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WPCNR White Plains Gazette. By John F. Bailey. Expanded Park Coverage & History. November 2, 2002: Tuesday, October 29, the City of White Plains acquired the largest parcel of public land in its history, when Mayor Joseph Delfino and County Executive Andy Spano signed a 30-year, $1 a year lease turning Silver Lake and its western shore over to the city for a passive park.
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COUNCIL EXPEDITIONARY FORCE TOURS SILVER LAKE: Under the steady oarsmanship of Department of Recreation & Parks boatswains, White Plains Common Councilpersons Robert Greer, Tom Roach, Rita Malmud, Glen Hockley, and Benjamin Boykin realized the potential of White Plains’s new park for peace, tranquility and quality of life for White Plains Tuesday.
Photo by WPCNR News
Expeditionary Mayor’s Regatta Introduces Lake’s Potential as a Park & Elixir
The Common Councilpersons, Commissioners and assorted media types taking the “Mayor’s Regatta Tour” of Silver Lake Tuesday in a dozen Westchester County rowboats participated in perhaps the most unique staged media event in White Plains history since the Battle of White Plains.
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SCOUTING HARRISON: Councilpersons Glen Hockley and Benjamin Boykin with the backdrop of “Harrison Beach” in the background Tuesday. The tranquility and recreational possibilities of Silver Lake were showcased to the council.
Photo by WPCNR News
They were joined by County Legislator Bill Ryan and Paul Gallay of the New York Public Land Trust, and Planning Commissioners Susan Habel and Rod Johnson, and assorted media, including News 12, SuburbanStreet.com, The Journal News and WPCNR.
What the media, council and dignataries discovered was the lake and its western shore now present White Plains a diversity of recreational and spiritual pursuits that the landlocked, hilly highly touted topography of New York Presbyterian Hospital does not.
Eighteen years of aggressive distrust appears to have lost New York Presbyterian Hospital property forever. In less than ten months, the city, the Woodcrest neighborhood and county have reached an accord through reason, compromise and need that brings a new dimension of park experience to White Plains in Silver Lake.
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The County Executive, the Mayor, and five White Plains Councilpersons in bobbing aluminum crafts supplied by Westchester County, glided leisurely on the shimmering lacquer surface of the lake, marveling at the red-gold swatch of autumnal arbors, acted like kids on their first boat ride (in a statesmanlike manner, of course).
Photo by WPCNR News
The magic elixir of a body of water to soothe cares, invigorate spirits, and make you feel young and foolish again, cast its spell, a state-of-mind that persons old and young will enjoy come next Spring.
Commissioner’s Hopes
St. Mary’s Lake, one of the region’s first industrial sites in 1726 as a grain-milling operation, has become if not the “Central Park of White Plains,” a park that is real and a “Waterfront Park. ” It offers White Plains a diversity of recreational, social and education advantages, according to White Plans Commissioner of Recreation and Parks.
Arne Abramowitz, is a man who knows about how to design and administrate a park with a body of water. He used to run Flushing Meadow Park. The Commissioner envisioned kayak lessons, rowing boats, fishing, environmental classes for local schools, and picnic groves, as just some of what the Mayor described would be “passive” uses of the park.
Affordable Housing and Recreation and Neighborhood Preservation “Working Together for Westchester Families”
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THE GENERALS OF WESTCHESTER COUNTY, County Executive Andy Spano and White Plains Mayor Joseph Delfino, sign the 30-year lease for the county’s Silver Lake property Tuesday.
Photo by WPCNR News
In a show of successful negotiation and compromise, Westchester County under the leadership of Andy Spano and the City of White Plains’ Mayor Joseph Delfino, found a way for the county and city to meet two priorities for the price of one. The county will build “affordable housing” on Lake Street, by purchasing the Pettinicchi property on Lake Street for approximately $1 million.
The city reached accommodation with the county where county, city and citizens “win” in a $1-a-year 30-year lease of county land on the shores of St. Mary’s Lake where White Plains will maintain and upgrade the shores and lake for the pleasure of city and county residents.
Steering Committees to be Assembled.
Two committees will be formed. One will plan “Liberty Park’s” recreational uses and the other will decide on the appropriate memorial to the White Plains residents who died at the World Trade Center.
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“LIBERTY PARK” TO REMEMBER SEPTEMBER 11 VICTIMS: Mayor Delfino, right, shaking Andy Spano’s hand as they unvieled a sign, proclaiming “Future Site of Liberty Park.” The mission of the new park will be to commemorate the victims of the World Trade Center Attacks. An “approprate memorial” will be built honoring the 5 White Plains citizens who died that day: Marisa DiNardo, Joe Riverso, Gregory Rodriques, Linda Sheehan and Marisa Schorpp.
Photo by WPCNR News
History of the City’s New Shining Jewel: Lake was industrial hub in colonial times.
According to a history of St. Mary’s Lake, distributed by the city and compiled by (Ann McPherson of the City Clerk’s office) at Tuesday’s news conference, John Harrison purchased “Harycons Pattne” (Harrison’s Patent) from the Indians in 1695.
