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About Hartsdale
Hartsdale is a hamlet and a census-designated place (CDP) located in the town
of Greenburgh, Westchester County, New York. The population was 9,830 at the
2000 census.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the community has a total area of
3.2 square miles (8.3 kmē), all land.
Demographics
As of the censusGR2 of 2000, there were 9,830 people, 4,314 households, and
2,756 families residing in the community. The population density was 3,068.0 per
square mile (1,186.1/kmē). There were 4,478 housing units at an average density
of 1,397.6/sq mi (540.3/kmē). The racial makeup of the community was 76.14%
White, 8.71% African American, 0.19% Native American, 10.17% Asian, 0.04%
Pacific Islander, 2.64% from other races, and 2.10% from two or more races.
Hispanic or Latino of any race were 9.55% of the population.
There were 4,314 households out of which 24.3% had children under the age of 18
living with them, 53.1% were married couples living together, 8.6% had a female
householder with no husband present, and 36.1% were non-families. 31.8% of all
households were made up of individuals and 12.7% had someone living alone who
was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.27 and the
average family size was 2.86.
In the CDP the population was spread out with 18.2% under the age of 18, 4.8%
from 18 to 24, 30.3% from 25 to 44, 28.8% from 45 to 64, and 17.9% who were 65
years of age or older. The median age was 43 years. For every 100 females there
were 86.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 81.2 males.
The median income for a household in the community was $81,824, and the median
income for a family was $100,330. Males had a median income of $62,362 versus
$47,380 for females. The per capita income for the community was $45,691. About
1.6% of families and 2.6% of the population were below the poverty line,
including 1.5% of those under age 18 and 4.6% of those age 65 or over.
History
Hartsdale, a CDP/hamlet/post-office in the town of Greenburgh, NY, lies on the
Bronx River just 20 miles north of New York City. It is served by the Metro
North Harlem River commuter rail line into Grand Central Station. Hartsdale is
the home of America's first canine pet cemetery (started by veterinarian Samuel
Johnson in 1896), and the world's first Carvel Ice Cream store (1934).
Hartsdale's earliest settlers were the Weekquaeskeeks (sometimes spelled
Weekquasgeeks), a sub-tribe of the Algonquin Indians. Weekquaeskeek is an
Algonquin term believed to mean "place of the bark kettle", and this kettle
appears in the Greenburgh town seal today.
After the earliest British colonialists arrived, the area was developed under
the Manor system when Frederick Philipse, a Dutch merchant and British Loyalist,
was "given" the land by the British government. As Lord of his Philipse Manor,
he leased his land to tenant farmers who, at least for a time, were believed to
have lived alongside their Native American neighbors.
There is evidence to show that Hartsdale played quite a significant role during
the Revolutionary War, some of which still stands today. On October 28th, 1776,
a Revolutionary War battle was fought alongside the Bronx River, near the site
of the current Hartsdale train station. The Odell House (on Ridge Road, built in
1732) served as the headquarters for the French General the Comte de Rochambeau,
and is where the Comte and George Washington are supposed to have formed an
alliance in the Battle of Yorktown. The house was later named after John Odell,
Washington's guide who bought the house in 1785. In 1965, his descendants deeded
the house to the Sons of the American Revolution, and today the house is a
museum.
After the Continental Army and American colonialists won the Revolutionary War,
Frederick Philipse III (third Lord of the manor and great-grandson to Frederick
Philipse I) fled, his land was confiscated and sold to the remaining farming
tenants, many of whom were descendants of the Hart family. The intersection of
Central Park Avenue and Hartsdale Avenue was named "Hart's Corners" after Robert
Hart, one of these farmers who successfully bid for the land, and in the mid
1800s the entire area became known as "Hartsdale".
The area remained largely agrarian until 1865, when Eleazar Hart deeded land for
the development of the New York and Harlem Railroad line into Manhattan, setting
the stage for Hartsdale's change into a more cosmopolitan commuter village.
