban residential area it is today.
The new century brought some major changes to the village, starting with its name. In 1901 it formally changed its name from Sing Sing to Ossining to distance itself from the prison. Residents had come to resent the prison industries' competitive advantages and the prison itself was now associated with the electric chair
. Sparta, long bypassed by the region's major transportation arteries, was finally annexed by the village in 1906.
In architecture, the Renaissance Revival style was used for another commercial building, 181–183 Main Street, around 1900. In 1905 the parish hall and cloister were added to Trinity, giving its distinctive U-shaped layout. The next year the corner section of the Barlow Block was remodeled by W.H. Rahman for use by a bank in a higher version of the style. It was refaced in stone, with Doric
and Ionic
pilasters, terra cotta
detailing and full entablature
leading up to a tile roof, meant to emulate St. Mark's Library
in Venice
.
It anticipated the first significant building of the new century, the Bank for Savings Building at 200 Main Street, built the next year on the north corner of the triangular lot occupied by the First Baptist Church for nearly a century. The stone building by Lansing Holden, a past president of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects
, is the only example in the village of the Beaux-Arts style, and one of the best in the county. Its classical detailing makes it a focal point for traffic entering Ossining from the north, even as the intersection has become of one of Westchester's busiest.
and stone quoin
s; on the other building all the decoration, including the flat-arched lintels and corbel
ed cornice
, was brick.
In 1914, the bank buildings would be complemented by the village's own new municipal building. The stone edifice at 16–20 Croton Avenue, the northern end of the district, was in the Classical Revival
mode common for most governmental buildings of the era. The upper floors were initially used as a school. It is the only Westchester building by Donn Barber
, designer of the Connecticut State Library
and the first American admitted to the French Society of Beaux-Arts architects.
Later that year another new architectural style was introduced to the district. A new commercial building at 201–203 Main Street used the Spanish Colonial Revival, with a tiled pent-roofed parapet and stucco face. Down the street at 125 Main, a 1920 building is the district's only example of a yellow brick building with limestone
trim, in the form of a stone cornice topped with a parapet.
The early 1920s brought the end to some more Ossining institutions, even as the village's population reached 12,000, many moving into farms newly subdivided into suburban residential neighborhoods on the village's outskirts. In 1920, a new warden at the prison shut down several prison industries, including the quarry. Two years later, the Olive Opera House closed after almost 60 years. It was soon converted
into a small factory. Two years after that, in 1924, the trolley system was shut down and dismantled, as more residents owned cars and more of the roads were paved. A bus system replaced it.
The last significant buildings in the future district came to South Highland at the end of the decade. On the corner just south of the First Baptist Church, the Cynthard Building was erected in 1930 when the Romanesque Revival doctor's office that had replaced the Union Hotel in 1890, and a house to the south, were themselves demolished. The Cynthard was a single-story commercial block faced in terra cotta topped by a polychrome
parapet
. Also that year, the third and last bank building downtown was built at 13 Croton Avenue, the corner with North Highland. The First National Bank, which had occupied the spot since 1880, moved into the district's only Art Deco
building. It has an unusual neoclassical door surround.
Ossining High School
would be that year's most distinguished addition. Washington School
, the village's high school since 1907, was becoming inadequate for the growing student population. After several attempts, voters in 1929 approved a new building when a nearby private school made a donation that helped cover the $750,000 ($ in modern dollars) construction cost. The new high school would be on the site of Careswell, formerly the estate of Henry Baker, the local financier who had helped fund the Methodist church.
James Gamble Rogers
was the architect. Known for his many buildings on college campuses, the village's high school was one of his few secondary school buildings, and the only public school. The Collegiate Gothic
building, taking up the large area of South Highland's west side between the houses and the Methodist church, has some similarities to Harkness Tower
at Yale University
, also designed by Rogers and considered one of the best examples of that style.
set in and construction slowed, one more public building would complete the district. The post office had outgrown its space at the Barlow Block again, and needed to move. As part of the relief programs, many new post offices were built. Arthur Ware contributed a restrained Classical Revival one-story brick building at 10 South Highland, between the Cynthard Building and the Presbyterian Church, on the site of what had been the last remaining house on the west side of Main in the district. It was completed in 1933, the last contributing property
in the district.
The district had been built out, but change continued. Woolworth's
moved into the space at 201–203 Main in 1934. The government of the Town of Ossining
, which surrounds the village on land, moved into Village Hall the next year, and has been there since.
Postwar population growth led to the expansion of two buildings in the late 1950s. The first was the Presbyterian Church, which received a new Sunday School
wing in 1955. Two years later the high school across the street followed. It had been in excess of its original design capacity since 1937. The new wing, completed in 1957, was used at first for the junior high school students (since then a separate building has been constructed for those students and the entire building is used by the high school). It was built of brick and intended to be architecturally sympathetic.
Most significantly, later in the decade the aqueduct began to carry less water. New York City had both eliminated one of the two reservoirs in Central Park that it fed, and developed or planned to develop new reservoirs in the Catskills
and further up the Croton River
watershed, so it needed the water that had gone through Ossining less. In the early 1950s it finally stopped using it completely; it continued to serve some of the communities along it until 1965.
Automobiles had displaced the railroad as the most common means of transport. Parkways and other dedicated roads had been built from the city in all directions. One proposal, made in the late 1920s, called for a Hudson River Expressway to run along the river's eastern shore, paralleling the railroad, from The Bronx
to Beacon
, including through downtown Ossining. Governor Nelson Rockefeller
, whose ancestral estate Kykuit
would have been along the route, introduced a shortened version in 1958, a Tarrytown
-Beacon Interstate 487
. After intense local opposition, he canceled the plan in 1971. Part of it had been making urban renewal
funds available to affected communities, and that was retained.
Like many other established downtowns, Ossining had been adversely affected by the growth of the automobile in the later 20th century. Local shoppers began taking advantage of improved roads to patronize stores in both enclosed shopping mall
s and strip mall
s along major highways like Route 9 outside the village's traditional center. The village used its urban renewal grants to demolish the old buildings along the south side of Main Street that year in an attempt to revitalize downtown. Its comprehensive plan
drafted but never adopted two years earlier called for mixed-use development
, projects to replace them. But they were never funded or undertaken, and the spaces were largely used as parking. It was the first of many plans that remained largely unrealized, as Ossining went through 15 different mayoral administrations in the remaining years of the 20th century. During the 1968–74 period downtown was also the site of several race riot
s that began at the high school and spilled into the streets. The community responded by redistricting its schools to ensure earlier racial integration
.
The 1971 plan had recognized the importance of the buildings on the north side of Main, and historic preservation
soon played a larger role in downtown. In 1973 the First Baptist Church
became Ossining's first listing on the National Register of Historic Places
, and the aqueduct followed the next year. In 1975 the village followed up with a study of the prospects for rehabilitating and preserving downtown that, for the first time in its planning
history, drew on community input. It recommended residential development downtown to sustain the businesses that remained, but no new projects were undertaken. A second plan two years later also failed, but made specific recommendations for preserving historic buildings and called for new development to be on the same scale, rather than the larger structures proposed at the beginning of the decade.
As the village continued to change governments, the social and economic trends affecting downtown continued. All three bank buildings eventually became vacant. The preeminence of automobiles and roads took a direct toll on the district when a widening of Route 9 cost 217 Main Street several of its bays
. It was rebuilt with its overall appearance retained, but the project cost it enough of its historic character that it could no longer be considered contributing
when the district, originally called the Main Street Crescent Historic District, was created in 1989. Many businesses that closed or moved out were replaced by new ones, particularly restaurants, that catered to a growing Latin
immigrant
population that had settled in the neighborhoods nearby. The designation of the aqueduct as a state historic park and creation of a trailway along the route in 1983 was also a positive development for downtown. In 1988 its upper portion was reopened to provide some of the village's northern neighborhoods with water.
Two years later, the village, under its first stable administration in several decades, began the planning process again, focusing on both downtown and the waterfront. Its second attempt at a farmers' market
downtown began in 1990 and continues. Extensive public involvement led to the implementation of ideas from earlier plans, such as design guidelines for the district and a Historic Review Commission to enforce them. The new plan recognized the importance of the growing restaurant cluster downtown Its necessity was further underscored in the years immediately afterward. In 1992 the aqueduct gained National Historic Landmark
status, and in 1993 the 1840s Greek Revival buildings at 147–55 Main Street burned, creating a new void for redevelopment.
Change came to two of the newer buildings on South Highland as the 20th century became the 21st. The post office moved out of its building for a newer facility on the south side of Main Street, in the space cleared three decades earlier by urban renewal opposite the western extent of the district. Its former building was converted
to retail use. Just to its north, the Cynthard Building was damaged by a fire in 2003, and was closed for three years while it was repaired and restored
. In 2004 the village took possession of the Bank for Savings building, vacant since 1983. Two years later, another developer acquired the Ossining National Bank Building and began restoring it for use as affordable
condominium
s.
Ossining's first full-time planner was hired in 2005. After extensive community input, a new draft comprehensive plan was completed in 2007, and adopted in 2009. It recommended the creation of a new zoning district, Village Center, for Main Street, which was quickly adopted. In 2011 the village implemented another recommendation, putting out formal requests for redevelopment proposals for both the Bank for Savings building and the vacant lots, currently used for parking, at 147–155 Main.
.
code has since the adoption of the 2009 comprehensive plan assigned a unique district, called Village Center, to downtown. It is intended to preserve downtown "as the center of village of life" by promoting business uses of greater intensity than elsewhere in the village and encourage mixed-use development
, with upper levels of buildings available for residential use. To that latter end, it requires that residents of a building have a entrance available that is separate from any used for commercial purposes, that no residential use is permitted on the ground floor and that units be at least 450 square feet (41.8 m²) for studio apartment
s, 600 square feet (55.7 m²) for one-bedrooms, 750 square feet (69.7 m²) for two-bedrooms with 250 square feet (23.2 m²) required for any additional bedroom.
