CRP 3610 Final Ppaer

1 Table of Contents Acknowledgements 3 Maps of White Plains 4 Introduction 5 Birth of a City 6 Towards Urban Renewal 9 The Central Renewal Plan 11 The Commercial Landscape 13 Downtown Destruction and Renewal 17 Renaissance and Conclusion 22 Bibliography 27 2 Acknowledgements Thank you to the following people and organizations, without which this paper would not have been possible: Cornell University, Ithaca, NY Bob Kibbee Elaine Massena The Map Collection at Olin Library, Cornell University, and its Staff Professor Michael Tomlan The Westchester County Archives and its Staff The Westchester County Historical Society 3 Maps of White Plains Present-day street map (top) and satellite image of White Plains. Images courtesy of Google Maps (www.maps.google.com) 4 Introduction From an untrained eye, a mere glimpse of the White Plains, New York skyline would convey a sense of bewilderment. It’s a seemingly impossible array of glittering skyscrapers and residential towers somehow plopped down in the middle of tree-lined suburbia. This city, if you could even call it that, has acquired enough capital, glitz, and glamour in the last eight years alone, it would make even the most well-to-do urbanite awestruck. Yet, beneath the shimmering façades and Rodeo Drive-like collection of boutiques lays a city that has completely transformed itself in the second half of the twentieth century. The city, which has just over 53,000 residents and a skyline that would make most American cities jealous, has become a regional destination for those who crave the essentials of nearby New York City, but dare not cross the city line. Historians and politicians regard White Plains as the county seat of Westchester, while most others refer to it as the place where they work, shop, and play. It is a city home to young professionals, families, Fortune 500 companies, and world class shopping. It is an exemplar of the modern “Edge City”, in which its current incarnation as an urban center on the fringe of a much larger one is nothing like the place it was forty years ago (Garreau 7). Simple storefronts and mom and pop stores have long since made way for towering edifices of glass, steel, and wealth. It is a city that despite a rich history that goes back to the days of pre-colonial America has only existed in its current state since the mid 1970s. Ever since the federal government gave city officials the green light to implement urban renewal and reshape the physical city, White Plains has become an entirely different place. Back in the day, before malls, office towers, or gentrification, it was a railroad town, close enough to New 5 York City physically, but far enough away to have its own unique character. Urban Renewal changed all that: movie theatres were demolished for parking garages, simple storefronts turned into climate-controlled malls, and small shops grew into gleaming towers. Even today, the city is still trying to reclaim street level shops and pedestrian cityscapes through a series of residential and mixed-use development projects, but reminders of urban renewal dominate the White Plains skyline. Urban renewal forever changed the very fabric of the city in the postwar years by redesigning the central business district to fit the scale of the automobile, by attempting to make the city a commercial enclave in a sea of suburban lawns and gardens, and by doing whatever it took to physically change the nature and purpose of a city desperate for transition and change. Birth of a City The earliest form of White Plains was created on November 22, 1683 when settlers from the nearby Rye Colony purchased roughly 4,500 acres of land from the local Westchester Indians (Hoffman, “Yesterday” i). The Indians had named the land “Quarropas”, which translated to “the white marshes” or “plains of white”. Settlement of the new White Plains Colony was slow until March 13, 1721, when King George II of England granted the Colony a royal patent (Hoffman, “Yesterday” ii). By that year, White Plains was still a small village within the Town of Rye, but as the village gained population, power, and momentum, it soon became a separate entity. In 1758, the village constructed its first courthouse thanks to a wealthy local landowner and assumed the 6 county seat of Westchester County (better known as simply “Westchester”). Thirty years later, the village separated from Rye and became its own town (Hoffman “Yesterday” ii). Prior to separation, two events occurred in White Plains that would forever change the city’s importance and direction. First, on July 9, 1776, a messenger arrived at the town courthouse fresh from Philadelphia. Dusty and tired, he addressed the New York Provincial Congress by presenting them with a copy of the Declaration of Independence. The Congress quickly appointed a committee to verify, study, approve, and adopt the document, which declared that