weberwest Loc: Ferndale WA

My wife and I lived for 16 years (1991-2007) in Westchester NY while I worked down in Manhattan (The City). This was my last job assignment, and it lasted the longest. Those of you that know the New York area will know that there is quite a long daily commute of about 90 minutes one way from our then home in Yorktown Heights NY to Manhattan on the Metro North train system. But I loved the excitement of the city and the job I had and I also enjoyed the relative quietness and "rural" feeling in the woods surrounding the towns in the northern part of Westchester.

We have returned a few times to visit friends in Westchester and the city and I will present over the next few weeks a series of pictures taken on 2 different trips, both over the Christmas Holidays, in 2010 and 2015. Most of the photos will be from the 2015 trip, but there will be a good number from the earlier trip as well, as I covered different areas.

This is by no means a full attempt to present the entire city and Westchester like I did with my last two presentations on Iceland and the Arabian Peninsula, rather these are just episodes of visits to some areas where we had particularly good memories from our past stay, and also of the enchanting property we were able to stay at with our friends in upper Westchester.

While I was shooting JPEG with a cropped-sensor Nikon D90 in 2010 and doing very minimal processing on Picasa (just really started to do my first pp work ever), by 2015 I had moved up to a full-sensor Nikon D610 and was shooting RAW. So there will be a certain difference in quality in the images of the two intermingled sets and I have to ask for your understanding in judging the results. For the D610 and RAW, I just really started to process in Lightroom, so I was again more or less at the bottom of a steep learning curve. Also, I should mention that all photography in this series, including the indoors and night pictures, were done handheld, without the aid of a tripod or monopod.

I hope that this series can bring you some insight both into the possibly unexpected rural landscape in upper Westchester as well as into a few corners of exciting Manhattan and maybe even prepare you a bit for the upcoming holiday season.

As those of you familiar with my past presentations know, I always go all the way when I set up an album, creating titles and frequently maps. Since I am combining two albums into one presentation set here, my first quandry was: which title do I use - and since I couldn't make up my mind, I start out with both title images, one set in the City, the other one up in Westchester. There is also an attached first map, indicating the location of the few places we will glance at in Westchester. A second map with the detail locations in Manhattan will follow later.

A few words about Westchester, condensed and slightly amended from information in Wikipedia:

WESTCHESTER COUNTY is the second-most populous county on the mainland of New York, after the Bronx, and the most populous county in the state north of New York City with an estimated population in 2019 of 967,000. Situated in the eastern Hudson Valley, Westchester covers an area of 450 square miles (1,200 km²), consisting of six cities, 19 towns, and 23 villages. Established in 1683, Westchester was named after the city of Chester, England. The county seat is the city of White Plains, while the most populous municipality in the county is the city of Yonkers (bordering on the Bronx in NYC), with an estimated 199,663 residents in 2018. Westchester County is one of the centrally located counties within the New York metropolitan area. It was the first suburban area of its scale in the world to develop, due mostly to the upper-middle-class development of entire communities in the late 19th century and the subsequent rapid population growth. Because of Westchester's numerous road and mass transit connections to New York City, as well as its shared border with the Bronx, the 20th and 21st centuries have seen much of the county, particularly the southern portion, become nearly as densely developed as New York City itself, while the northern portion still retains much of its bucolic ambience.

BRIEF HISTORY At the time of European contacts in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Native American inhabitants of present-day Westchester County were part of the Algonquian peoples, whose name for themselves was Lenape, meaning the people. They called the region Lenapehoking, which consisted of the area around and between the Delaware and Hudson Rivers. Several different tribes occupied the area, including The Manhattans, the Weckquaesgeek and Siwanoy bands of the Wappinger in the south, and Tankiteke, Sintsink and Kitchawank Wappinger in the north.
The first European explorers to visit the Westchester area were Giovanni da Verrazzano in 1524 and Henry Hudson in 1609. Dutch settlers began arriving in the 1620s, followed by settlers from England in the 1640s. Westchester County was one of the original twelve counties of the Province of New York, created by an act of the New York General Assembly in 1683. At the time it included present-day Bronx County, and abutted then-Dutchess County to the north. By 1775, Westchester was the richest and most populous county in the colony of New York. Although the Revolutionary War devastated the county, recovery after the war was rapid. In 1788, five years after the end of the war, the county was divided into 20 towns. In 1798, the first federal census recorded a population of 24,000 for the county.
Two developments in the first half of the 19th century—the construction of the first Croton Dam and Aqueduct, and the coming of the railroad—had enormous impacts on the growth of Westchester. The Croton Dam and Aqueduct was begun in 1837 and completed in 1842; now a National Historic Landmark, the Croton Aqueduct is considered one of the great engineering achievements of the 19th century. In the 1840s, the first railroads were built in Westchester, and included the New York and Harlem Railroad, the Hudson River Railroad, and the New York and New Haven Railroad. The railroads often determined the growth of a town, and the population shifted from Northern to Southern Westchester. By 1860, the total county population was 99,000, with the largest city being Yonkers.

For further information on the history and other aspects of Westchester County, I suggest you consult Wikipedia or other appropriate literature.