Along with Sparta and the waterfront, the district is covered by a historic overlay district
defined elsewhere in the zoning code. They are overseen by the Historic Preservation Commission (HPC), a body of seven residents appointed by the village manager
. At least one member has to have practical experience in architecture, urban planning
, land development
or real estate, or live in a historic district or designated local landmark, or have a practical interest in local history or preservation
(a single member with all those qualifications can satisfy the statutory requirement). They serve for five-year staggered terms. The HPC considers applications for landmark status, and develops overall preservation strategies for the village, but does not consider applications for individual properties.
The village's zoning requires that all new construction save additions to or expansions of detached single-family homes and residential duplexes
receive site plan
approval from the village's Planning Board. This applies to almost all properties in the district. The seven members of the board are, like the HPC members, appointed to five-year terms by the village manager; two must have relevant expertise.
The Planning Board also serves as the Board of Architectural Review (BAR), which has the power to reject proposed buildings for "[i]nappropriateness in relation to the established character of other structures in the immediate area or neighboring areas with respect to significant design features, such as material or quality of architectural design ..." An unsuccessful applicant, or one requiring a variance
, can go before the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA). Its five members are, as with the Planning Board and HPC, appointed by the village manager for five-year terms; there are no qualifications on membership.
To the first end, it recommends making the village's government more user-friendly for existing and prospective businesses, addressing the 18% vacancy rate reported in 2007. The Village Board and Planning Board should both be able to provide more information and reach out to local and regional business organizations. The zoning process could be improved, since many existing businesses downtown are on conditional uses, and site plan approvals should have a time limit, forcing owners to begin development. A Main Street Manager could be appointed to concentrate on downtown, and a business improvement district
created.
During the process of drafting the plan, many residents expressed a desire for a national chain
retailer or restaurant to be enticed to locate near or in downtown as a draw. The plan considers this ill-advised and unlikely to happen for several reasons. Chains do not like to pioneer a new area, instead preferring to cluster with each other, and this leads to the development of large strip mall
s, impractical and undesirable in downtown Ossining, which still shows the scars of previous demolitions for urban renewal
. Ossining as a whole is also geographically undesirable for chains, since not only is it neither affluent enough or accessible enough from major highways, the Hudson River
cuts the potential trade area for such stores in half.
Instead, it recommends building on the existing clusters of restaurants and home-furnishings stores. Two businesses in each, Dora's Portuguese restaurant
and Melita's respectively, draw customers from all over the county. Other regional chainlets could be drawn to Ossining. Restaurants in particular could see more ethnic diversity, widening the existing focus on Latin fare. The plan also recommends both improving cultural offerings downtown, and promoting more residential and office use to increase foot traffic around the clock.
Residents also complained that the parking lots opposite the Crescent were unsightly, and that they found it difficult to find parking downtown. The plan recommends creating a village green
on part of the lot at the southwest corner of Main and Spring streets, outside the district, as a focal point of downtown. It could retain parking along the sides or even in a garage underneath, a common practice in Europe. Further parking could be added in an aboveground garage on Brandreth Street, outside of downtown. The village should also act to create a consistent downtown environment by encouraging infill development, making signage and lighting consistent, and strengthening and consistently enforcing its historic preservation guidelines.
The plan also recommended improving connections between downtown and the waterfront, where the Metro-North
commuter rail station
or the Haverstraw–Ossining Ferry could bring visitors into the village without adding to the parking problem. "A synergy
between waterfront uses and downtown
will enhance both areas, and provide reasons for visitors to stay in Ossining longer", it says. The village should study the possibility of establishing a jitney
or shuttle bus service
that would not only allow visitors to bypass the steep climb up Main Street from the waterfront to downtown but continue westward to the residential areas of the village and town. Other measures to enhance the connection include signage, improved walkways and lighting, and leaving space for river views.
, an 1872 reinforced concrete
house already listed on the Register. At the northern end, the property at 22–24 Croton Avenue next to the municipal building would be included, and the west end would extend to 55 and 57 Central Avenue and 107–113 Main Street.
In addition, the plan also recommends that the boundaries of the historic district be signed and maps be posted. The powers of the village's regulatory bodies over it should be improved as well. It calls for the HPC's decisions to be made binding, and the draft design guidelines it and the BAR use should be improved and made a formal reference document, in order to ensure that infill development is consistent with the existing buildings in the district.
Ossining (village), New York
Ossining is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 25,060 at the 2010 census. As a village, it is located in the Town of Ossining.-Geography:Ossining borders the eastern shores of the widest part of the Hudson River....
, New York, United States, and the village's traditional business district known as the Crescent. Among its many late 19th- and early 20th-century commercial buildings are many of the village's major landmarks—three bank buildings, four churches, its village hall, former post office and high school. It was recognized as a historic district
Historic district (United States)
In the United States, a historic district is a group of buildings, properties, or sites that have been designated by one of several entities on different levels as historically or architecturally significant. Buildings, structures, objects and sites within a historic district are normally divided...
in 1989 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
, as one of the few downtowns in Westchester County
Westchester County, New York
Westchester County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. Westchester covers an area of and has a population of 949,113 according to the 2010 Census, residing in 45 municipalities...
with its social and historical development intact.
One of its contributing properties
Contributing property
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing resource or contributing property is any building, structure, or object which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, listed locally or federally, significant...
, the First Baptist Church of Ossining
First Baptist Church of Ossining
The First Baptist Church of Ossining is located in the center of the village of Ossining, New York, United States. It is a brick building in the Gothic Revival architectural style with a tall wooden steeple built in the 1870s, one of Ossining's most prominent landmarks. In 1973 it was listed on the...
, had already been listed on the Register in 1973. The Old Croton Aqueduct, a portion of which passes through the district, was listed on the Register the following year and designated a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
in 1992. Among the architects represented in the district are Robert W. Gibson
Robert W. Gibson
Robert W. Gibson, AIA, was an English-born American ecclesiastical architect active in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century New York City and New York State. He designed several large Manhattan churches and a number of prominent residences and institutional buildings.Gibson studied...
, Isaac G. Perry
Isaac G. Perry
Isaac Gale Perry , was a prolific New York State architect and builder. His works include New York State Inebriate Asylum, Monday Afternoon Club, Phelps Mansion and the First National Bank of Oxford.- Life and career :...
and James Gamble Rogers
James Gamble Rogers
James Gamble Rogers was an American architect best known for his academic commissions at Yale University, Columbia University, Northwestern University, and elsewhere....
.
Ossining began at the crossroads in the late 18th century, and continued to prosper as industry developed along the nearby shore of the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
, along with Sing Sing
Sing Sing
Sing Sing Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison operated by the New York State Department of Correctional Services in the town of Ossining, New York...
prison and the railroad. It soon became Westchester's first incorporated
Municipal corporation
A municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including cities, counties, towns, townships, charter townships, villages, and boroughs. Municipal incorporation occurs when such municipalities become self-governing entities under the laws of the state or province in which...
village. The downtown area was fully developed by then, but two events later in the century reshaped it. The aqueduct was built through the area to carry water to New York City, requiring the demolition of some buildings. In the early 1870s several fires destroyed other buildings; most that remain thus date from that period to the early 1930s.
Later in the 20th century the buildings on the south side of Main Street were demolished as part of urban renewal
Urban renewal
Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Renewal has had both successes and failures. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of...
efforts. Some of the oldest buildings on the other side were also lost in another fire. Little has been built to replace them, and the village has only recently begun serious redevelopment
Redevelopment
Redevelopment is any new construction on a site that has pre-existing uses.-Description:Variations on redevelopment include:* Urban infill on vacant parcels that have no existing activity but were previously developed, especially on Brownfield land, such as the redevelopment of an industrial site...
efforts although the area has become home to restaurants and home-furnishings stores that cater to the area's Latin American and Portuguese immigrant
Immigration to the United States
Immigration to the United States has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of the history of the United States. The economic, social, and political aspects of immigration have caused controversy regarding ethnicity, economic benefits, jobs for non-immigrants,...
populations. A comprehensive plan adopted in the early 21st century has led to new zoning
Zoning in the United States
Zoning in the United States comprise land use state laws falling under the police power rights that State governments and local governments have the authority to exercise over privately owned real property.-Origins and history:...
for the area meant to encourage mixed-use development
Mixed-use development
Mixed-use development is the use of a building, set of buildings, or neighborhood for more than one purpose. Since the 1920s, zoning in some countries has required uses to be separated. However, when jobs, housing, and commercial activities are located close together, a community's transportation...
; it also calls for the expansion of the district.
Geography
The district is a 29 acres (11.7 ha) area shaped roughly like an upside down "Y". Its boundaries mostly follow lot lines and curbs. It is built around South Highland Avenue (U.S. Route 9), the main north-south through road, and Main Street, which leads west to the river.At its northern end is the village municipal building along Croton Avenue (New York State Route 133
New York State Route 133
New York State Route 133 is a state highway in Westchester County, New York. It begins at US 9 in the village of Ossining, goes through several hamlets in the town of New Castle , and ends at NY 117 in the village of Mount Kisco.-Route description:NY 133 begins in downtown...
). It includes the bank building at the corner with South Highland and then crosses the street to follow the rear line of all the properties on Main Street, the area traditionally known as the Crescent due to the curve resulting from the area's topography
Topography
Topography is the study of Earth's surface shape and features or those ofplanets, moons, and asteroids...
. This takes it to the southwest, crossing the aqueduct trailway. At Brandreth Street it veers westward to take in two properties on Central Avenue, then returns to take in the properties as far west as 119 Main Street.
