Dec. 9, 2025

To The Community:

The Bronxville Board of Education has announced plans to explore installing permanent stadium lights on school fields—a proposal that has been thoroughly examined and rejected twice before, in 2005 and 2013-14. The Bronxville Quality of Life Committee wants to make sure the broader community is aware that this matter has been reopened.

A History of Community Opposition

This is not a new debate. When lights were last proposed in 2013-14, over 500 residents signed petitions in opposition. The Board conducted feasibility studies, held information sessions, heard public comment, and ultimately decided that stadium lights were inappropriate for our village. That decision informed subsequent investments, including the turfing of Hayes Field, which many supported only because lights were off the table.

Why Lights Don't Fit Bronxville

As you know, Bronxville is unique. Paul Goldberger, noted author and former architecture critic for The New York Times and The New Yorker, spoke to the Bronxville community when he delivered the Bronxville Historical Conservancy’s inaugural Brendan Gill Lecture, "The Power of Place," in 1999.  He praised Bronxville's "particular kind of magnificence," noting we are a community where "the architectural whole is more than the sum of its parts” and “the great achievement is not the individual houses but the way they come together to make a place." The 2020 Village Comprehensive Plan adopted by the Village Trustees recognizes the wisdom of Goldberger’s words and commits to (1) preserve and promote the character and appearance of existing neighborhoods and buildings and (2) maintain the natural landscape of the village.

Stadium lights directly contradict these values. This isn't about opposing athletics or denying occasional special events like Homecoming. It's about whether lights, noise and traffic after dark in a quiet residential neighborhood should become the new normal and whether towering stadium lights should become a prominent architectural feature in the center of our village.

Real Long-Term Consequences

The design and scale of our village makes stadium lighting uniquely inappropriate. Even modern lighting technology cannot overcome the fundamental truth: the school campus sits in a densely populated residential area with some homes as close as 20 feet from the perimeter of the fields. Stadium lighting would have profound negative impacts on our entire community:

Quality of life: Evening practices and games mean unreasonable levels of noise, crowds, light and traffic during hours when young children are studying, preparing for bed, or sleeping and families are otherwise winding down for the day.

Infrastructure strain: Parking is already inadequate. Cars and buses idle illegally along nearby streets during daytime events, blocking driveways and fire lanes. Lights would extend these problems into evening hours.

Health concerns: Research links stadium lighting to disrupted circadian rhythms, depressed melatonin levels, and increased risks of cancer, obesity, depression, and diabetes—particularly concerning with LED technology.

Damage to architectural character and landscape: Even when the lights are off, the giant industrial poles would be visible from more than a hundred homes across the village - even from the iconic “four corners” intersection at Pondfield and Midland Avenues.

Light pollution and environmental impacts: When the lights are in use, a LED glow will hover over the school campus and surrounding neighborhood, harming the environment, exacerbating light pollution and disrupting wildlife.

Broken trust: Many residents chose their homes based on the community's established character. The 2014 decision against lights became part of the implicit compact between the school and the community.

A Question of Priorities

Student enrollment at the Bronxville School has declined since 2014 and is projected to continue declining. Yet we are told demand for field space has increased. This raises questions about community priorities.

We support our student athletes. We also support the character, health, and wellbeing of our community. These need not be in conflict. Alternative solutions exist that don't compromise the core elements that define Bronxville.

As Brendan Gill observed: "The smaller the physical size of a community, the more responsibly its inhabitants are to act in respect to one another."

Responsible communities would never choose a quick fix to address short term field scheduling challenges over safeguarding the character and landscape of our historic village and protecting quality of life for all of its residents.

Let's honor past decisions and preserve Bronxville’s power of place.

From,

Maureen Hackett, Dr. Elizabeth Maher, Allison Pick, and Jennifer Redman on behalf of the Bronxville Quality of Life Committee*.

Editor's note: MyhometownBronxville does not fact-check statements in letters to the editor or to the community, and the opinions do not necessarily reflect the thinking of its staff. Its objective in publishing such letters is to give air to diverse thoughts and opinions of residents in the community.