By Mary Marvin, Mayor, Village of Bronxville

Nov. 3, 2021: I want to share some news from the Village Board of Trustees’ level discussed/decided either at recent public work sessions which are open to any interested citizens or the monthly board meetings which are televised live.

As a general rule, the Board meets at 6 PM in person for a work session and then at 7 PM on camera for the formal meeting on the second Monday of every month. Meetings are aired on cable channel 74 if you have Cablevision and on channel 47 if you subscribe to Verizon. In addition, meetings can be viewed on YouTube and detailed minutes are available on the Village’s website. Meetings are replayed at least twice daily prior to the next board meeting again these are but a few of the available avenues of dissemination of information both important and interesting to Village residents.

The Library

On a really positive and honestly heartwarming note concerning our library, it was the second library in the entire county to open up during Covid. The doors have been opened since June 2020 thanks to the incredible people who staff it. Circulation is currently 18% above pre-pandemic levels and the highest since 2013.

Adding to this positive news was the opening, just yesterday, of the newly refurbished Bronxville library teen area located on the second floor and specifically designed for students in grades 6 to 12. Teens are welcome to enjoy this space not only to do homework and attend library programs but enjoy reading and perhaps meeting friends and playing a game or two. I encourage everyone to stop by and check out the area as well as the expanded literary collection including popular fiction, nonfiction and books assisting with college prep. The teen area is open to all students after 2PM on school days and on all regular library hours on weekends and school vacations. Again thanks to the incredible staff at the library and the all volunteer library boards, a myriad of programs are offered that assist so many of our friends and constituents.

As illustration, if you or you know someone who suffers from vision loss or a physical handicap that prevents them from reading, they are most probably eligible to borrow or download books through the New York State Talking Book and Braille Library. For more information about this service, stop by the library Reference Desk or call 914-337-7680, Ext 824.

At the same reference desk, you can borrow a Kindle that has been pre-loaded with popular new fiction and nonfiction titles for two weeks if you are a holder of a Bronxville library card or a member of the Friends of the Bronxville Library.

Recreation/Park Space Bordering Beechtree, Kensington & Sagamore

As a Board of Trustees, we are also focusing as promised on the recreation/park space bordering Beechtree Lane, Kensington Road and Sagamore Road so named Bacon Woods.

We are about to award a contract for the repair of the stairs leading from Sagamore Road to Kensington Road which so expedite the commute for Sagamore Road residents to the train station. The contract comes at a very opportune time as so many of you have shared that you will be commuting back to offices in Manhattan on at least a 2 to 3 day a week basis. Thanks to the incredible cooperation of the neighbors in the Hillcrest Cooperative, the Village is working to craft an agreement that will allow for the connection to a water source and enable us to install an irrigation system for year-round watering of the very pretty flat open space adjacent to Beechtree Lane and Kensington Road supplemented by continued mowing and lawn care maintenance including reseeding, fertilizing and the addition of topsoil.

With the professional assistance of our local garden club and a village arborist, we are also monitoring the heath of all of the park’s trees and trimming and removing when appropriate.

The ultimate goal is to turn this much needed open space into a more attractive refuge for regular recreation and passive enjoyment for residents of all ages.

Palumbo Place

At our most recent Village Board meeting, we made the unanimous decision to close the middle one-third of Palumbo Place going forward with the safety of the DPW staff as the priority taking precedence.

As background, Palumbo Place has been, just in the course of my tenure in Village government, a two-way street, a closed road, and a one-way thoroughfare in two different directions. The Board’s decision was made after a very public 30-day open period accepting all public comments immediately following the completion of the refurbished DPW facility on time and on budget; a facility which has not seen major improvement since 1942. Our employees, which so many of you have known for decades, long deserved a place where they could have a pleasant room to have lunch and most importantly not have to repair or re-outfit equipment on a busy public street.

Residents who park in the Alden Place lot will have an exit onto Gramatan Avenue and at the Midland Avenue outlet, there will be new short term parking spaces for our Senior Citizens while meeting at the Reformed Church as well as parents picking up youngsters at the nursery school.

Though the road is closed to through traffic, we have added new sidewalks and bike passages for increased access to encourage non car users.

We believe this closure will have a minimal impact on the traffic flow as we are simultaneously installing, improving and recalibrating the signalized crossings at all three neighboring intersections of impact: Gramatan Avenue at Pondfield Road, Midland Avenue at Pondfield Road and Midland Avenue at Kraft Avenue.

This update is just Part One of a series to inform all of you of the various initiatives underway by Village government and touching virtually every corner of our one square mile.

Photo by N. Bower