Then it returns eastward along Main, crossing the aqueduct again to the north side of Church Street. It turns south to follow the rear lines of the properties along South Highland, two commercial buildings and Trinity Episcopal Church, then returns to South Highland at Maple Place. It follows the east side of the road to Emwilton Place, where it turns east to include Ossining United Methodist Church. Past the church it turns north again to include all the buildings of Ossining High School
Ossining High School
Ossining High School is public high school, located in Ossining, New York, colloquially known as OHS. Its building is located within the boundaries of the Downtown Ossining Historic District, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989....
while excluding its more modern athletic facilities. At the high school's north boundary it turns west again to the rear lines of properties on South Highland, and follows them back to village hall.
The 37 buildings and structures within these boundaries are overwhelmingly commercial structures, usually brick buildings of two or three stories. The rest are institutional, either religious or governmental in use. All but 14 are considered contributing properties
Contributing property
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing resource or contributing property is any building, structure, or object which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, listed locally or federally, significant...
.
Within the district the land slopes slightly to the north and west, anticipating steeper drops of almost 100 feet (30 m) to the Sing Sing Kill gorge and Hudson respectively. As a result of its proximity to these bluffs there is a view across the Hudson, nearly three miles (5 km) wide at this point, to Hook Mountain
Nyack Beach State Park
Nyack Beach State Park is a state park in Upper Nyack, Rockland County, New York. It consists of a small parking lot and of riverfront pathway, the southernmost section of the Hudson River Valley Greenway. It is known for its physical proximity to the Hudson River on one side of the pathway...
and other peaks of the Palisades between Nyack
Nyack, New York
Nyack is a village in the towns of Orangetown and Clarkstown in Rockland County, New York, United States, located north of South Nyack; east of Central Nyack; south of Upper Nyack and west of the Hudson River, approximately 19 miles north of the Manhattan boundary, it is an inner suburb of New...
and Haverstraw
Haverstraw (village), New York
Haverstraw is a village in the town of Haverstraw in Rockland County, New York, United States located north of Congers; southeast of West Haverstraw; east of Garnerville, New York; northeast of New City and west of the Hudson River at its widest point...
in Rockland County
Rockland County, New York
Rockland County is a suburban county 15 miles to the northwest of Manhattan and part of the New York City Metropolitan Area, in the U.S. state of New York. It is the southernmost county in New York west of the Hudson River, and the smallest county in New York outside of New York City. The...
. To the east and south are the residential neighborhoods of Ossining. Just south of the district's southern boundary on the west side of South Highland is Highland Cottage
Highland Cottage
Highland Cottage, also known as Squire House, is located on South Highland Avenue in Ossining, New York, United States. It was the first concrete house in Westchester County, built in the 1870s in the Gothic Revival architectural style...
, also listed on the Register.
The village's 2009 comprehensive plan called for expanding the historic district boundaries, at least for local purposes. Four small areas have been proposed for inclusion. They include the additional properties on Central Avenue, a westward expansion along Main Street, Highland Cottage and the building to the east of the municipal building on Croton Avenue at the northeast corner of the district.
History
The development of downtown Ossining has four distinct stages: the early preindustrial period when it was primarily a crossroads; the late 19th century when most of the district's buildings were built and rebuilt along Main Street including the four churches; the early 20th century when new construction shifted back to Highland Avenue and gave the district its important public buildings, and the era since then that has been devoted to preservingHistoric preservation
Historic preservation is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance...
and redeveloping them.
1780s–1840s: Crossroads and port
What is today known as Ossining was originally part of lands formerly owned by the Philipse family, LoyalistsLoyalist (American Revolution)
Loyalists were American colonists who remained loyal to the Kingdom of Great Britain during the American Revolutionary War. At the time they were often called Tories, Royalists, or King's Men. They were opposed by the Patriots, those who supported the revolution...
who fled to England during the Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
. Afterwards, their vast landholdings in today's Westchester
Westchester County, New York
Westchester County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. Westchester covers an area of and has a population of 949,113 according to the 2010 Census, residing in 45 municipalities...
and Putnam
Putnam County, New York
Putnam County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York, in the lower Hudson River Valley. Putnam county formed in 1812, when it detached from Dutchess County. , the population was 99,710. It is part of the New York Metropolitan Area. The county seat is the hamlet of Carmel...
counties were confiscated by the state of New York and divided among new owners. Elijah Hunter, an officer during the war, bought the tract just south of Sing Sing Kill. He also started holding prayer meetings at his house and those of others who came to settle, a group which formally became the First Baptist Church
First Baptist Church of Ossining
The First Baptist Church of Ossining is located in the center of the village of Ossining, New York, United States. It is a brick building in the Gothic Revival architectural style with a tall wooden steeple built in the 1870s, one of Ossining's most prominent landmarks. In 1973 it was listed on the...
in 1790.
The river shoreline became the hub of early development. Produce from the farms inland was brought there to be shipped to New York City via what is now Main Street, which connected to the Albany Post Road
Albany Post Road
The Albany Post Road was a post road - a road used for mail delivery - in the U.S. state of New York. It connected the cities of New York and Albany along the east side of the Hudson River, a service now performed by US 9.The rough route was as follows:...
, now US 9. To open the port to even more farmers, the Croton Turnpike (now NY 133) was built early in the 19th century.
Settlement and development began to concentrate around the crossroads. The Union Hotel, just north of the Croton Turnpike, became the travelers' stop identified with Ossining. The local Presbyterian congregation built its first meetinghouse at the present site of Trinity Episcopal Church in 1803. By 1813 it became Sing Sing, Westchester's first incorporated
Municipal corporation
A municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including cities, counties, towns, townships, charter townships, villages, and boroughs. Municipal incorporation occurs when such municipalities become self-governing entities under the laws of the state or province in which...
village. The First Baptist Church built its first building at its current site in 1815. In 1820, a relocation of the Post Road a thousand feet (305 m) to the east benefited the new village at the expense of Sparta, the unincorporated hamlet a mile to the south, since Sparta was no longer on the road while Sing Sing and the Union Hotel still were. Five years later, the local economy was further bolstered when the state built Sing Sing
Sing Sing
Sing Sing Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison operated by the New York State Department of Correctional Services in the town of Ossining, New York...
, one of its first prisons, was built on the river just to the southwest of the village. Marble quarried by convicts was used to build not only the prison but several other buildings in the area, including Ossining's oldest church, St. Paul's, now Calvary Episcopal Church, downtown outside the historic district, and elsewhere, such as the steps of the state capitol
New York State Capitol
The New York State Capitol is the capitol building of the U.S. state of New York. Housing the New York State Legislature, it is located in the state capital city Albany, on State Street in Capitol Park. The building, completed in 1899 at a cost of $25 million , was the most expensive government...
and New York City Hall
New York City Hall
New York City Hall is located at the center of City Hall Park in the Civic Center area of Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA, between Broadway, Park Row, and Chambers Street. The building is the oldest City Hall in the United States that still houses its original governmental functions, such as...
.
The two churches grew with the village. In 1834 the Baptist church was renovated, and the Presbyterians built a new Greek Revival
Greek Revival architecture
The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in Northern Europe and the United States. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture...
church. Many of the commercial buildings in that style along Main Street west of the crossroads were demolished when the Croton Aqueduct, a masonry underground tunnel, was built in 1839 to connect Croton Dam with the reservoirs in Central Park
Central Park
Central Park is a public park in the center of Manhattan in New York City, United States. The park initially opened in 1857, on of city-owned land. In 1858, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux won a design competition to improve and expand the park with a plan they entitled the Greensward Plan...
. The buildings in that style at 151–155 Main Street, built afterwards further east, survived and were the oldest buildings in the district when it was established, but are no longer extant. Only the clapboard
Clapboard (architecture)
Clapboard, also known as bevel siding or lap siding or weather-board , is a board used typically for exterior horizontal siding that has one edge thicker than the other and where the board above laps over the one below...
Italianate
Italianate architecture
The Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, which had served as inspiration for both Palladianism and...
house at 23 South Highland, one of the few residences in the district and now its oldest building, survives from the pre-Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
period.
1840s–1870: The railroad comes to Ossining
In the middle of the century, the Hudson River Railroad was built along the shoreline. With the village now within a hour's ride of New York City, its population grew over 50 percent between 1845 and 1855. The railroad's effects on the economy were both beneficial and detrimental. It enhanced the agricultural business through the crossroads, and spurred development of industry at the waterfront such as Benjamin BrandrethBenjamin Brandreth
Benjamin Brandreth was a pioneer in the early use of mass advertising to build consumer awareness of his product, a purgative that allegedly cured many ills by purging toxins out of the blood...
's pill factory
Brandreth Pill Factory
The former Brandreth Pill Factory is a historic industrial complex located on Water Street in Ossining, New York, United States. It consists of several brick buildings from the 19th century, in a variety of contemporary architectural styles...
. Industries that had been a source of Ossining's early growth, such as boat-building on the riverside and transportation-related businesses like hotels along Albany Post Road, suffered. In 1850, the First National Bank built its first building at what is today the same site occupied by its successor at South Highland and Croton.
Little new construction took place during the 1860s, due to the war and its aftermath. The Second Empire Olive Opera House at 63-67 Central Avenue, built around 1865, remains the district's oldest non-residential property. Croton Avenue saw some development at that time, particularly the rowhouses at 4 and the commercial building at 12. On Main Street the buildings between 157 and 161 also date to this time, but those that remain have been altered enough to no longer be contributing. The building at 121 Main Street, built around 1865, does retain enough integrity. After the war, the village built a monument to the 42 men who had been killed in action with the Union Army
Union Army
The Union Army was the land force that fought for the Union during the American Civil War. It was also known as the Federal Army, the U.S. Army, the Northern Army and the National Army...
at South Highland and Croton.