the Thirteen Colonies would separate from their mother country, England. Two days later, the copy of the Declaration was read aloud publicly on the courthouse steps. With the Declaration declaring the formation of the United States of America, and changing New York from a provincial colony to a state, White Plains would become the birthplace of the State of New York (Hoffman, “Yesterday” ii). The second event was the Battle of White Plains, which occurred in October and November of that year. American troops gathered on a hillside overlooking the village, waiting for British troops, but the when the British arrived, they first laid eyes upon the weakest of the American lines, and immediately seized them on Chatterton Hill to the west (Hoffman, “Yesterday” ii-iii). While the Chatterton campaign was quick and swift, taking the entire village of White Plains proved to be too cumbersome for British forces. As American troops restructured their defenses to counter the British, the latter troops found that they could gain no more ground within the village, and so, on November 5, they retreated to nearby Dobbs Ferry (Hoffman, “Yesterday” iii). 7 The new town experienced slow growth in the late 18th and early 19th century. The town was laid out like other New England-style villages: houses were clustered around a central commons on Broadway (later, the commons would become a public park) (Massena, “Tibbits”). Unattractive buildings, “inferior” shops, and poorly kept streets kept population growth at a crawl: in 1790, the population was 505 residents. By 1800, 70 new residents had moved into the village over the past ten years. By 1830, there were only 830 total residents (Hoffman, “Yesterday” iv). The town would not experience any real growth until the 1840s, when the New York Central Railroad extended service into White Plains on December 1, 1844 (Hoffman, “Yesterday” 46). With the railroad, residents could easily travel into nearby New York City and new businesses began to set up shop within the town, taking advantage of the new transportation infrastructure. By the 1860s, the layout of the town had changed dramatically. The Broadway Commons were no longer the center of activity. New developments chose to locate along Railroad Avenue, which ran eastward from the railroad station to Broadway and passed the courthouse along the way (see figure 1). In 1870, the town’s population had swelled to 2,630 residents with no signs of slowing down (Hoffman, “Yesterday” iv). Near the end of the 19th century, the town had now grown to resemble a small city. Trolley service within the Town of White Plains and to its neighbors began in 1897 (Hoffman, “Yesterday” 71), better connecting residents to the growing rail-based infrastructure. During the 1910s, a second rail line serving the New York-Boston corridor began service to White Plains (Hoffman, “Changing” 323). Due to increased traffic, a permanent road bridge was built over the original railroad tracks (which were now electrified) to accommodate the town’s many commuters (Hoffman, “Changing” 209-210). Light 8 industrial firms also began to establish within the town at this time. For the most part, firms settled near the railroad tracks and manufactured mostly consumer goods (Hoffman, “Changing” 316-318). Even a small car company used White Plains as its manufacturing base (Massena, “Motor” 12)! In 1916, White Plains incorporated itself as a city (Hoffman, “Changing” iv). Towards Urban Renewal The end of the World War II and years ensuing became a pivotal time for the city of White Plains. Returning troops, eager to start new families, looked to the suburbs as the new residential frontier, with its spacious plots, inexpensive housing, and family- friendly atmosphere (Tomlan, “Modern”). Rail service was on the decline (rail service to Boston and the trolleys had already ceased) and automobiles were in fashion. Westchester already developed a decent parkway network to carry commuters back and forth from New York City, but White Plains was barely on this new grid. With nearby towns like Mamaroneck, Scarsdale, and Tuckahoe quickly becoming bedroom communities of New York City, White Plains began to change its focus from a governmental center to a commercial haven within the suburbs. After all, the city had a beautiful Art Deco style convention center for meetings and traveling performances (Massena, “Agnes”) as well as many of the same department stores and retailers found in Manhattan (Sanchis 344). It was only natural to remind locals and newcomers about the great benefits the closer city had to offer. In 1948, White Plains held a Parade of Progress, in which over nine days, “civic, educational, social, and business leaders [coordinated] a program that [promised] to be 9 one of the most impressive events ever witnessed in Westchester County” (Rodwin 12).

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