WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER SETS RECORD VISITS FOR YEAR 7,017,658 VISITS! 2,098,003 VISITORS MADE 6 VISITS A DAY EVERY DAY. 63,330 UNIQUE VISITORS MADE 133,730 VISITS IN DECEMBER. WPCNR AVERAGED 17,284 VISITORS A WEEK, VISITING 31,270 TIMES.

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WPCNR COMMON COUNCIL REPORT Special to WPCNR by Correspondent Ayana Meade. December 1, 2015:

During a Special Meeting of the White Plains Common Council held Monday night at the Mayor’s Office, Mark Weingarten, ( of DelBello, Donnellan, Weingarten, Wise and Wiedeker) the lawyer representing Grid Properties in the development of “The Boulevard” project, requested re-zoning of the former Maple Ave./Post Road Sholz car dealership site, the closing of Brady Place, and to obtain site plan approval.

“The Boulevard” will be a mixed-use specialty retail and residential property featuring dining options, and boutique-style fitness clubs.

According to Weingarten, in order to move the project forward three small parcels of land will need to be changed over to the B3 zoning code, which will allow for the placement of fitness clubs in the area—a major design component of the project.

Grid Properties’ goal is to develop Post Road into a more pedestrian-friendly place, and create a “vibrant” entry from the southern end of White Plains that replaces the “blight” that has existed opposite to residential communities in the area for years–thereby creating “a relaxed neighborhood experience” in contrast to the low-rise retail and high-rise apartments that are commonly found throughout the city.

The developers promise to provide an eclectic mix of small, and medium sized dining, shopping and fitness offerings.

Running from Lexington to Rathbun Avenue on 4.2 acres, Grid Properties is proposing 180,000 sq. feet of retail, with 40,000 sq. feet dedicated to fitness uses—the health club uses will need a special permit from the planning board.  The site will also provide 720 spaces of free parking, and another 97 of potential valet (requiring tip only).  Additionally, 12 rental townhouse units will be erected facing Maple Ave as part of the project.

A “Fitness Mall”

Instead of housing a large branded health club, Grid wants to put together 10 different vendors that are specialists in their area—i.e., kickboxing, yoga, etc.  Each one of the tenants will have an outdoor space as well as an indoor space, and a common place with juice bar and wearables.

“It’s a lifestyle type project where the customer will want to return” said Drew Greenwald, Principal, Grid Properties.

Unique features of the project include street level retail, with a second level that is actually a grade level behind—a design element that Grid representatives admit is difficult to visualize without looking at the built model.

Additionally, a brick “Mill Building” will be placed at Brady Place to create architectural contrast with the rest of the buildings that will be of a more modern design.

The site last week, after demolition. Photo, WPCNR

Demolition on the site has already been completed.  All buildings will be new construction and LEED certified, incorporating sustainable infrastructure and materials.

Environmental Cleanup Required

Due in part to the used car dealership, dry cleaner, and a gas station previously located on the site—the gas station had an oil spill at some point—the site has been entered into the Brownfields program for remediation.

With White Plains Hospital nearby the site will potentially attract people visiting and working at the hospital—as well as those from neighboring towns.

Grid estimates the project will potentially employ 500-800 people in permanent jobs.

Grid has been marketing the project for over a year now, and says the boutique fitness businesses have been very responsive to the idea of being next to each other.

Common Council shown at Monday night meeting. Photo, Ayana Meade

During the question and answer portion of the presentation, one council member communicated that her key concerns were:  odors from garbage disposal, design, and safety for pedestrians.

Regarding design, the council member was not partial to the level design element of town houses.  She suggested looking at a height-adjusted project in Tarrytown as an example of good design. Grid admitted that this aspect of the project (the  townhouse design) was the least developed.

Council members also raised concerns regarding whether Grid Properties had entered into a dialogue with nearby Calvary Church regarding parking overflow, to which Grid replied they had not, but had no objections to doing so.  Council members asked whether the housing units were “10% (affordable) 90 (market)” compliant in terms of affordability.

Grid replied that the town houses were “market” in terms of affordability—but that they would comply with any required regulations.

Environmental questions posed by the council addressed an interest in extending energy efficient design to the neighborhood in terms of sidewalks and parking areas by employing green materials, and the development of a plan for dealing with storm water.  The project is being designed by BLT Architects, and is slated for completion in the 4^th quarter of 2016.