1870–1910: Industrial prosperity
The postwar years, the period later referred to as the Gilded AgeGilded Age
In United States history, the Gilded Age refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth in the United States during the post–Civil War and post-Reconstruction eras of the late 19th century. The term "Gilded Age" was coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their book The Gilded...
, were prosperous for Ossining. While shipbuilding and river shipping finally faded as an industry when the railroad, now part of the New York Central
New York Central Railroad
The New York Central Railroad , known simply as the New York Central in its publicity, was a railroad operating in the Northeastern United States...
, was fully established, quarrying continued. The village had became an industrial center, with over a hundred businesses located downtown or on the waterfront, from Brandreth's pill factory
Brandreth Pill Factory
The former Brandreth Pill Factory is a historic industrial complex located on Water Street in Ossining, New York, United States. It consists of several brick buildings from the 19th century, in a variety of contemporary architectural styles...
to pickle and sleigh manufacturers.
Near the end of that decade the church congregations began thinking of expanding again. The Presbyterians needed a larger building. They sold their building to the new Trinity Episcopal Church, who had split from nearby St. Paul's over differences of opinion on the war. The lot at the Maple Place intersection was ideal for their new building designed by Isaac Perry, later New York's state architect. The stone-trimmed brick structure has design features common to Perry's other churches, all designed during this period, and in particular with the First Congregational Church in Binghamton
Binghamton, New York
Binghamton is a city in the Southern Tier of New York in the United States. It is near the Pennsylvania border, in a bowl-shaped valley at the confluence of the Susquehanna and Chenango Rivers...
, where he opened an office in 1872, two years after finishing his Ossining church.
It was the first of four churches built in downtown Ossining in the late 19th century. The other buildings in the district were primarily built in the wake of four fires. The first, in 1871, primarily affected the corner of the Post Road and Broadway (then called Mill Street) to the north of the district. Its primary casualty was 217 Main Street, rebuilt in brick instead of frame
Timber framing
Timber framing , or half-timbering, also called in North America "post-and-beam" construction, is the method of creating structures using heavy squared off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs . It is commonplace in large barns...
later that year; however, the village's records, all stored in the basement, were lost. In 1872, the next fire destroyed all the buildings on lower Main Street. In its wake, the Barlow family, who had operated a hardware and furniture business in the original building since 1844, built the block named for it at 129–139 Main Street, retaining the original's bracketed
Bracket (architecture)
A bracket is an architectural member made of wood, stone, or metal that overhangs a wall to support or carry weight. It may also support a statue, the spring of an arch, a beam, or a shelf. Brackets are often in the form of scrolls, and can be carved, cast, or molded. They can be entirely...
cornice
Cornice
Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
and adding pediment
Pediment
A pediment is a classical architectural element consisting of the triangular section found above the horizontal structure , typically supported by columns. The gable end of the pediment is surrounded by the cornice moulding...
s. The Barlows intended for it to be the central commercial location in Ossining.
In 1874 another fire started in the Olive Opera House at Brandreth and Central, seriously damaging it and the neighboring buildings. In the subsequent rebuilding, 145 Main Street was redone in the Renaissance Revival style, with bracketed cornices and pediments and stone trim. On the other side, 61 Central retained its cast iron
Cast iron
Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...
storefront with columns on high plinth
Plinth
In architecture, a plinth is the base or platform upon which a column, pedestal, statue, monument or structure rests. Gottfried Semper's The Four Elements of Architecture posited that the plinth, the hearth, the roof, and the wall make up all of architectural theory. The plinth usually rests...
blocks, the only example of that design element in the district.
Further up the street, 187 Main was built in 1874 as well, featuring splayed brick lintels in addition to its bracketed cornice. Across the street, the Baptists replaced the twice-renovated Greek Revival frame church where they had worshipped since 1815. Brooklyn architect J. Walsh's brick Gothic Revival design is one of the highest applications of that style in Ossining.
The last fire, in 1876, burned that block across Main from the Baptist Church, an area the previous fires and the aqueduct construction had left untouched. Again, the rebuilding provided a chance to apply newer architectural styles. The buildings at 191 and 193 Main became Palmer Hall and the Stayver Building, brick structures with Neo-Grec
Neo-Grec
Neo-Grec is a term referring to late manifestations of Neoclassicism, early Neo-Renaissance now called the Greek Revival style, which was popularized in architecture, the decorative arts, and in painting during France's Second Empire, or the reign of Napoleon III, a period that lasted...
detailing in their metal trim. Italianate detail was added to 199 Main Street, which became the Keenan Building when it was finished in 1878.
In the 1880s, the space left vacant next to the aqueduct along the north side of Main was refilled by 165 and 173–75 Main. Both have since been modified but retain their original metal cornices and segmental-arched lintels. Further east, another Renaissance Revival building, 127 Main Street, was completed in 1885. Its elaborate detail includes two-story brick pilaster
Pilaster
A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....
s supporting a metal roof cornice, and an intermediate cornice supported by cast iron pillars.
That same year the Methodists, who had previously held services in a building on Spring Street, outside the district, finished their new church. That building, at the corner of Highland and Emwilton, was designed by Ebenezer Roberts, architect of several Manhattan churches, and Lawrence P. Valk. The Ossining Methodist church is distinct from Roberts' earlier, more Gothic, churches (all subsequently demolished). Polychrome
Polychrome
Polychrome is one of the terms used to describe the use of multiple colors in one entity. It has also been defined as "The practice of decorating architectural elements, sculpture, etc., in a variety of colors." Polychromatic light is composed of a number of different wavelengths...
bands of stone on the exterior, and more elaborate detailing, put it within the High Victorian Gothic
High Victorian Gothic
High Victorian Gothic was an eclectic architectural style and movement during the mid-late 19th century. It is seen by architectural historians as either sub-style of the broader Gothic Revival style, or a separate style unto its own right....
style. It features an engaged corner tower and transitional Queen Anne
Queen Anne Style architecture
The Queen Anne Style in Britain means either the English Baroque architectural style roughly of the reign of Queen Anne , or a revived form that was popular in the last quarter of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century...
and Shingle Style elements. Louis Comfort Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany
Louis Comfort Tiffany was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with the Art Nouveau and Aesthetic movements...
signed one of the Favrile glass windows he designed for the interior.
The last of the downtown churches was Trinity. After almost two decades in the Presbyterians' former building, the breakway Episcopalian congregation needed its own new building. It commissioned Robert W. Gibson
Robert W. Gibson
Robert W. Gibson, AIA, was an English-born American ecclesiastical architect active in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century New York City and New York State. He designed several large Manhattan churches and a number of prominent residences and institutional buildings.Gibson studied...
, whose design was the fifth in a series of English Gothic churches begun in 1884 with Albany
Albany, New York
Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...
's All Saints Cathedral. Trinity has elements in common with the other churches in the series, such as its mix of materials and large rose window, but is unique among them for its U shape, the result of a later expansion. It was completed in 1891, the only Neo-Gothic Revival religious building in the district.
At the beginning of the next decade, another longstanding building from the early years of Ossining, the Union Hotel at South Highland and Church Street, was demolished. A Romanesque Revival doctor's office building replaced it. In 1892 the corner section of the Barlow Block was separated internally from the rest of the building so it could serve as Ossining's post office, the first of two former locations for that facility within the district. The next year the village's electric trolley
Streetcars in North America
Electric streetcars—trams outside North America—once were the chief mode of public transit in scores of North American cities. Most municipal systems were dismantled in the mid-20th century....
system was established, with its main line going down Croton Avenue from the then-undeveloped Ossining Heights area in the northeast corner of the village to Main Street, where a spur ran down to Sparta, and then continuing to the train station. Residents could more easily travel downtown, and Ossining Heights soon became the suburban residential area it is today.
The new century brought some major changes to the village, starting with its name. In 1901 it formally changed its name from Sing Sing to Ossining to distance itself from the prison. Residents had come to resent the prison industries' competitive advantages and the prison itself was now associated with the electric chair
Electric chair
Execution by electrocution, usually performed using an electric chair, is an execution method originating in the United States in which the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes placed on the body...
. Sparta, long bypassed by the region's major transportation arteries, was finally annexed by the village in 1906.
In architecture, the Renaissance Revival style was used for another commercial building, 181–183 Main Street, around 1900. In 1905 the parish hall and cloister were added to Trinity, giving its distinctive U-shaped layout. The next year the corner section of the Barlow Block was remodeled by W.H. Rahman for use by a bank in a higher version of the style. It was refaced in stone, with Doric
Doric order
The Doric order was one of the three orders or organizational systems of ancient Greek or classical architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian.-History:...
and Ionic
Ionic order
The Ionic order forms one of the three orders or organizational systems of classical architecture, the other two canonic orders being the Doric and the Corinthian...
pilasters, terra cotta
Architectural terracotta
Terracotta, in its unglazed form, became fashionable as an architectural ceramic construction material in England in the 1860s, and in the United States in the 1870s. It was generally used to supplement brick and tiles of similar colour in late Victorian buildings.It had been used before this in...
detailing and full entablature
Entablature
An entablature refers to the superstructure of moldings and bands which lie horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and are commonly divided into the architrave , the frieze ,...
leading up to a tile roof, meant to emulate St. Mark's Library
Biblioteca Marciana
The Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana is a library and Renaissance building in Venice, northern Italy; it is one of the earliest surviving public manuscript depositories in the country, holding one of the greatest classical texts collections in the world. The library is named after St. Mark, the...
in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
.
It anticipated the first significant building of the new century, the Bank for Savings Building at 200 Main Street, built the next year on the north corner of the triangular lot occupied by the First Baptist Church for nearly a century. The stone building by Lansing Holden, a past president of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects
American Institute of Architects
The American Institute of Architects is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to support the architecture profession and improve its public image...
