HomeMy WebLinkAboutTable of Contents for VRB RSS History Project 2026-06-01 ... 1004AM i
Table of Contents
The Development History of the Blind Brook School District, Village of Rye Brook
... and surrounding portions of the Towns of Rye, Harrison and Greenwich
COVER .............................................................................................................. no page #
DEDICATION .................................................................................................. 1
PREFACE .......................................................................................................... 2-3
CHAPTER 1 ....................................................................................................... 4-44
Our Identity: Municipal Entities in New York State; Local History Books; the mills and dams of the Blind Brook;
Bowman Avenue burial ground; Indigenous people 1660-1680 deeds/treaties for Rye/Harrison settlements;
Harrison & White Plains once part of Rye settlement; Revolutionary War era estate of Judge John Thomas became
500-acre Strathglass Farm, and then 1973 SUNY Purchase; The Battle of White Plains; New York/Connecticut
boundary disputes; the Purdy family connection from Rye Brook to North Salem.
CHAPTER 2 ........................................................................................................ 45-64
School Districts in New York State; District No. 5 (BBRUFSD) shared a King Street schoolhouse in Glenville CT
in 1863-1868; District No. 5 one-room, schoolhouse on New York side of King Street in 1868-1936 until
condemnation of land for the Hutchinson River Parkway by County resulted in red brick schoolhouse at 431 N. Ridge
Street for grades K-8 from 1936-1951 (private nursery school since); the Ridge Street farms/estates chronicled.
CHAPTER 3 ......................................................................................................... 55-102
Irving Lehman mansion with 9.95 acres acquired in July 1946 for RSS; Planning for the new RSS while using the
Lehman mansion at 399 N. Ridge Street and the 431 N. Ridge Street schoolhouse as the Lower & Upper Ridge
Street Schools in 1946-1951; Post War 1950-1966 Residential Development Boom in District No. 5 with 931 new
subdivision lots; 1951 Opening of 1950 RSS in 1951and sale of red brick schoolhouse site at 431 N. Ridge Street;
5.044 acres donated to RSS campus in June 1955; Acquisition/ donation details of all Rye Brook parkland parcels
as also depicted in 2009 Official Map & Zoning Map; 1955 RSS wing (2 stories) opens in 1957; UFSD status in 1956
to permit the 9th grade added in 1958; Creation of RSS cafeteria and lunch program in 1957; RSS gets school bus in
1958, Enrichment Electives in 1958-59, athletic fields in 1960, foreign languages in 1958, 10th grade biology in 1960,
and Team Teaching in 1962; 1957-1968 decade of school merger/ consolidation talks; 1962 RSS Primary Wing with
1962-63 split sessions; 1966 RSS “New Wing,” lower parking lot and New Cafeteria; and anecdote re: collecting deposit
bottles/cans at Country Ridge, Section 13 (Fair Oaks) subdivision in 1966-1967.
CHAPTER 4 ......................................................................................................... 103-144
RSS Class of 1969 off to Valhalla HS for grades 10-12; RSS Classes of 1970, 1971 & 1972 offered choice of Port
Chester HS or Mamaroneck HS; 1969-1973 planning of Blind Brook High School with RSS humanities program; the
William W. Cook backstory and how 80 of his 96.7 acres became the 1937 Mary Harkness Convalescent Home, 20 of
which became the 1971 BBHS site opening in September 1973, with athletic fields completed in 1977; State aid
denied for BBHS acquisition & construction; Evolution of Planned Unit Developments along King Street corridor;
Alla Nazimova’s Who-Torok estate (now 61, 71, 73 & 75 Hillandale Road); 1973 naming of BBHS and renaming of
school district as BBRUFSD; capital construction projects at BMPRSS & BBHS/MS campuses in 2000-2006 and
2019-2021; the December 1995 renaming of RSS after Bruno M. Ponterio; Rye Brook’s 5.75-acre, 2006 King Street
Fields, a 2005 land/IMA collaboration between the Village of Rye Brook, the BBRUFSD and The Arbors HOA;
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CHAPTER 5 ......................................................................................................... 145-200
Historical List of PCRUFSD schools and their development; The Sawpit’s own: Jared V. Peck (1816-1891); Lavina
M. Horton (1827-1912) from Port Chester school teacher to BOE president to 222 Grace Church Street school
named after her; the 107.4-acre John Lyon farm at Ridge Street becoming a 1909-1928 country club golf course and
then the 1929 Tamarack Gardens subdivision, the 1928 Park Avenue Elementary School and the 1932 Port Chester High
School; the Legacy of John Lyon and the Lyon Family in Port Chester; the Lyon-Bush Homestead and Lyon Park at King
Street/ Putnam Avenue and the Port Chester residential subdivisions on former Bush family land; the 18th century
burial ground located on the 24-acre, Port Chester Middle School site at 113 Bowman Avenue in Rye Brook;
CHAPTER 6 ......................................................................................................... 201-225
Recreation and Waterfront Development in the Town of Rye (Playland, Oakland Beach, the various private beach/
yacht clubs, the Westchester County Major Drainage Basins map with the bodies of water flowing from Rye Lake,
the Blind Brook, Byram River, etc. into the Long Island Sound at Rye and Port Chester; the Advent of Banking in
Port Chester and Rye in 1864 and 1900, respectively ... and certain industries/ businesses in their downtowns.
CHAPTER 7 ......................................................................................................... 226-256
Rye Brook residential subdivisions within the PCRUFSD along and south of Westchester Avenue; development of
the commercial retail center of Rye Brook along South Ridge Street, including the 1960 Rye Ridge Shopping Center that
had been a 1940-1958 golf driving range.
CHAPTER 8 ......................................................................................................... 257-279
Rye Brook residential subdivisions partially within the PCRUFSD and BBRUFSD, plus four others entirely within
one or the other, but presented here due to proximity; Edgar F. Price’s 256-acre, Knollwood Farm and its re-
development; The Noble School 1941-1955 lease of the Knollwood Farm’s 1908 mansion that preceded Rye Hills Park;
CHAPTER 9 ......................................................................................................... 280-291
Rye Brook residential subdivisions within the BBRUFSD that are east of Ridge Street, and along Betsy Brown Road
and to the north along King Street;
CHAPTER 10 ........................................................................................................ 292-318
Rye Brook residential subdivisions within the BBRUFSD, between Ridge Street and Lincoln Avenue;
CHAPTER 11 ........................................................................................................ 319-372
Redevelopment of the Merritt Homestead and Fairlawn Farms into the Rye Acres and Country Ridge Estates subdivisions;
the 1927-1935 extension of New York’s Hutchinson River Parkway, north of Lincoln Avenue, to meet Connecticut’s
Merritt Parkway at King Street; the 88-acre, Dwight James Baum-designed, Lawridge estate of Robert Law Jr. in 1920-
1942; the ~170-acre Fairlawn Farms’ Guernsey dairy cattle breeding operation of Samuel Katz in 1942-1953, which
preceded the 1955-1968 Country Ridge Estates, developed in 17 sections by five (5) developers, incl. Mannie Shapiro,
who bought the tract in April 1955, master-planned the development and built 146 of the 304 Country Ridge homes.
CHAPTER 12 ........................................................................................................ 373-425
Subdivisions and land use along Anderson Hill Road, and King Street corridor north to Rye Lake and Westchester
County Airport, including the farms prior to The Blind Brook Club, Doral Greens PUD, Kingfield PUD & BelleFair PUD.