 

 

 

 

 

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WPCNR MAIN STREET JOURNAL. From the Sisters of Divine Compassion. November 30, 2015:

The Sisters of the Divine Compassion  announced Thanksgiving Day the completion of the sale of their Good Counsel property at 52 North Broadway in White Plains to WP Development NB LLC. The purchase price was not disclosed.

A key element of the sale is the preservation and enhancement of the church on the property, the Chapel of the Divine Compassion. The Sisters will continue to use the Chapel, where Religious services, community celebrations and spirituality programs will continue to be held.  In addition, the purchaser is working closely with the Sisters to create a heritage space in the chapel.

The Sisters of the Divine Compassion will also continue to maintain congregational leadership and operational offices in the building next to the Chapel.

The 16-acre property was sold unconditionally. The purchaser is evaluating potential future uses.  The property includes 12 buildings including the Chapel encompassing 162,000 square feet of space.

Funds from the transaction will provide for the living and healthcare expenses of the Sisters over the next 30 plus years, and enable the continuation of their mission locally and globally, including ongoing education, spiritual development, compassionate care and human services in Westchester, the Hudson Valley and the Bronx. Religious congregations across the country are readjusting to smaller numbers of Sisters as they have existed for centuries before in the Catholic Church.

The Sisters have owned the White Plains property for 125 years.  As the members have aged, the financial burden of maintaining the campus and the need for sufficient funding for ongoing and future retirement and healthcare needs led to the difficult decision to seek a buyer for the White Plains property.  A two-year marketing and disposition process was conducted by CBRE, a prominent international real estate firm.

Of the Order’s current 80 Members, the 20 Sisters living on the White Plains campus have relocated to a variety of residences throughout the archdiocese, including homes owned by the Order as well as to Sacred Heart Convent in Yonkers. Those with ongoing healthcare needs have moved to assisted and skilled care facilities in the area.

Sister Carol Wagner, RDC, President of the Order, said that while the decision to sell the property has been very sad and emotional, it was based on a comprehensive evaluation of the financial needs of 80 Sisters, the ongoing costs of managing the buildings and property, and the necessity of ensuring funds for their mission to continue.  “We have been blessed with the Good Counsel campus site for 125 years, and the necessity of putting the property on the market, has posed painful and difficult challenges on many different levels.  We deeply appreciate the support and understanding that we have received from so many people as we worked our way through the sale process. We are also extremely pleased that the beautiful Divine Compassion Chapel constructed by Mother Mary Veronica will not only be preserved and enhanced, but that it will remain an active ongoing sacred place of worship, prayer and spiritual growth for us and the larger community into the future.”

The ministries of the Sisters of the Divine Compassion are diverse. They serve as educators, administrators, health care professionals and pastoral care ministers at locations in Westchester, Orange and Dutchess counties as well as the Bronx. They are joined by 75 Associates and Companions who work with them.

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WPCNR THIS WHITE PLAINS LIFE. By John F. Bailey First published in 2007: 

The celebrity is coming back to town. She was  dropped off in a little college town three months ago, having landed a bit role as a freshman at a humungus  campus in the middle west.  After sending her out there by plane, and the parents driving out her stuff, hooking up her computer with the exception of the printer,  and putting her in the dorm, she was on her own. This a kid who had to rely on skating mom to line up her skating lessons, skating practices, remind her of her homework, etc. , feel her skates to make sure they were sharpened.

Well today she came back after three months away from home with an occasional text message  and an e-mail and a phone call over the last 90 days mainly over the fate of Lloyd Carr, Mike Hart and Chad Henne and Ryan Mallet.  She is now back on her first “Thanksgiving Tour.” And so far I like it.

“You can go now, ” she said, were her last words when left at her dorm in August. We wondered, would she change.

Well it got closer and closer to Thanksgiving, and we did not go out for Parents Weekend — choosing a skating competition weekend instead. So other than arranging a flight back for her Wednesday, and exchanging football chit-chat we did not talk to her much.

Then last week, things happened.

First, we were told prior to Thanksgiving,  ”I don’t have to be picked up at the airport, my friend is picking me up.”

So just to make sure I called the new toast of College Town, USA, (she has made so many new friends on that metropolis of a campus), asking if her arrangements were all set for pickup today.