, is the only example in the village of the Beaux-Arts style, and one of the best in the county. Its classical detailing makes it a focal point for traffic entering Ossining from the north, even as the intersection has become of one of Westchester's busiest.
1910–1933: Public buildings
Other new construction continued in previously established styles. In 1911 and 1913 respectively, new brick commercial buildings went up at 189 and 205 Main in the Renaissance Revival style. Their application differed from those that had gone before. On 189 was a belt courseCourse (architecture)
A course is a continuous horizontal layer of similarly-sized building material one unit high, usually in a wall. The term is almost always used in conjunction with unit masonry such as brick, cut stone, or concrete masonry units .-Styles:...
and stone quoin
Quoin (architecture)
Quoins are the cornerstones of brick or stone walls. Quoins may be either structural or decorative. Architects and builders use quoins to give the impression of strength and firmness to the outline of a building...
s; on the other building all the decoration, including the flat-arched lintels and corbel
Corbel
In architecture a corbel is a piece of stone jutting out of a wall to carry any superincumbent weight. A piece of timber projecting in the same way was called a "tassel" or a "bragger". The technique of corbelling, where rows of corbels deeply keyed inside a wall support a projecting wall or...
ed cornice
Cornice
Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
, was brick.
In 1914, the bank buildings would be complemented by the village's own new municipal building. The stone edifice at 16–20 Croton Avenue, the northern end of the district, was in the Classical Revival
Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
mode common for most governmental buildings of the era. The upper floors were initially used as a school. It is the only Westchester building by Donn Barber
Donn Barber
Donn Barber was an American architect.He designed buildings that are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, including:*Terminal Station, built 1908, 1434 Market St., Chattanooga, TN NRHP-listed...
, designer of the Connecticut State Library
Connecticut State Library
The Connecticut State Library is the state library for the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is also an executive branch agency of the state. It is located in Hartford, Connecticut....
and the first American admitted to the French Society of Beaux-Arts architects.
Later that year another new architectural style was introduced to the district. A new commercial building at 201–203 Main Street used the Spanish Colonial Revival, with a tiled pent-roofed parapet and stucco face. Down the street at 125 Main, a 1920 building is the district's only example of a yellow brick building with limestone
Limestone
Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
trim, in the form of a stone cornice topped with a parapet.
The early 1920s brought the end to some more Ossining institutions, even as the village's population reached 12,000, many moving into farms newly subdivided into suburban residential neighborhoods on the village's outskirts. In 1920, a new warden at the prison shut down several prison industries, including the quarry. Two years later, the Olive Opera House closed after almost 60 years. It was soon converted
Adaptive reuse
Adaptive reuse refers to the process of reusing an old site or building for a purpose other than which it was built or designed for. Along with brownfield reclamation, adaptive reuse is seen by many as a key factor in land conservation and the reduction of urban sprawl...
into a small factory. Two years after that, in 1924, the trolley system was shut down and dismantled, as more residents owned cars and more of the roads were paved. A bus system replaced it.
The last significant buildings in the future district came to South Highland at the end of the decade. On the corner just south of the First Baptist Church, the Cynthard Building was erected in 1930 when the Romanesque Revival doctor's office that had replaced the Union Hotel in 1890, and a house to the south, were themselves demolished. The Cynthard was a single-story commercial block faced in terra cotta topped by a polychrome
Polychrome
Polychrome is one of the terms used to describe the use of multiple colors in one entity. It has also been defined as "The practice of decorating architectural elements, sculpture, etc., in a variety of colors." Polychromatic light is composed of a number of different wavelengths...
parapet
Parapet
A parapet is a wall-like barrier at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony or other structure. Where extending above a roof, it may simply be the portion of an exterior wall that continues above the line of the roof surface, or may be a continuation of a vertical feature beneath the roof such as a...
. Also that year, the third and last bank building downtown was built at 13 Croton Avenue, the corner with North Highland. The First National Bank, which had occupied the spot since 1880, moved into the district's only Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
building. It has an unusual neoclassical door surround.
Ossining High School
Ossining High School
Ossining High School is public high school, located in Ossining, New York, colloquially known as OHS. Its building is located within the boundaries of the Downtown Ossining Historic District, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989....
would be that year's most distinguished addition. Washington School
Washington School (Ossining, New York)
Washington School is a historic school building located at Ossining, Westchester County, New York. It was built in 1907 and is a large brick and terra cotta building in the Beaux-Arts style. It is a "T" shaped structure with two stories over a raised basement. It includes a skylit attic story...
, the village's high school since 1907, was becoming inadequate for the growing student population. After several attempts, voters in 1929 approved a new building when a nearby private school made a donation that helped cover the $750,000 ($ in modern dollars) construction cost. The new high school would be on the site of Careswell, formerly the estate of Henry Baker, the local financier who had helped fund the Methodist church.
James Gamble Rogers
James Gamble Rogers
James Gamble Rogers was an American architect best known for his academic commissions at Yale University, Columbia University, Northwestern University, and elsewhere....
was the architect. Known for his many buildings on college campuses, the village's high school was one of his few secondary school buildings, and the only public school. The Collegiate Gothic
Collegiate Gothic in North America
Collegiate Gothic is an architectural genre, a subgenre of Gothic Revival architecture.-History:The beginnings of Collegiate Gothic in North America date back to 1894 when Cope & Stewardson completed Pembroke Hall on the campus of Bryn Mawr College...
building, taking up the large area of South Highland's west side between the houses and the Methodist church, has some similarities to Harkness Tower
Harkness Tower
Harkness Tower is a prominent Collegiate Gothic structure at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States.The tower was constructed between 1917 and 1921 as part of the Memorial Quadrangle donated to Yale by Anna M. Harkness in honor of her recently deceased son, Charles William...
at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, also designed by Rogers and considered one of the best examples of that style.
1934–present: Preservation, urban renewal and redevelopment
As the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
set in and construction slowed, one more public building would complete the district. The post office had outgrown its space at the Barlow Block again, and needed to move. As part of the relief programs, many new post offices were built. Arthur Ware contributed a restrained Classical Revival one-story brick building at 10 South Highland, between the Cynthard Building and the Presbyterian Church, on the site of what had been the last remaining house on the west side of Main in the district. It was completed in 1933, the last contributing property
Contributing property
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing resource or contributing property is any building, structure, or object which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, listed locally or federally, significant...
in the district.
The district had been built out, but change continued. Woolworth's
F. W. Woolworth Company
The F. W. Woolworth Company was a retail company that was one of the original American five-and-dime stores. The first successful Woolworth store was opened on July 18, 1879 by Frank Winfield Woolworth in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, as "Woolworth's Great Five Cent Store"...
moved into the space at 201–203 Main in 1934. The government of the Town of Ossining
Ossining (town), New York
Ossining is a town in Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 37,674 at the 2010 census. It contains two villages, the Village of Ossining and part of Briarcliff Manor, the rest of which is located in the Town of Mount Pleasant....
, which surrounds the village on land, moved into Village Hall the next year, and has been there since.
Postwar population growth led to the expansion of two buildings in the late 1950s. The first was the Presbyterian Church, which received a new Sunday School
Sunday school
Sunday school is the generic name for many different types of religious education pursued on Sundays by various denominations.-England:The first Sunday school may have been opened in 1751 in St. Mary's Church, Nottingham. Another early start was made by Hannah Ball, a native of High Wycombe in...
wing in 1955. Two years later the high school across the street followed. It had been in excess of its original design capacity since 1937. The new wing, completed in 1957, was used at first for the junior high school students (since then a separate building has been constructed for those students and the entire building is used by the high school). It was built of brick and intended to be architecturally sympathetic.
Most significantly, later in the decade the aqueduct began to carry less water. New York City had both eliminated one of the two reservoirs in Central Park that it fed, and developed or planned to develop new reservoirs in the Catskills
Catskill Mountains
The Catskill Mountains, an area in New York State northwest of New York City and southwest of Albany, are a mature dissected plateau, an uplifted region that was subsequently eroded into sharp relief. They are an eastward continuation, and the highest representation, of the Allegheny Plateau...
and further up the Croton River
Croton River
The Croton River is a river in southern New York that begins where the East and West Branches of the Croton River meet a little way downstream from the Croton Falls Reservoir...
watershed, so it needed the water that had gone through Ossining less. In the early 1950s it finally stopped using it completely; it continued to serve some of the communities along it until 1965.
Automobiles had displaced the railroad as the most common means of transport. Parkways and other dedicated roads had been built from the city in all directions. One proposal, made in the late 1920s, called for a Hudson River Expressway to run along the river's eastern shore, paralleling the railroad, from The Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
to Beacon
Beacon, New York
Beacon is a city located in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The 2010 census placed the city total population at 15,541. Beacon is part of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York–Newark–Bridgeport,...
, including through downtown Ossining. Governor Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller was the 41st Vice President of the United States , serving under President Gerald Ford, and the 49th Governor of New York , as well as serving the Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower administrations in a variety of positions...
, whose ancestral estate Kykuit
Kykuit
Kykuit , also known as John D. Rockefeller Estate, is a 40-room National Trust house in Westchester County, New York, built by the oil businessman, philanthropist and founder of the prominent Rockefeller family, John D. Rockefeller, and his son, John D...
would have been along the route, introduced a shortened version in 1958, a Tarrytown
Tarrytown, New York
Tarrytown is a village in the town of Greenburgh in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is located on the eastern bank of the Hudson River, about north of midtown Manhattan in New York City, and is served by a stop on the Metro-North Hudson Line...
-Beacon Interstate 487
Interstate 487
Interstate 487 was a proposed intrastate Interstate Highway in New York that was to run from The Bronx to Beacon. After much resident opposition, the highway was cancelled in the 1960s.-History:...
