The following letter appears in the 2/2/12 edition of THE
GAZETTE; it is reprinted here with permission:
January 25, 2012
To the Editor,
Harmon was one of the first planned suburbs in our nation.
In 1906 Clifford Harmon, a member of the realty firm of Wood-Harmon of New York
City, decided that he would like to found a community where artists, writers,
musicians and singers could gather to share their arts in a relaxed country
setting. To this end he purchased 500 acres of land known as the Van Cortlandt
Farm and proceeded to lay out lots, pave streets, and put in water, sewage and
electrical service. Harmon's project was an ambitious one. He persuaded the New
York Central Railroad to put up a new station and repair shops on part of the
land he had bought guaranteeing excellent train service from New York City. He
then set about creating a brand new village called Harmon, up the hill from the
station. To publicize this venture he enlisted the support of Madame Lillian
Nordica, the first American born opera star to gain international renown. She
hoped to fulfill her dream of building a Lillian Nordica festival house; it was
to be both a music school and opera house that she envisioned as the
"American Bayreuth".
A recent issue of THE GAZETTE reported that the village
board is once again about to rezone portions of Harmon. The Croton Historical
Society believes strongly that Clifford Harmon's original sales office on
Benedict Boulevard should not be a part of the rezoning, and thus put at risk
for demolition. Our village has already lost most of old Croton Landing after
the state demolished virtually all of South Riverside Avenue to construct the
new Route 9. Depot Square, once the very center of the community, is just a
memory. The area that was commercial Croton is no more. Now our own village
fathers wish to remove the most important piece of the history of Harmon.
The very FIRST structure Clifford Harmon raised on this
large project was his sales office, built in the area he had reserved for
business development. This is the building that is in jeopardy if the new
zoning for Harmon is approved as it is currently written. And although the
Wood-Harmon Sales Office, currently a nail salon, has had a number of
renovations over the years, it is still the one concrete Harmon-built structure
that nobly attests to the founding of one of our country's first planned
suburbs. It still contains the beautiful fieldstone fireplace that gave it such
warmth in its early days.
The Croton Historical Society believes that the building
deserves preservation and could some day be turned into a History/Tourist
Information Center for the community. We have many things of interest here in
our village. Croton Point, Van Cortlandt Manor, River Walk and The New Croton
Dam make our village a destination. We should begin to try to capitalize on
these assets.
New York foolishly lost the original grand Penn Station to
the avarice of developers. Must Harmon's history also be relegated to a
developer's wrecking ball? We urge the community to join with us in asking the
Village Board to remove this building from the current rezoning proposal.
Sincerely,
Piet Boonstra, President Croton Historical Society
