New Screening of A River Returns: A History of the Bronx River

The Scarsdale Historical Society’s newest documentary film, A River Returns: A History of the Bronx River will be shown on Wednesday, May 15th beginning at 6:00 p.m. in the Yaeger Room of the Bronxville Public Library at the Annual Meeting of the Bronx River Parkway Reservation Conservancy. The public is welcome and admission is free. 

The library is located at 201 Pondfield Road, Bronxville, NY. The screening will be preceded by a brief business meeting. Light refreshments will be served.

Additional Screening of Our New Documentary Film: A River Returns, a History of the Bronx River

The second screening of our new documentary film, A River Returns, a History of the Bronx River will be held at the Bronxville High School Auditorium on Sunday, March 31st at 3 p.m. Admission is free. Join us for the inspired story of the return of the Bronx River and a Q&A with the filmmakers and the historians interviewed in the film.

The beloved Bronx River has played a significant role in the rise of towns and modern suburbs in Westchester and the Bronx. Our film tells the story of the river’s remarkable history, sorrowful decline and the unique efforts to reclaim the river by the communities it flows through.

The Bronx River travels from Valhalla in Northern Westchester for 16 miles through towns in Westchester and for 8 miles in the Bronx before it flows into Manhattan’s East River. Once teeming with fish and wildlife, the Bronx River Valley was the hunting grounds for Native Americans and the fur traders. The river powered the mills of the first colonists and factories. However, by the 1890s the Bronx River had become a toxic brew of industrial and human waste.

The first efforts to protect the river resulted in the construction of the Bronx River Parkway and a greenbelt of parks in the early 1900s that transformed towns in Westchester. The second major clean up began in the 1970s when local activists from blighted neighborhoods in the South Bronx and river advocates joined forces to restore the river.

Today, the Bronx River continues to be cared for through an alliance of private and government groups and by the efforts of volunteers, students, educators and environmentalists. Those efforts have become a model for the restoration of urban rivers across the nation.

This is the third film produced by the Scarsdale Historical Society with the combined teamwork of Barbara Shay MacDonald, the Society’s Historian, and Lesley Topping, a New York based filmmaker, who grew up in Scarsdale. The two previous films include A Tour of the Cudner-Hyatt House and Scarsdale in the 18th and 19th Century: From Hardscrabble Farms to Gracious Estates. They can be watched here.

Our New Documentary Film: A River Returns, a History of the Bronx River

The Scarsdale Historical Society is proud to announce a new documentary film, A River Returns, a History of the Bronx River. The event will be held at the Little Theater at Scarsdale High School on Sunday, March 24th at 3 p.m. This screening is sponsored by the Scarsdale Historical Society, The Scarsdale Forum, The Scarsdale Public Library and the League of Women Voters Scarsdale.

The beloved Bronx River has played a significant role in the rise of towns and modern suburbs in Westchester and the Bronx. Our film tells the story of the river’s remarkable history, sorrowful decline and the unique efforts to reclaim the river by the communities it flows through.

The Bronx River travels from Valhalla in Northern Westchester for 16 miles through towns in Westchester and for 8 miles in the Bronx before it flows into Manhattan’s East River. Once teeming with fish and wildlife, the Bronx River Valley was the hunting grounds for Native Americans and the fur traders. The river powered the mills of the first colonists and factories. However, by the 1890’s the Bronx River had become a toxic brew of industrial and human waste.

The first efforts to protect the river resulted in the construction of the Bronx River Parkway and a greenbelt of parks in the early 1900s that transformed towns in Westchester. The second major clean up began in the 1970s when local activists from blighted neighborhoods in the South Bronx and river advocates joined forces to restore the river.

Today, the Bronx River continues to be cared for through an alliance of private and government groups and by the efforts of volunteers, students, educators and environmentalists. Those efforts have become a model for the restoration of urban rivers across the nation.

Join us for the inspired story of the return of the Bronx River and a Q&A with the filmmakers and the historians interviewed in the film.

This is the third film produced by the Scarsdale Historical Society with the combined teamwork of Barbara Shay MacDonald, the Society's Historian, and Lesley Topping, a New York based filmmaker who grew up in Scarsdale.