. After intense local opposition, he canceled the plan in 1971. Part of it had been making urban renewal
Urban renewal
Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Renewal has had both successes and failures. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of...
funds available to affected communities, and that was retained.
Like many other established downtowns, Ossining had been adversely affected by the growth of the automobile in the later 20th century. Local shoppers began taking advantage of improved roads to patronize stores in both enclosed shopping mall
Shopping mall
A shopping mall, shopping centre, shopping arcade, shopping precinct or simply mall is one or more buildings forming a complex of shops representing merchandisers, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit, along with a parking area — a modern, indoor version...
s and strip mall
Strip mall
A strip mall is an open-area shopping center where the stores are arranged in a row, with a sidewalk in front. Strip malls are typically developed as a unit and have large parking lots in front...
s along major highways like Route 9 outside the village's traditional center. The village used its urban renewal grants to demolish the old buildings along the south side of Main Street that year in an attempt to revitalize downtown. Its comprehensive plan
Comprehensive planning
Comprehensive planning is a term used in the United States by land use planners to describe a process that determines community goals and aspirations in terms of community development. The outcome of comprehensive planning is the Comprehensive Plan which dictates public policy in terms of...
drafted but never adopted two years earlier called for mixed-use development
Mixed-use development
Mixed-use development is the use of a building, set of buildings, or neighborhood for more than one purpose. Since the 1920s, zoning in some countries has required uses to be separated. However, when jobs, housing, and commercial activities are located close together, a community's transportation...
, projects to replace them. But they were never funded or undertaken, and the spaces were largely used as parking. It was the first of many plans that remained largely unrealized, as Ossining went through 15 different mayoral administrations in the remaining years of the 20th century. During the 1968–74 period downtown was also the site of several race riot
Race riot
A race riot or racial riot is an outbreak of violent civil disorder in which race is a key factor. A phenomenon frequently confused with the concept of 'race riot' is sectarian violence, which involves public mass violence or conflict over non-racial factors.-United States:The term had entered the...
s that began at the high school and spilled into the streets. The community responded by redistricting its schools to ensure earlier racial integration
Racial integration
Racial integration, or simply integration includes desegregation . In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws on diverse traditions, rather than merely...
.
The 1971 plan had recognized the importance of the buildings on the north side of Main, and historic preservation
Historic preservation
Historic preservation is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance...
soon played a larger role in downtown. In 1973 the First Baptist Church
First Baptist Church of Ossining
The First Baptist Church of Ossining is located in the center of the village of Ossining, New York, United States. It is a brick building in the Gothic Revival architectural style with a tall wooden steeple built in the 1870s, one of Ossining's most prominent landmarks. In 1973 it was listed on the...
became Ossining's first listing on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
, and the aqueduct followed the next year. In 1975 the village followed up with a study of the prospects for rehabilitating and preserving downtown that, for the first time in its planning
Urban planning
Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....
history, drew on community input. It recommended residential development downtown to sustain the businesses that remained, but no new projects were undertaken. A second plan two years later also failed, but made specific recommendations for preserving historic buildings and called for new development to be on the same scale, rather than the larger structures proposed at the beginning of the decade.
As the village continued to change governments, the social and economic trends affecting downtown continued. All three bank buildings eventually became vacant. The preeminence of automobiles and roads took a direct toll on the district when a widening of Route 9 cost 217 Main Street several of its bays
Bay (architecture)
A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...
. It was rebuilt with its overall appearance retained, but the project cost it enough of its historic character that it could no longer be considered contributing
Contributing property
In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing resource or contributing property is any building, structure, or object which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, listed locally or federally, significant...
when the district, originally called the Main Street Crescent Historic District, was created in 1989. Many businesses that closed or moved out were replaced by new ones, particularly restaurants, that catered to a growing Latin
Latin American culture
Latin American culture is the formal or informal expression of the peoples of Latin America, and includes both high culture and popular culture as well as religion and other customary practices....
immigrant
Immigration to the United States
Immigration to the United States has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of the history of the United States. The economic, social, and political aspects of immigration have caused controversy regarding ethnicity, economic benefits, jobs for non-immigrants,...
population that had settled in the neighborhoods nearby. The designation of the aqueduct as a state historic park and creation of a trailway along the route in 1983 was also a positive development for downtown. In 1988 its upper portion was reopened to provide some of the village's northern neighborhoods with water.
Two years later, the village, under its first stable administration in several decades, began the planning process again, focusing on both downtown and the waterfront. Its second attempt at a farmers' market
Farmers' market
A farmers' market consists of individual vendors—mostly farmers—who set up booths, tables or stands, outdoors or indoors, to sell produce, meat products, fruits and sometimes prepared foods and beverages...
downtown began in 1990 and continues. Extensive public involvement led to the implementation of ideas from earlier plans, such as design guidelines for the district and a Historic Review Commission to enforce them. The new plan recognized the importance of the growing restaurant cluster downtown Its necessity was further underscored in the years immediately afterward. In 1992 the aqueduct gained National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
status, and in 1993 the 1840s Greek Revival buildings at 147–55 Main Street burned, creating a new void for redevelopment.
Change came to two of the newer buildings on South Highland as the 20th century became the 21st. The post office moved out of its building for a newer facility on the south side of Main Street, in the space cleared three decades earlier by urban renewal opposite the western extent of the district. Its former building was converted
Adaptive reuse
Adaptive reuse refers to the process of reusing an old site or building for a purpose other than which it was built or designed for. Along with brownfield reclamation, adaptive reuse is seen by many as a key factor in land conservation and the reduction of urban sprawl...
to retail use. Just to its north, the Cynthard Building was damaged by a fire in 2003, and was closed for three years while it was repaired and restored
Building restoration
Building restoration describes a particular treatment approach and philosophy within the field of architectural conservation. According the U.S...
. In 2004 the village took possession of the Bank for Savings building, vacant since 1983. Two years later, another developer acquired the Ossining National Bank Building and began restoring it for use as affordable
Affordable housing
Affordable housing is a term used to describe dwelling units whose total housing costs are deemed "affordable" to those that have a median income. Although the term is often applied to rental housing that is within the financial means of those in the lower income ranges of a geographical area, the...
condominium
Condominium
A condominium, or condo, is the form of housing tenure and other real property where a specified part of a piece of real estate is individually owned while use of and access to common facilities in the piece such as hallways, heating system, elevators, exterior areas is executed under legal rights...
s.
Ossining's first full-time planner was hired in 2005. After extensive community input, a new draft comprehensive plan was completed in 2007, and adopted in 2009. It recommended the creation of a new zoning district, Village Center, for Main Street, which was quickly adopted. In 2011 the village implemented another recommendation, putting out formal requests for redevelopment proposals for both the Bank for Savings building and the vacant lots, currently used for parking, at 147–155 Main.
Significant contributing properties
Among the district's 23 buildings and structures are many that are architecturally distinctive or unique, or important to the village's history. Two of them have been listed individually on the Register; one of those, the Old Croton Aqueduct, is a National Historic LandmarkNational Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
.
National Register of Historic Places
- First Baptist Church of OssiningFirst Baptist Church of OssiningThe First Baptist Church of Ossining is located in the center of the village of Ossining, New York, United States. It is a brick building in the Gothic Revival architectural style with a tall wooden steeple built in the 1870s, one of Ossining's most prominent landmarks. In 1973 it was listed on the...
, 34 South Highland Avenue. Brooklyn architect J. Walsh designed this High Victorian Gothic structure, built on the site where the church had stood since 1815. The 1874 church features many triangles and quatrefoilQuatrefoilThe word quatrefoil etymologically means "four leaves", and applies to general four-lobed shapes in various contexts.-In heraldry:In heraldic terminology, a quatrefoil is a representation of a flower with four petals, or a leaf with four leaflets . It is sometimes shown "slipped", i.e. with an...
s in its decorationOrnament (architecture)In architecture and decorative art, ornament is a decoration used to embellish parts of a building or object. Large figurative elements such as monumental sculpture and their equivalents in decorative art are excluded from the term; most ornament does not include human figures, and if present they...
, representing the TrinityTrinityThe Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons : the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial . Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being...
and four GospelGospelA gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...
s respectively. It is home to Ossining's oldest congregationCongregationA congregation is a large gathering of people, often for the purpose of worship:* Local church* Congregation , an administrative body of the Roman Catholic Church...
, established in the 1780s by founding settler Elijah Hunter.. Almost a century later, in 1973, it became Ossining's first property listed on the National Register. - Old Croton Aqueduct, space between 165 and 173 Main Street. The 5 by masonry tunnel 20 feet (6.1 m) below ground is topped with a walkway (not considered a contributing structureContributing propertyIn the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing resource or contributing property is any building, structure, or object which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, listed locally or federally, significant...
itself since it is too new), paved with brick within the downtown area, that leads north to Croton Dam. An engineering accomplishment when it was built in the late 1830s, it was New York City's first clean municipal water supply and the first in its extensive network of reservoirs and aqueducts upstateUpstate New YorkUpstate New York is the region of the U.S. state of New York that is located north of the core of the New York metropolitan area.-Definition:There is no clear or official boundary between Upstate New York and Downstate New York...
. Other city aqueducts have since replaced it, but its northern end has been reopened to supply Ossining and other communities at its north end. It was listed on the Register in 1974 and upgraded to National Historic LandmarkNational Historic LandmarkA National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...
status in 1992.
Other contributing properties
- Bank for Savings, 200 Main Street. Located just north of the Baptist Church at the junction of Main and South Highland, this 1907 stone building is a focal point for traffic coming into downtown Ossining from the north on Route 9. Lansing Holden's design is the only example of the Beaux Arts style in the village.