Elaine Massena, Principal Archivest of the Westchester County Records and Archives Center in Elmford reports that Place Names of Westchester County by Richard Lederer recounts, “The 1696 patent to Harrison and 4 others called for yearly rent of 20 shillings on the Feast Day of the Annunciation of our Blessed Virgin Mary.” Hence, the name, St. Mary’s Lake.
The original mill was at the Lake Street end, where the lake turns into a stream.
Traditionally, an industrial site.
The City Clerk’s office reports in its history of the lake, that the right to dam a stream and build a mill to grind grains along the side of Silver Lake was obtained by Benjamin Brundage in 1726, and was transferred from Brundage to John Walton, to Daniel Brundage, to Eleazer Yeoman who constructed and ran the mill, who passed it on to John Horton. “Horton’s Mill” was up and grinding grain before 1744, when the lake became known as “Horton’s Pond.”
Fortified during the Revolutionary War 226 years ago.
The lake was seen as a strategic area during the Battle of White Plains in October, 1776. Breastworks were constructed on the hillsides at different elevations.
Once there was ice and state’s first health center.
Mayor Delfino’s memories of iceskating on Silver Lake in the1930s, testified to how cold winters in the northeast once were. Deutermann founded a different business upon taking over the mill: ice. He cut and stored slabs of ice cut from the Lake in a huge ice house which stood on the lake front. The Red Cross established the first Health Center in New York at St. Mary’s Lake in 1917, during World War I.
The Lake in the 20th Century.
In 1923, the iceman sold the property. The lakefront passed to NY Interurban Water Company, which sold it to Westchester Joint Water Works. Two private citizens, Basil Filardi and Anthony Grillo owned it next, until it was sold to its final industrial tenant, Public Milk Company in 1956.
Public Milk Company Purchased Fought by Park Activists who fought for a park in the 1950s
In echoes of today’s New York Presbyterian Hospital Article 78 action, Public Milk Company, according to the White Plains City Clerk, “petitioned for a zoning change, which, despite public opposition that it should be reserved for park purposes only, was granted in 1956.” Dellwood Dairy operated a distribution facility on the property, and sold it in 1990 to Westchester County.
1.9 acres of land and shore, 21.8 acres of St. Mary’s Lake
The site that will be transformed by the spring into Liberty Park, a memorial to those killed in the World Trade Center attacks, features a rocky tree-lined shore, and a 75 foot square wooded island at the northern end of the lake.
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SILVER LAKE PILOT, Lonnie Sanders of the Department of Recreation Parks described the lake as 20 feet deep in its murkier depths.
Photo by WPCNR
Sanders said the lake is deeper on its western White Plains side, with sandbars extending out from the eastern Harrison shore.He observed from his shakedown cruise prior to Tuesday, that the lake has a moderate current at all times flowing North to South. He says the lake can get choppy. In the morning Tuesday, he said there was such a chop on the water they would not have been able to hold the tour had the Northerlies not calmed.
Fishing is good.
Sanders reported that the lake had a thriving fish population, with large bass sighted. Arne Abramowitz, Recreation and Parks Commissioner said about a 5-pound pass had been sighted when the temporary “yacht landing” was being but in place for the exploratory rowboat tour conducted yesterday.
A fisherman interviewed by WPCNR recently testified that the lake was a thriving natural resource, saying that not only bass, but bluegills and trout were there for the taking. A New York State Fishing License is required to try your fisherman’s luck in Silver Lake.
Prior to yesterday’s ceremony, the Department of Public Works and the Department of Recreation & Parks executed a preliminary upgrading of the park entrance, cutting back the wild ramble of field grass and thick trees that blocked unimpeded access to the western shore.
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CITY TASK FORCE: The event was produced by Special Events Coordinator Rick Amaratto (in black jacket, on stairs) of the Mayor’s Office. It was executed flawlessly by the White Plains Department of Recreation and Parks personnel. Park workers manned the touring vessels, built the boarding stairs and cleared the staging area. Here, Amaratto and parks personnel waited to receive dignataries as they disembarked Tuesday, prior to the news conference.
Photo by WPCNR
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RECREATION ADVISORY COMMITTEE HEAD, Councilperson Rita Malmud returns from Council’s Expeditionary Cruise.
Photo by WPCNR
The Lake has come a long way, baby.
Silver Lake’s sorry state of overgrowth, litter, and a home for vagrants was first dramatized last spring when Councilman William King, a lone crusader, held two clean-ups to put into perspective how Silver Lake’s open space was being neglected and was inexplicably not available for use by county or city.
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COUNCILMAN BILL KING EXPOSED SILVER LAKE FATE: Here, he is seen last March 2, retrieving litter and refuse from the lake’s waters. It was the first of two clean-up expeditions Mr. King led. He and his daughter’s Girl Scout Troop helped fill over 30 bags of litter retrieved from the lake and overgrown grounds. Mr. King could not attend Tuesday’s regatta.
Photo by WPCNR News
Had he been able to be present, Mr. King would have noted and been pleased with the refreshing absence of litter that he personally had drawn attention to earlier this spring as a compelling reason for the county and city to take a greater role in maintaining the park.
Mr. King’s donning of waders along with two other citizens to clean up the garbage strewn on the lake’s shores that symbolized how neglected the lake had become.
Silver Lake, good old St. Mary’s Lake has finally been welcomed into the White Plains family.