Between 1880-1940, large tracts of farmland and estates were subdivided and
converted into private houses and apartments at a furious pace. By the 1960s,
almost no remaining farmland was left for sale.
In 1904, the successful German-Jewish banker Felix Warburg (1871-1937) purchased
large tracts of land to build his 500-acre "Woodlands" estate in Hartsdale, a
summer home next to the country club where he and his wife Frieda Schiff Warburg
(1876-1958) spent considerable time. The estate would later become an important
site in the history of modern American ballet, when on June 10th, 1934, their
son Edward M. M. Warburg (1908-1992) helped produce the first American
performance of George Balanchine's masterpiece "Serenade". In keeping with the
family's philanthropic efforts, Frieda Schiff Warburg, on her death in 1958,
deeded 150 remaining acres to the town of Greenburgh to build a public school.
These 150 acres are now the home of the Greenburgh Central 7 School District and
Woodlands High School. The main Warburg mansion currently serves as the school
district headquarters, but other remnants from the original estate grounds can
still be seen standing in the surrounding woods and neighboring streets. The
Warburg family's New York City home would later be donated to become the Jewish
Museum of New York.
On February 9th, 1928, Hartsdale became the birthplace of the American "Couch
Potato" when the Scottish inventor John Logie Baird (1888-1946) transmitted the
world's first inter-continental short-wave television signal from a transmitter
(call sign 2KZ) in Coulsdon, Surrey (a suburb of London, England) to his
colleague O.G. Hutchinson in the cellar of Robert M. Hart, an Amateur Radio
Operator (call sign 2CVJ) in Hartsdale, New York.
In 1932, Henry Jacques Gaisman, inventor and founder of the Gillette safety
razor blade, purchased 136 acres of land along Ridge Road, most of which he
purchased from George Christiancy, the former U.S. minister to Peru. In 1952, at
age 82, he married his nurse Catherine "Kitty" Vance Gaisman, aged 33, a former
Catholic nun. In 1957, he and his wife Catherine (Mrs. Henry J. Gaisman) passed
the title for his land to the New York Archdiocese for $600,000, with the
agreement that they could live there as long as they wished. Mr. Gaisman died in
1974 at age 104, and Mrs. Gaisman remained on the estate until she moved to
Connecticut in 1995. In 1999, the estate was saved from sale and development
when the Town of Greenburgh acquired the property and reopened it as the Hart's
Brook Nature Preserve. Part of the agreement included the preservation of some
portion of the estate as a home for retired Catholic nuns. Today the Catherine
and Henry J. Gaisman Foundation continues to donate large amounts of money to
support medical research.
Hartsdale is one of the few communities immediately surrounding New York City
that still has two working farms, both on Secor Road. It also has several parks
including the 25-acre Secor Woods park, the 170-acre Ridge Road park, and
86-acre Rumbrook park.
The town can generally be subdivided into several different areas including the
"Village" or downtown part (East Hartsdale Avenue), Manor Park, Windsor Park,
Poet's Corners, Ridge Road, Orchard Hill, College Corners, or more specifically
one of the several condominium developments built since the 1970s. Over the
years, the town has attracted many different ethnic groups, and the downtown
village has a significant Japanese population with Japanese shops, restaurants,
real-estate brokers, and even a supermarket all within walking distance of East
Hartsdale Avenue.
Ferncliff Cemetery is located on Secor Road in Hartsdale, famous as the burial
grounds for many celebrities including Aaliyah, Malcolm X, Judy Garland, Jerome
Kern, Joan Crawford, Ed Sullivan, Jam Master Jay, Gerry Mulligan, James Baldwin,
Michel Fokine, Jim Henson, Tom Carvel, Yul Brenner, Oscar Hammerstein,
Thelonious Monk, Paul Robeson and others. British-American rocker John Lennon
was cremated there. Composer Bela Bartok was initially buried in Hartsdale
before being reinterred in his native Hungary in 1988. Radio DJ Alan Freed was
also initially buried in Hartsdale until his ashes were moved to the Rock n'
Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.