- Barlow Block, 129–139 Main Street, including Ossining National Bank Building. The Barlow Block is named for the local family who rebuilt the property where their hardware and furniture store had been located after most of the original structure burned down in an 1872 fire. The replacement buildings are ornate ItalianateItalianate architectureThe Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, which had served as inspiration for both Palladianism and...
structures with pedimentPedimentA pediment is a classical architectural element consisting of the triangular section found above the horizontal structure , typically supported by columns. The gable end of the pediment is surrounded by the cornice moulding...
s and bracketedBracket (architecture)A bracket is an architectural member made of wood, stone, or metal that overhangs a wall to support or carry weight. It may also support a statue, the spring of an arch, a beam, or a shelf. Brackets are often in the form of scrolls, and can be carved, cast, or molded. They can be entirely...
corniceCorniceCornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...
s. The building at the north end, later modified into the village's post office, was remodeled into the Renaissance Revival bank building in 1906. After a long period of vacancy in the late 20th century, it has recently been restoredBuilding restorationBuilding restoration describes a particular treatment approach and philosophy within the field of architectural conservation. According the U.S...
into affordable housingAffordable housingAffordable housing is a term used to describe dwelling units whose total housing costs are deemed "affordable" to those that have a median income. Although the term is often applied to rental housing that is within the financial means of those in the lower income ranges of a geographical area, the...
. - Building at 61 Central Avenue. Built in 1875, this two-story, five-bayBay (architecture)A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...
brick commercial building with a cast ironCast ironCast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...
storefront is the only one in the district to have columns supported by high plinthPlinthIn architecture, a plinth is the base or platform upon which a column, pedestal, statue, monument or structure rests. Gottfried Semper's The Four Elements of Architecture posited that the plinth, the hearth, the roof, and the wall make up all of architectural theory. The plinth usually rests...
blocks. - Building at 125 Main Street. The only building in the district to use yellow brick and limestoneLimestoneLimestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....
trim was constructed in 1920. - Building at 127 Main Street. This more elaborate Renaissance Revival building, with brick pilasterPilasterA pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....
s and a metal cornice with intermediate cornice, dates to 1885. - Building at 141–145 Main Street. Another structure rebuilt following one of the fires of the early 1870s, it was the first in the district to use the Renaissance Revival style.
- Building at 189 Main Street. The only Renaissance Revival building in the district with belt coursesCourse (architecture)A course is a continuous horizontal layer of similarly-sized building material one unit high, usually in a wall. The term is almost always used in conjunction with unit masonry such as brick, cut stone, or concrete masonry units .-Styles:...
and stone quoinQuoin (architecture)Quoins are the cornerstones of brick or stone walls. Quoins may be either structural or decorative. Architects and builders use quoins to give the impression of strength and firmness to the outline of a building...
s dates to 1911. - Building at 201–203 Main Street. The tiled shed roof and parapetParapetA parapet is a wall-like barrier at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony or other structure. Where extending above a roof, it may simply be the portion of an exterior wall that continues above the line of the roof surface, or may be a continuation of a vertical feature beneath the roof such as a...
on this 1914 building are traits of the Spanish Colonial Revival style. It is the only example in the district. - Building at 205 Main Street. All the decoration on this 1914 Renaissance Revival building is brick, unique in the district.
- Cynthard Building, 26 South Highland Avenue. This one-story terra cottaArchitectural terracottaTerracotta, in its unglazed form, became fashionable as an architectural ceramic construction material in England in the 1860s, and in the United States in the 1870s. It was generally used to supplement brick and tiles of similar colour in late Victorian buildings.It had been used before this in...
-faced building with neoclassical detailing was built in 1929 on the site once occupied by the Union Hotel, an early overnight stop on the Albany Post Road. Renovated after a 2003 fire. - First National Bank, 13 Croton Avenue. Located at the intersection with North Highland Avenue, it is as much a focal point for northbound traffic on Route 9 through Ossining as the Bank for Savings building opposite since its construction in 1930. It is the only Art DecoArt DecoArt deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
building in the district and the only one of its three bank buildings still used for that purpose. - First Presbyterian Church, 34 South Highland Avenue. Isaac G. PerryIsaac G. PerryIsaac Gale Perry , was a prolific New York State architect and builder. His works include New York State Inebriate Asylum, Monday Afternoon Club, Phelps Mansion and the First National Bank of Oxford.- Life and career :...
designed this High Victorian Gothic brick church, brick with white wood trim like the nearby First Baptist Church, in 1876 when the Presbyterians turned their old church over to the breakaway Trinity Episcopalian congregation they had been sharing it with. A Sunday SchoolSunday schoolSunday school is the generic name for many different types of religious education pursued on Sundays by various denominations.-England:The first Sunday school may have been opened in 1751 in St. Mary's Church, Nottingham. Another early start was made by Hannah Ball, a native of High Wycombe in...
wing was added in 1955. - House at 23 South Highland Avenue. This 1840s Italian-villaItalianate architectureThe Italianate style of architecture was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. In the Italianate style, the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian Renaissance architecture, which had served as inspiration for both Palladianism and...
style wood frameTimber framingTimber framing , or half-timbering, also called in North America "post-and-beam" construction, is the method of creating structures using heavy squared off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs . It is commonplace in large barns...
house is the oldest building in the district, and one of only two residences. - Keenan Building, 199 Main Street. After the original building on the site was damaged by one of the 1870s fires, this replaced it in high Renaissance Revival style.
- Old U.S. Post Office, 30 South Highland Avenue. Arthur Ware designed this detailed Classical RevivalNeoclassical architectureNeoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
building in 1933, part of a massive New DealNew DealThe New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
rebuilding program. It continued to serve as the post office until the new facility on the south side of Main was built at the end of the century, and is now a retail space. It is the most recent of all the district's contributing properties, and one of only three post offices in New York that contribute to historic districtsHistoric district (United States)In the United States, a historic district is a group of buildings, properties, or sites that have been designated by one of several entities on different levels as historically or architecturally significant. Buildings, structures, objects and sites within a historic district are normally divided...
despite being found ineligible to be listed on the Register individually. - Olive Opera House, 63–67 Central Avenue. Built in 1865, this three-story brick building with a hipped roofHip roofA hip roof, or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope. Thus it is a house with no gables or other vertical sides to the roof. A square hip roof is shaped like a pyramid. Hip roofs on the houses could have two triangular side...
served its original purpose as a performing arts and meeting space until the early 1920s. Since then it has been a factory and, more recently, a commercial building. - Ossining High SchoolOssining High SchoolOssining High School is public high school, located in Ossining, New York, colloquially known as OHS. Its building is located within the boundaries of the Downtown Ossining Historic District, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989....
, 29 South Highland Avenue. James Gamble RogersJames Gamble RogersJames Gamble Rogers was an American architect best known for his academic commissions at Yale University, Columbia University, Northwestern University, and elsewhere....
contributed the original Collegiate GothicCollegiate Gothic in North AmericaCollegiate Gothic is an architectural genre, a subgenre of Gothic Revival architecture.-History:The beginnings of Collegiate Gothic in North America date back to 1894 when Cope & Stewardson completed Pembroke Hall on the campus of Bryn Mawr College...
building in 1930. Originally it served all the secondarySecondary educationSecondary education is the stage of education following primary education. Secondary education includes the final stage of compulsory education and in many countries it is entirely compulsory. The next stage of education is usually college or university...
-level students in the community. The community and district have grown large enough, however, that even after a 1958 wing was built it now serves only the high schoolHigh schoolHigh school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
students from the village and town of Ossining, including those portions of nearby Briarcliff ManorBriarcliff Manor, New YorkBriarcliff Manor is a village in Westchester County in the state of New York. It is shared between the towns of Mount Pleasant and Ossining, and lies entirely within the ZIP code of 10510...
with the town, and some portions of neighboring towns within the school district. - Ossining Municipal Building, 16 Croton Avenue. A stone Classical Revival structure built in 1914, it has housed the village government and, since 1934, town government as well.
- Ossining United Methodist Church, South Highland Avenue and Emwilton Place. One of the few surviving churches by Ebenezer Roberts, who collaborated on this 1877 structure with Laurence Valk. Its polychrome stonework and detail put it more firmly in the High Victorian GothicHigh Victorian GothicHigh Victorian Gothic was an eclectic architectural style and movement during the mid-late 19th century. It is seen by architectural historians as either sub-style of the broader Gothic Revival style, or a separate style unto its own right....
style than his other churches are known to have been. Louis Comfort TiffanyLouis Comfort TiffanyLouis Comfort Tiffany was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with the Art Nouveau and Aesthetic movements...
signed one of his Favrile glass windows inside. - Palmer Hall and Stayver Building, 191–93 Main Street. Two Renaissance Revival buildings that replaced structures lost to the 1876 fire, they are distinguished by Neo-GrecNeo-GrecNeo-Grec is a term referring to late manifestations of Neoclassicism, early Neo-Renaissance now called the Greek Revival style, which was popularized in architecture, the decorative arts, and in painting during France's Second Empire, or the reign of Napoleon III, a period that lasted...
detail work. - Trinity Episcopal Church, 7 South Highland Avenue. The fifth of architect Robert W. GibsonRobert W. GibsonRobert W. Gibson, AIA, was an English-born American ecclesiastical architect active in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century New York City and New York State. He designed several large Manhattan churches and a number of prominent residences and institutional buildings.Gibson studied...
's series of English Gothic churches in New York, Trinity was built in 1891 on the site of the former Presbyterian church. It was the last of the district's four churches to be built. The parish house wing, added in 1905, gives it a U-shaped layout unique among Gibson's work.
