Haverstraw, NY
The Village of Haverstraw is as historically rich as it is ethnically and culturally diverse.
Known to locals as “the Village,” Downtown Haverstraw is set amidst a breathtaking natural landscape at the widest point of the Hudson River and in the shadow of the Palisades Escarpment’s crowning peak High Tor Mountain.
The Village has a growing high-density population of over 12,000 people on a land area of two square miles, much of which is within a 10 minute walk of the Hudson River.
Haverstraw’s Vaudeville-era Broadway opera houses and stages hosted the theatrical debut of George M. Cohan, who then went on to create Broadway as we now know it. Saving High Tor from quarrying was not only the impetus for Pulitzer Prize winner Maxwell Anderson’s 1936 play named for the mountain, but led to the creation of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission and the creation of the first made-for-television film of the same name starring Bing Crosby and a budding Julie Andrews in 1956.
Babe Ruth came to Haverstraw to star in one of many silent films made in and near the Village at facilities operated by founder of Paramount Adolph Zukor and theatre magnate and MGM creator Marcus Loew. Edward Hopper and the Hudson River School artists painted here. The Village remains a lure for historians, creatives and for those seeking a distinctive respite from mainstream suburban lifestyle.
Downtown Haverstraw citizens represent an ethnically diverse set of New Americans as well as generations of descendants from earlier migrant waves. The Village’s commercial corridors are bustling with small and family-owned businesses, light manufacturing, restaurants, entertainment, recreation and places of worship.
Downtown is unique in that it has largely escaped the perils of urban renewal, leaving intact significant sections of its historic buildings, a varied housing stock of rental apartments, townhomes and single-family homes all comprising a vibrant, urban fabric. Unlike other northern suburbs, the Village boasts a high density of population and business, a human-scale and walkable street grid, the longest publically accessible waterfront in the mid-Hudson region, and Port Authority direct and local bus service as well as commuter ferry access to the MetroNorth Hudson Line and Grand Central Terminal.
The Village is best known for its extremely walkable street grid, which supports a large number of car-free households, and its eclectic mix of historic architecture from stately Second Empire mansions on Hudson Avenue and First Street to small Village Colonial homes from the eighteenth century, to grand mixed-use corner bank buildings in the business district.