Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Westchester County, New York

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Split out Yonkers[edit]

Yonkers needs to be split out ... it has 40-50 listings, really enough for a standalone list, especially considering that it's the fourth-largest city in the state. Daniel Case (talk) 17:54, 16 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, well i see you split it out, mostly, already, to List of Registered Historic Places in Yonkers, New York, which is okay. I'll try to edit for compatibility. See questions about 2 possible Yonkers sites which I put in the top of it. doncram (talk) 05:20, 17 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How do I add an article. . . .?[edit]

I have seen articles appear and disappear that relate to the various New Rochelle-located historic sites. It has even become the topic of discussion on a website popular with the Mamaroneck/Larchmont/New Rochelle/Pelham community. If people try to create an article or add to the site then they are blocked, their work is deleted and they are told they are a manifestation of a banned user. Can anyone help figure this all out? Almost all of the N.R. sites on this list were created at one point. any ideas>?--Terryola (talk) 12:28, 23 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bronx River Parkway Reservation[edit]

Bronx River Parkway Reservation is listed twice in the table, but it's really only one listing in the NRIS database (ref #90002143). Shouldn't it only be listed once here, perhaps with both towns indicated in the City/Town column? --sanfranman59 (talk) 04:25, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Split out New Rochelle and more[edit]

I say that New Rochelle and possibly other cities should get their own NRHP pages. ----DanTD (talk) 19:31, 20 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

UPDATE: I already split out New Rochelle and Peekskill, and I still don't think that's enough. ----DanTD (talk) 23:53, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Don't do it by city (other than Yonkers, which I already did). Split it by north/south (I explained which towns should go where on your talk page). Daniel Case (talk) 03:11, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For separate articles, I too prefer a northern/southern split, since no other cities appear to have as many as a dozen NRHP. Perhaps these two articles should have city and township sections rather than each be one alphabetical list. Jim.henderson (talk) 03:11, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My proposed boundary

Drafting articles[edit]

I notice Pubdog at work creating starter articles. Perhaps of use in that, or for improving existing articles, will be draft articles i am generating to be placed at Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Westchester County, New York/drafts, supported by Talk:National Register of Historic Places listings in Westchester County, New York/draftnames. --doncram (talk) 17:50, 26 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Time to do the northern/southern split[edit]

At the time of the above discussion, three and a half years ago, I decided to wait till I had finished uploading and writing articles based on a spate of Westchester photos I had taken several months earlier. As of recently finishing Rehoboth, that task is finally done. I do have more images in my pipeline, but they'll be a while in coming.

As a result there are a lot more images in this list, and with 175 total listings, more of them accompanied by photos than there were in 2009, it is getting cumbersome to open and read. I believe the time has come to take the separate Peekskill and New Rochelle pages and use them as a basis for a northern Westchester and southern Westchester list. I prefer the compass-direction designations be used rather than the alternative "upper" and "lower". "Northern" and "Southern" are in wider use, and are more intuitively understood by those not familiar with the lower Hudson Valley ("upper" and "lower" sometimes refer to elevation, or with regard to a river, which may not always be flowing north-south, either).

Since 2009, the city lists have not grown much. There's been one new listing in Yonkers, one in New Rochelle and none in Peekskill. Not to say that there won't ever be new listings in those communities again, but that to me doesn't speak to needing a separate list for the latter two.

By contrast the rest of the county has seen 17 new listings in that time, a growth rate of about 8–9%. And there is at least another one, Dale Cemetery in Ossining, already before the NPS for a likely listing later this year. While the county's 220 total current listings is not even the most in upstate New York (that honor belongs to Dutchess County, with 245), the 170 listings in the main Westchester list rival some other so-far undivided Hudson Valley counties like Orange and Ulster counties.

It's time for a split, and I think that apart from Yonkers that split should be a division of the county rather than any single other community. We have already divided Chester County, Pennsylvania, three ways so as to better deal with its 300+ listings. I think Westchester would be better served with a similar split. Daniel Case (talk) 05:50, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Where to divide[edit]

Westchester is commonly understood as being divided into northern and southern halves. The boundary is usually described as the Cross Westchester Expressway, Interstate 287. That's an excellent starting point but not quite one that will work for us here.

One of the reasons it's an excellent starting point is that it runs east-west (mostly) across that section of the county between the Duke's Trees angle (the western corner of Connecticut) and the Hudson at roughly the Tappan Zee Bridge. Then we can follow the roughly equivalent municipal boundaries, as indicated on the above map.

(More to come tomorrow; I'm tired and can't type anymore). Daniel Case (talk) 05:57, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This gives us a nice break between the Westchester of older, denser, more diverse suburban communities and the horse-country, we-are-the-1% Westchester of woods, large lots and New York City watershed land. Indeed, when mapped out, the listings themselves have a nice geographical break in the eastern and central sections of this area, thanks to Kensico Reservoir and the county's own adroit placement of its community college and medical complex to the west of Valhalla.

On the west end, however, I departed from this relatively straight line to keep both Tarrytowns (well, one of them is now Sleepy Hollow) together. Dividing them would not only go against the fact that they're both tightly integrated with each other socially and culturally; it would require putting the relatively small Patriot's Park on both lists since it straddles the boundary between them. Since there are two other listings that will have to be on both lists (I will discuss them below), I don't think we need further complication here.

As a result of following Tarrytown's municipal boundary, though, the line dips south of I-287 on its western end. This puts one listing, Lyndhurst south of the interstate yet on the northern list. However, I don't see this as too problematic; it's sort of set apart from the nearest listing to the south anyway. Nor, for the same reason, am I bothered by putting North White Plains on one list (it only has one listing at present, in any event) and White Plains on the other, as they're not as tightly integrated as the two Tarrytowns.