Zoning and regulation
The village's zoningZoning in the United States
Zoning in the United States comprise land use state laws falling under the police power rights that State governments and local governments have the authority to exercise over privately owned real property.-Origins and history:...
code has since the adoption of the 2009 comprehensive plan assigned a unique district, called Village Center, to downtown. It is intended to preserve downtown "as the center of village of life" by promoting business uses of greater intensity than elsewhere in the village and encourage mixed-use development
Mixed-use development
Mixed-use development is the use of a building, set of buildings, or neighborhood for more than one purpose. Since the 1920s, zoning in some countries has required uses to be separated. However, when jobs, housing, and commercial activities are located close together, a community's transportation...
, with upper levels of buildings available for residential use. To that latter end, it requires that residents of a building have a entrance available that is separate from any used for commercial purposes, that no residential use is permitted on the ground floor and that units be at least 450 square feet (41.8 m²) for studio apartment
Studio apartment
A studio apartment, also known as a studio flat , efficiency apartment or bachelor/bachelorette style apartment, is a small apartment which combines living room, bedroom, and kitchen or kitchenette into a single room...
s, 600 square feet (55.7 m²) for one-bedrooms, 750 square feet (69.7 m²) for two-bedrooms with 250 square feet (23.2 m²) required for any additional bedroom.
Along with Sparta and the waterfront, the district is covered by a historic overlay district
Historic overlay district
A Historic overlay district is a layer of local planning regulation in the United States which incorporates the restrictions of the underlying zoning for a given geographic area, with the main goal of preserving the historic character of the neighborhood....
defined elsewhere in the zoning code. They are overseen by the Historic Preservation Commission (HPC), a body of seven residents appointed by the village manager
City manager
A city manager is an official appointed as the administrative manager of a city, in a council-manager form of city government. Local officials serving in this position are sometimes referred to as the chief executive officer or chief administrative officer in some municipalities...
. At least one member has to have practical experience in architecture, urban planning
Urban planning
Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....
, land development
Land development
Land development refers to altering the landscape in any number of ways such as:* changing landforms from a natural or semi-natural state for a purpose such as agriculture or housing...
or real estate, or live in a historic district or designated local landmark, or have a practical interest in local history or preservation
Historic preservation
Historic preservation is an endeavor that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect buildings, objects, landscapes or other artifacts of historical significance...
(a single member with all those qualifications can satisfy the statutory requirement). They serve for five-year staggered terms. The HPC considers applications for landmark status, and develops overall preservation strategies for the village, but does not consider applications for individual properties.
The village's zoning requires that all new construction save additions to or expansions of detached single-family homes and residential duplexes
Duplex (building)
The term duplex can be used to describe several different dwelling unit configurations:A duplex house is defined as a dwelling having apartments with separate entrances for two families. This includes two-story houses having a complete apartment on each floor and also side-by-side apartments on a...
receive site plan
Site plan
A site plan is an architectural plan, landscape architecture document, and a detailed engineering drawing of proposed improvements to a given lot...
approval from the village's Planning Board. This applies to almost all properties in the district. The seven members of the board are, like the HPC members, appointed to five-year terms by the village manager; two must have relevant expertise.
The Planning Board also serves as the Board of Architectural Review (BAR), which has the power to reject proposed buildings for "[i]nappropriateness in relation to the established character of other structures in the immediate area or neighboring areas with respect to significant design features, such as material or quality of architectural design ..." An unsuccessful applicant, or one requiring a variance
Variance (land use)
A variance is the process by which an applicant can request deviation from the set of rules a municipality applies to land use and land development, typically a zoning ordinance, building code or municipal code. The manner in which variances are employed can differ greatly depending on the...
, can go before the Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA). Its five members are, as with the Planning Board and HPC, appointed by the village manager for five-year terms; there are no qualifications on membership.
Proposals in comprehensive plan
The village's 2009 comprehensive plan identifies three objectives for downtown: to promote it as a business location, create a major downtown draw for visitors and residents, and improve and enhance its amenities. It recommends specific actions to accomplish all three.To the first end, it recommends making the village's government more user-friendly for existing and prospective businesses, addressing the 18% vacancy rate reported in 2007. The Village Board and Planning Board should both be able to provide more information and reach out to local and regional business organizations. The zoning process could be improved, since many existing businesses downtown are on conditional uses, and site plan approvals should have a time limit, forcing owners to begin development. A Main Street Manager could be appointed to concentrate on downtown, and a business improvement district
Business improvement district
A business improvement district is a defined area within which businesses pay an additional tax or fee in order to fund improvements within the district's boundaries. Grant funds acquired by the city for special programs and/or incentives such as tax abatements can be made available to assist...
created.
During the process of drafting the plan, many residents expressed a desire for a national chain
Chain store
Chain stores are retail outlets that share a brand and central management, and usually have standardized business methods and practices. These characteristics also apply to chain restaurants and some service-oriented chain businesses. In retail, dining and many service categories, chain businesses...
retailer or restaurant to be enticed to locate near or in downtown as a draw. The plan considers this ill-advised and unlikely to happen for several reasons. Chains do not like to pioneer a new area, instead preferring to cluster with each other, and this leads to the development of large strip mall
Strip mall
A strip mall is an open-area shopping center where the stores are arranged in a row, with a sidewalk in front. Strip malls are typically developed as a unit and have large parking lots in front...
s, impractical and undesirable in downtown Ossining, which still shows the scars of previous demolitions for urban renewal
Urban renewal
Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Renewal has had both successes and failures. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of...
. Ossining as a whole is also geographically undesirable for chains, since not only is it neither affluent enough or accessible enough from major highways, the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
cuts the potential trade area for such stores in half.
Instead, it recommends building on the existing clusters of restaurants and home-furnishings stores. Two businesses in each, Dora's Portuguese restaurant
Portuguese cuisine
Portuguese cuisine is characterised by rich, filling and full-flavored dishes and is closely related to Mediterranean cuisine. The influence of Portugal's former colonial possessions is also notable, especially in the wide variety of spices used. These spices include piri piri and black pepper, as...
and Melita's respectively, draw customers from all over the county. Other regional chainlets could be drawn to Ossining. Restaurants in particular could see more ethnic diversity, widening the existing focus on Latin fare. The plan also recommends both improving cultural offerings downtown, and promoting more residential and office use to increase foot traffic around the clock.
Residents also complained that the parking lots opposite the Crescent were unsightly, and that they found it difficult to find parking downtown. The plan recommends creating a village green
Village green
A village green is a common open area which is a part of a settlement. Traditionally, such an area was often common grass land at the centre of a small agricultural settlement, used for grazing and sometimes for community events...
on part of the lot at the southwest corner of Main and Spring streets, outside the district, as a focal point of downtown. It could retain parking along the sides or even in a garage underneath, a common practice in Europe. Further parking could be added in an aboveground garage on Brandreth Street, outside of downtown. The village should also act to create a consistent downtown environment by encouraging infill development, making signage and lighting consistent, and strengthening and consistently enforcing its historic preservation guidelines.
The plan also recommended improving connections between downtown and the waterfront, where the Metro-North
Metro-North Railroad
The Metro-North Commuter Railroad , trading as MTA Metro-North Railroad, or, more commonly, Metro-North, is a suburban commuter rail service that is run and managed by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority , an authority of New York State. It is the busiest commuter railroad in the United...
commuter rail station
Ossining (Metro-North station)
The Ossining Metro-North Railroad station serves residents of Ossining, New York via the Hudson Line and is one of four express stations on that line south of Croton–Harmon seeing most trains minus peak hour trains to/from Poughkeepsie. Trains leave for New York City every 25 to 35 minutes on...
or the Haverstraw–Ossining Ferry could bring visitors into the village without adding to the parking problem. "A synergy
Synergy
Synergy may be defined as two or more things functioning together to produce a result not independently obtainable.The term synergy comes from the Greek word from , , meaning "working together".-Definitions and usages:...
between waterfront uses and downtown
will enhance both areas, and provide reasons for visitors to stay in Ossining longer", it says. The village should study the possibility of establishing a jitney
Jitney
Jitney may refer to:* Jitney , written by August Wilson* Atlantic City Jitney Association, an association of operators of minibus service in Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA* an archaic name for a nickel...
or shuttle bus service
Shuttle bus service
Not to be confused with Space shuttleA shuttle bus service is a public transport bus service designed to quickly transport people between two points. Such a bus will 'shuttle' backwards and forwards between the two points, normally without any intermediate stops and with a high frequency of trips...
that would not only allow visitors to bypass the steep climb up Main Street from the waterfront to downtown but continue westward to the residential areas of the village and town. Other measures to enhance the connection include signage, improved walkways and lighting, and leaving space for river views.
Expansion of district and regulatory agencies' powers
The plan also recommends that the village expand the historic district, at least as defined within its zoning code. A draft map at its website shows the southern boundary expanding one lot down the west side of South Highland, across Maple Street, to include Highland CottageHighland Cottage
Highland Cottage, also known as Squire House, is located on South Highland Avenue in Ossining, New York, United States. It was the first concrete house in Westchester County, built in the 1870s in the Gothic Revival architectural style...
, an 1872 reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete is concrete in which reinforcement bars , reinforcement grids, plates or fibers have been incorporated to strengthen the concrete in tension. It was invented by French gardener Joseph Monier in 1849 and patented in 1867. The term Ferro Concrete refers only to concrete that is...
house already listed on the Register. At the northern end, the property at 22–24 Croton Avenue next to the municipal building would be included, and the west end would extend to 55 and 57 Central Avenue and 107–113 Main Street.
In addition, the plan also recommends that the boundaries of the historic district be signed and maps be posted. The powers of the village's regulatory bodies over it should be improved as well. It calls for the HPC's decisions to be made binding, and the draft design guidelines it and the BAR use should be improved and made a formal reference document, in order to ensure that infill development is consistent with the existing buildings in the district.
External links
- Main Street Crescent, 209-217 Main Street, Ossining, Westchester, NY: 32 photos, 9 data pages, and 2 photo caption pages at Historic American Building Survey