“Oh….ahhh dad, could you pick me up? Meghan can’t pick me up at the airport, her Dad has to have the car.”

I want you to know there was a time four months ago when, I as a parent would have pounced on this egregious lack of planning and continued the old pre-college parent -superior, daughter-irresponsible relationship.

But, no, being a rat-dog dick reporter and a “disgusting person,” I am subtle, I’m learning, devious,  I say to her, very matter-of-factly,  instead,

“No problem. I think it’s real tough driving to LaGuardia when you’re not experienced. I wouldn’t want Meghan saddled with that responsibility.”

So she says, “That’s great Dad.” (I had scored incredible points by not flying off the handle!)

Well, that felt good. So Wednesday morning the ingénue leaves her skating practice out at College Town USA and hops the shuttle to the airport. When she arrives at DTW, her flight is delayed. With my wife checking Northwest Orient (NorthWEST ORIENT AIRRRRRRRRRRRRRLINES, remember that commercial) every hour on the half hour, and ascertaining IF campus queen got on the shuttle to Detroit, was on the shuttle, has a credit card and knows how to pay, (she has missed this micromanaging),  we determine her flight is delayed until 1:40 PM.  Campus queen checks in from the waiting lounge by cellphone advising she is awaiting her plane.

But never fear the HOV lane in the sky is easing air traffic congestion all over America. Her Flight gets new equipment (which in airline-speak, means “plane”).

 

This enables me to go over and watch the Parker Stadium Ceremony. At the ceremony, Skating Mom calls and says Big Ten Princess has gotten on the plane. So I leave Parker Stadium at 1:30, and divert  to LaGuardia figuring the plane gets there from Detroit around about 3 PM.

 

But, oy! The anxiety of traffic reports, “reports” of airport delays was not to be believed. Though traffic was bumper to bumper northbound on the Hutch — it was wideopen southbound to the bridges, something you would not know from the traffic reports.

 

Then there’s the anxiety of weather reports! Bad weather in the midwest! FOG. Low ceilings! It is paralyzing.

But to listen to the radio traffic reports (“2 hour delays getting to the airports.” “Flights delayed.” ) without real specific information, I might add.   You listen to traffic reports today you’d never go anywhere.

You could not determine from the Radio 880 reports whether the Whitestone Bridge or Throgs Neck Bridge were backed up into the Bronx, for example, the traffic reports were somewhat useless and all they did do was create anxiety.

So I decide to divert to the Throgs Neck Bridge off the Hutchinson River Parkway southbound. I spend 10 minutes at the Throgs Neck, even in the cash lane, and I cross over realizing I could not get on the Cross Island westbound, so instead I shot down the wide open Clearview Expressway to the Long Island Expressway westbound to the Grand Central Parkway (Exit 22A) and I am parked at LaGuardia at 2:30 PM. One hour to LGA from White Plains despite the traffic reports on Getaway Day.

Meanwhile, communicating by cellphone with Orchestrating Mom, I am informed the Ice Princess is in the air, and I in turn inform Orchestrating Mom (who is cooking Thanksgiving dinner — we should have ordered Stu Leonard’s but she is a traditionalist), I have arrived and am waiting in the Delta Terminal.

Scanning the Boards at LGA Delta Terminal. You’re lucky if you can find your flight.

I mean LaGuardia is such a shabby airport on the arrivals level. No lounges, no seats, and very few boards telling you what’s coming in. Even the $5 Starbucks is lukewarm. I mean compared to Detroit this airport LGA is like a 30s airport which it is.

How did I ever manage to fly home from college without a cellphone? It is a miracle.

So the Flying Wolverinette calls me from the plane, informing me she has landed.

I tell her I’m wearing the Michigan hat.

She crackles from the aircraft: “You would be.”

So I wait at the escalators by the Northwest baggage claim. Each time a pair of blue jeans, boots or tights appears from the feet up to the waist I think it is the Ice Queen arriving…instead it turns out to be a woman in her 40s, 50s and up – way too old and too made up to be wearing that kind of bottom. Very disconcerting and funny and bizarre effect.

So finally she comes off the escalator and actually looks glad to see me.

And she is perfect!

I snap her picture she hugs me. I hug her.

I say, “I missed you.”

