The location of New Rochelle upon the Long Island Sound shore of Westchester will place it inside amongst the wealthiest counties in the state. Westchester has NY’s 4th-highest average income, at $53,043, according to 1995 estimates from the U.S. Census Department. Only Rockland, Nassau, and Putnam also suburbs in NYC, and all a lot more compact in size than this county’s 443 sq. miles, lead it.
Westchester County will border, on the south, the NYC community of the Bronx, as shown on the map above. The location at NYC’s door-step always has placed it inside the heart of activity that is relative to the balance of this nation, according to historian Frank E. Sanchis. As a matter of fact, Westchester’s development historically was fueled by its location to what was, since the year 1820, America’s biggest city. Prior to the times of highways or railroads, the county had the trade routes of the Long Island Sound and Hudson River; later, within the eighteenth century, the post roads to Boston and Albany were cut through the county’s wooded, rolling hills.
As the population of New York City exploded after the Erie Canal of 1825 completion, Westchester furnished most of this city’s finished and raw products. The iron foundries were situated all throughout Westchester, and the county’s various marble quarries and brickyards offered the materials for the monumental new institutional structures and row houses that spread around Manhattan.
As Newgate Prison inside Greenwich Village wasn’t adequate any longer, the prison was replaced by Sing Sing inside Westchester County in the year 1828. As a clean and reliable drinking water source was necessary, people in New York looked to this county, in which the Croton Dam got finished in the year 1842. At present, as the map below displays, the county still is an important link inside the water supply system in NYC, even as pressures for development threatened the purity of the water.
The railroads came within the 1840s. In 1844, the Harlem and NY Railroad got to White Plains; in 1849, the NY and Hudson River line was finished to Peekskill. That time, the NY, as well as New Haven opened up its path through eastern Westchester. And soon afterward, the population started shifting from the north part of Westchester over to the southern part, and clustered around the railroad stations. The 3 railroads, which currently originate from Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, are ran by Metropolitan Transportation Authority, as well as now are heavily utilized by commuters. The below map displays routes today in the county.
The efficiency of the railroads at stimulating development was viewed with Mount Vernon’s establishment that’s situated between Yonkers and New Rochelle and, as with the other two, now borders the Bronx on the south. Unlike New Rochelle or Yonkers that date back as neighborhoods to the seventeenth century, Mount Vernon, according to F. Sanchis, was a fresh concept – a community of individuals who were economically dependent upon [NYC], and who’d be traveling back and forth each day – a commuter suburb. In 1851, together, a circle of talented tradesmen associated with “Mechanics Mutual Protection Number 11” inside NYC bought 5 farms that totaled 369 acres, and subdivided the acres as reported by a grid plan. John Stevens, the group’s leader, viewed the endeavor as a way to better the state of the working class in New York by freeing it from rental payments, as well as allowing it to enter the segment of property owners. In 1852, Mount Vernon was integrated as a village, and quickly grew to be a city four decades later.
From 1865 to 1920, the population of Westchester exploded, and multiplied from around 100,000 to nearly 350,000. Within the 1920s, its expansion became channeled alongside the paths of its new car parkways, the greatest freeway system inside America. Following the 1925 Bronx River Parkway completion, the globe’s original limited accessibility public motor path, the county constructed a freeway system which was second to none, a lot of it funded by projected rises in real estate valuations. Development, mainly comprising of single family houses along the parkways’ edges, exploded. Cross County Parkways, Hutchinson River, as well as the Saw Mill were started within a time of intense parkway construction prior to WWII, and even though no longer exceptional aesthetically, they continuously funnel car drivers inside and outside of NYC.
Connected by the newer freeways was an impressive lush county park and golf course system. Amongst them included New Rochelle’s Glen Island, which was taken over by Westchester County in the year 1925, and famous within the 30s for the look of big bands at the Casino; as well as Playland, a model amusement park that was completed by the county in the year 1927.
Westchester enjoyed the advantages of having an affluent, mainly white-collar population. It still is the main center of corporate headquarters today.