The first part of the presentation will cover 2 spots in Westchester, starting out with the nice abode and spacious, rather "wild" landscape surrounding the home of our friends in North Salem. Following this, we will have a brief look at a few other places in Westchester as well as further north in Putnam and Dutchess counties. In the second part, we will move down to the city and enjoy the festive Christmas ambience down in Manhattan with historic buildings, shop windows decorated with Christmas themes and the thousands of magically lit trees in the city. As to this first set in Westchester - please remember these shots were taken in December and since most trees on the estate and vicinity are of the deciduous variety, we will see plenty of bare branches, thankfully set mainly against a blue sky.

I hope you will enjoy this first part of the journey into a New York landscape possibly a bit different from the general idea that most people have of this area.

Thanks for visiting, I recommend viewing the downloads and look forward to your comments and questions.

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1 - Street decoration near Lincoln Center/Manhattan (title shot for the 2015 series)

(Download)

2 - Frozen pond with boat pier in North Salem/Westchester (title shot for the 2010 series)

(Download)

3 - Map of the Westchester area with locations of photo shoots to be presented in this series

(Download)

4 - Nature-walk on a snowless Christmas Day on our Upper Westchester grounds: At the center the pond

(Download)

5 - The home on the hill and the cabin

(Download)

6 - The grounds

(Download)

7 - The cabin on the grounds with a pile of cut logs

(Download)

8 - Shed in the woods near the gravel road

(Download)

9 - Small private pond with a boat deck

(Download)

10 - Pond and reflections

(Download)

lnl Loc: SWFL

Thank you, Joe, for introducing your Christmas presentation, replete with the added history and descriptions. I look forward to this newest journey. I especially am drawn to #10 as I always appreciate and enjoy reflection images. Although it would be wonderful to live in a serene area like this, the 90 minute commute each way seems it would be onerous. However, on a train, you are free to work or relax, unlike a commute by car. That’s a good thing!

Susan yamakawa

Beautiful rustic area🤗🤗👍👍

allanj Loc: New York City

Thanks for the info and pictures. As a relatively new resident of NYC, I found the history of Westchester particularly interesting. Photo #7 was my favorite.

ejpeters Loc: New Jersey, USA

Great group of pictures.
I live so close in Bergen County, but never really take a trip over.
Looks like it would be a nice ride.

RichardTaylor Loc: Sydney, Australia

Interesting set.

Earnest Botello Loc: Hockley, Texas

Joe, you are back, as you promised, great shots of winter and Christmas in New York.

weberwest Loc: Ferndale WA

Thank you Ellen, I am happy to see that you are looking in on this new travelogue - it will be a mini one compared to the two previous series. The 90 minutes commute was long, but not really unusual for people working in the city, I had colleagues that had longer commutes. And as you said, you can use your time in the train: I started out reading or working in the earlier years, and ended up sleeping or dozing in the later years - my workday was brutal, I only slept about 5 hours at night, so did need the rest on the train. Happy to hear that you like reflections - hopefully you will be happy with tomorrow's set which concentrates mainly on reflections. Have a great day - Joe

weberwest Loc: Ferndale WA

Thank you Susan - welcome to my new series, I am happy to see that you are looking in again - wishing you a great day - Joe

weberwest Loc: Ferndale WA

Thank you Allan for visiting my new travelogue and taking the time to write a comment - much appreciated. I am glad that you find the information interesting - the comments on the following sets will not be that voluminous, I seem to go often a little bit overboard on the first one. Glad to see that you like #7, it sort of personifies the simple nature and dwellings on this nice piece of land. How long have you lived in NYC and which area do you call home? Have a great day - Joe

weberwest Loc: Ferndale WA

Thank you EJ for visiting my travelogue and your kind comment. I know how it is: I spent 16 years in the area and now when I look at the map, I ask myself why didn't I explore more of this beautiful countryside. Have been over to Bergen a bit, but really most of our time was spent in our own vicinity, but I do have fond memories of going over to the Seven Lakes Drive in the Harriman State Park and much of the area around West Point. The working life (and the resulting commutes) took too much of our time then - now as retirees we enjoy a totally different life. But maybe this will be the push for you to head over to Westchester one of these days .... Have a great day - Joe

weberwest Loc: Ferndale WA

Thank you Richard, welcome to my new mini-travelogue - have a wonderful day - Joe

weberwest Loc: Ferndale WA

Thank you Earnest - yes I am back again as promised and it is very good to see you back again as well - have a wonderful day - Joe

NMGal Loc: NE NM

Welcome back, Joe. I am eager to see what you come up with in this series. Back in the day, I had relatives who lived on Long Island (Jackson Heights). Vaguely remember going into the City to gawk at the lights and store displays. I was a little girl then. All very fascinating. But that was a different time.

weberwest Loc: Ferndale WA

Thank you Barbara - nice to see you back again on this new series. I hope that the pictures I will post in the second part of this series of the windows, lights and excitement in the city will rekindle some of the memories from times past for you - in these first posts we will see more of the relaxing parts of bucolic Westchester with its many trees (all the one's we missed seeing in Iceland ...). Have a great day - Joe