There are three long linear listings: Taconic State Parkway, Bronx River Parkway and Old Croton Aqueduct. The first is entirely in the northern area (and shared with three other counties to the north already). The third straddles both regions. As for the Bronx River Parkway, I had originally wanted to argue to just put it on the southern list since its protrusion into the north area is minimal, but then I found out that the listing includes all of Kensico Dam Plaza, which is uncontestably in the northern area.

So, all told, the proposed northern Westchester list will have 101 entries* (including the current Peekskill list) and the southern list 94 entries (likewise including New Rochelle's). I think that's a fairly even split, and will make for more manageable lists for years to come. Daniel Case (talk) 16:43, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I find myself agreeing with the case of the persuasive Daniel Case.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 18:35, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • 102 when Dale Cemetery is listed.
Every now and then I still keep working on my proposals for separate lists for Ossining, Tarrytown, and Sleepy Hollow. When Daniel Case suggested an exact north/south split a while back, I was skeptical on how such a split could be arranged. I didn't want to use the Cross Westchester Expressway as a dividing line. Even if we have a north/south split, I'd still like to leave the Peekskill and New Rochelle lists alone. These are lists for individual cities, and if we merge them we might as well also merge Yonkers. Having said that, I did consider a merger of my proposals for Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown along with Irvington. -------User:DanTD (talk) 19:17, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not using 287 as an exact dividing line, rather the municipal boundaries that parallel it save the Tarrytown-Greenburgh line. Daniel Case (talk) 00:33, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
NOTE: If we don't have more cities, that'd be okay. But I still think we should keep the city lists we've already got. -------User:DanTD (talk) 19:21, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think there should be a certain proportion for local community spinoff lists. Some cities (like Newburgh) really don't have that many listings relative to their counties, so we wouldn't need to spin them off. As a total percentage of Westchester's current listings, Peekskill and New Rochelle have about 5% each (vs. 13% for Yonkers). I don't think that really justifies a separate list just because they're incorporated as cities (and they're not the only ones). And as I've noted, they're not exactly adding listings at a high rate, either. Daniel Case (talk) 00:35, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • As someone who doesn't live in the area and occasionally deals with these lists, my preference would be to keep the city lists that exist now, possibly add a city list for White Plains, and keep a single county list for the rest of the county. For local people, the distinctions between northern and southern Westchester are very clear, but that's not necessarily true for encyclopedia users from outside the area. However, city lines are pretty definitive and readily understandable to people who don't know the area (issues like whether Sarah Lawrence College is in Bronxville notwithstanding). --Orlady (talk) 20:10, 12 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I really don't think we need separate city lists for Peekskill and New Rochelle. They're small relative to the total number of listings in the county. If they had 25 or so, yeah, I would have agreed. And Ossining could eventually be headed there, but it's not there yet.

Dan's experience is with Long Island, where towns are a very big deal and thus he split both counties there up that way. Westchester people don't think that way. "Northern" and "southern" are understandable both to county residents as natural and to outsiders by virtue of the adjectives. When we split Chester County three ways, we did it that way even though there was no natural place to split.

If you really want to have fun with this sort of exercise, try Bergen County, New Jersey sometime (Update: Apparently we have.).

People in Westchester don't always understand their municipal boundaries, not least because some people use hamlet ZIP codes (while a lot of people live within the political boundaries of North Salem, quite a few will tell you they live in Croton Falls or Goldens Bridge if you wake them up in the middle of the night and ask them). I explained above that I drew the line along municipal boundaries, not the highway. Perhaps I should list the towns that would be in each half so that there would be a clearer understanding. Daniel Case (talk) 00:33, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Darn, all these nice people arguing cogently; what's an inner city bloke who often visits various suburbs to say? Being a big fan of both Wikipedia:Article size and Daniel Case, I go along with my pal Daniel on the dividing line, that's what. And I guess the roads that cross the line get listed twice. As for the cities that were already hived off or weren't, that's part II of the discussion and needn't be settled until the big split is done. Jim.henderson (talk) 01:04, 13 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

List of communities in each proposed list[edit]

OK, since I suggested this myself, here goes. By town and city, with villages and hamlets included parenthetically)

Northern Westchester
Southern Westchester

Daniel Case (talk) 05:56, 16 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Conclusion[edit]

Alright. About a week or so after starting this, it seems to me that the consensus is for:

  • Doing the northern/southern split, but
  • deferring the question of the New Rochelle and Peekskill mergers to a later date.

So, if there is anyone else who believes he or she can show cause as to why this article should not be unjoined, edit now or forever hold your peace. Daniel Case (talk) 16:35, 20 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I promise to hold off on the proposed Town of Ossining NRHP list, and the Villages of Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown. If I decide to make more local lists, I'll combine Tarrytown with Sleepy Hollow and add Irvington due primarily to Washington Irving's connection to all three communities, and the connected historic content within. In the meantime, make with the new splits, ASAP. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 16:23, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Alright. I'm not sure at my present pace I'll be able to get to it till next week, though. At the earliest. Daniel Case (talk) 17:27, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I've got a question though; Are we going to do to the existing list the same thing we did to the National Register of Historic Places listings in Suffolk County, New York and National Register of Historic Places listings in Nassau County, New York before splitting those? Because I would support that. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 21:17, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If you would like to do it that way, fine. I've done everything else now. Daniel Case (talk) 22:20, 9 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Cool. I've linked as many relevant ones as needed. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 00:16, 10 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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