Our entire collection of historic documentary films can be seen here.

Adventures In The Neutral Ground: The Revolutionary War In Westchester County

Westchester County played a dramatic, sustained and crucial role in the Revolutionary War. Many casual observers today might consider Boston or Philadelphia to be the major, or only, sites for Revolutionary War history. While those sites may rightly boast of key incidents or events, Westchester County was critically and strategically important throughout the full eight years of the war. With photographs from historic sites around the county, Dr. Weiselberg's slide show offers a comprehensive view of the many people, places and events in Westchester County, including in the Briarcliff area, which shaped the Revolutionary War, and in turn how the experience of war left its mark on Westchester County and on American memory more broadly. Dr. Erik Weiselberg, Principal Historian for Revolutionary Westchester 250, holds a Ph.D. in U.S. History from the University of Oregon and has been a social studies teacher in Westchester for over 18 years. This program is cosponsored by the Briarcliff Manor - Scarborough Historical Society and the Briarcliff Manor Public Library. 

Registration is recommended but seating is limited and on a first come basis. To register, please email Karen Smith at mail@briarcliffhistory.org or Shelley Glick at sglick@wlsmail.org or call the library at 914-941-7072.

Jordan Copeland Joins the Scarsdale Historical Society Board

Jordan Copeland was recently elected trustee of the Scarsdale Historical Society and serves as the secretary. He attended Brown University, where he met his wife Lisa, and New York University School of Law. He worked as an attorney for eleven years, including ten as a public defender in the Bronx. He then switched careers, and is now in his seventh year as a fifth grade public school teacher in the Bronx. He has researched the history of Clason Point in the Bronx in order to help his students learn about their neighborhood, and often attends tours of the Bronx Historical Society.

Jordan has lived in the Edgewood neighborhood of Scarsdale since 2003. He has researched the history of the Arthur Manor and Edgewood neighborhoods, and gives a yearly tour of those neighborhoods. He is looking forward to helping the Society furthering its educational goals.

Preserving History: Digitization of the Scarsdale Inquirer Continues

We are pleased to continue working with the Scarsdale Public Library to digitize issues of the Scarsdale Inquirer. Our latest grant will allow digitization of the issues from 1954 to 1977. Issues starting in 1901 are already online at news.hrvh.org. Here is the press release about the project:

Preserving History: Digitization of The Scarsdale Inquirer ContinuesScarsdale Historical Society and Scarsdale Public Library in Joint Effort

SCARSDALE, NY (May 5th, 2018)  In 2010 the Scarsdale Historical Society and the Scarsdale Public Library began a joint project to digitize back issues of The Scarsdale Inquirer, Scarsdale’s source for local news since 1901. Grants of over $50,000 given by the Historical Society funded the first two phases of the digitization project, covering the years 1901-1950. Now the Society has committed an additional $37,000 to continue the project through the year 1977. Anybody can access the digitized material at news.hrvh.org, an online resource housing historical newspapers as part of the Hudson River Valley Heritage (HRVH) service. You can also find links to the papers on the websites of the Scarsdale Historical Society and the Scarsdale Public Library. We anticipate full digitization through 1977 within a year.

Re-filming from the original papers and the generation of digital images for the project is being done by Hudson Archival, located in Port Ewen, N.Y. We are happy to continue working with this great local business for this part of the project. Generation of the metadata (METS/ALTO) necessary to put the images onto HRVH is being done by Digital Divide Data (DDD). DDD’s innovative social model enables talent from underserved populations to access professional opportunities and earn lasting higher income, including youth from low-income families in developing countries, as well as military spouses and veterans. 

The digitization of The Scarsdale Inquirer opens our history to students, researchers, and residents. In the past, access to back issues was available at the library in print and microfilm, with limited finding aids created by Scarsdale librarians. The creation of these indexes was very time intensive and did not allow for full text searching. Furthermore there is no index for the years 1958-1979. Once issues are put onto HRVH they are fully searchable and the content can even be found through Google searches.

“We are so grateful to the Scarsdale Historical Society for their continued support for this digitization project. The Scarsdale Inquirer is an important resource for our community and having online access will increase its availability exponentially.”
—Elizabeth Bermel, Scarsdale Library Director