She says, “I missed you, too.”

I said, “You really did a great job these last 90 days.”

“Thanks Dad,” she says.

She is not the same, but I like what I see. Her nails are done better. She looks more confident. I love confidence in a woman.

So she tells me how she can hardly wait to drive a stick shift again. How nervous she is when driving with others at the wheel. How she doesn’t want to discuss the State game.

We have this incredible amusing ride back up to Westchester County.

A guy tailgates me on the Whitestone, one inch from my bumper and when I pull out to wheel over to the Whitestone…he yells “Learn how to drive.” She thinks this is hilarious, “You always told me to ignore those kind of people.”

Then – she lists all the things she has to do in the next two days before she goes back to College Town, USA. Tells me about the fraternity parties before the football games.  I think she is having way too much fun for $40Gs a year and up This is some camp. Though the grades are good.

She says she is going to play knockout late in White Plains tonight, a kind of dodgeball in the dark. I point out that she shouldn’t do that, what if she twists an ankle and can’t skate? She laughs.

I asked, “you missed that didn’t you?” (meaning my Dad advisories.)

“Noooooo, “ she says. “I haven’t heard that in three months.”

She has done a good job.

And you know what, she has.

And I have learned to text message. And I didn’t miss her as much as I thought I would.

Just watching television of a football game with 100,000 people in the stadium, thinking that she might be on camera some time during a game, I did not miss her much, did I?

We have grown closer together, since we’ve been apart.

It’s great to see the little sailboat negotiating the tricky headwinds of life herself, hoisting the sails on her own, and when she gets blown over, righting the hull herself.

I could never have done what she has done the last three months in College Town USA.

I loved picking her up at the airport.

I loved the way she looked at me when she saw me.

I like the way she’s changed.

And that’s a good thing.

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WPCNR ROVING PHOTOGRAPHER. Thanksgiving Portfolio, all photos by WPCNR: On this Thanksgiving, let us remember the band of hardy intrepid souls who crossed an ocean in a boat no  bigger than a large Chris Craft and settled in an unforgiving landscape and started a country in the cold landscape of New England.

They were helped by Indians who welcomed them, without whom they would not have survived. A salute to this brave band.

They sailed into a bay, dropped anchor and just carved out a living after living in incredible conditions in a ship’s hold for weeks, crossing the storm-tossed North Atlantic. Here are some views of America’s first hometown captured by the WPCNR Roving Photographer.

Plymouth Rock Landing. Plymouth, Massachusetts.

The Mayflower II. Plymouth Harbor.

 

Indian Statue of Squanto welcoming the Pilgrim Settlers. Plymouth.

 

Governor William Bradford Statue on the Shores of Plymouth Harbor

“Plymouth Rock,” The landing place of the pilgrims. 

Settlers Home, left, circa 1690. 

Church, Plymouth late 1700s. .

The Jury: Old Burial Ground, Plymouth. Last resting place of the pilgrims overlooking Plymouth Harbor. The sacrifices, bravery and perseverence of these persons stand as examples to Americans today. How are we doin’?

 

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December Downtown Music Concert Schedule

Wednesday, December 2, 12:10PM

Cambiata Trio: Pamela Sklar, flute; Suzanne Mueller, cello;Mark McCarron, guitar. Cambiata performs classical, jazz standards, original music (by McCarron and Sklar) and arrangements of music by other composers ranging from Handel to Villa-Lobos to Ian Anderson.  A Downtown Music debut. Free Admission

 

Wednesday, December 9, 12:10PM

Tableau Vivant: Karen Marie Marmer, violin & Dongsok Shin, harpsichord, principals of the celebrated baroque ensemble Rebel, with guests David Ross, baroque flute and Arnie Tanimoto, viola da gamba offer Telemann in Paris featuring works by Georg Philip Telemann and Michel Blavet. Free Admission

This concert is made possible with the generous support of Paul Bergins, Esq., White Plains, New York.  

Wednesday, December 16, 12:10PM

Angelica, a women’s chamber choir directed by Marie Caruso, presents a program drawn from the vast treasury of medieval, renaissance and 20th century music celebrating the wonder and beauty of the Christmas season.  Free Admission

This concert is made possible with the generous support of the Brian Wallach Agency,
White Plains, New York. Personal and Commercial Insurance since 1949.