I got to the station a bit early and the train arrived late, so while waiting I took some pictures around the station.

The winding tracks fascinated me.

Trains crossing.

More Trains.

One of the dreaded spotted lantern flies. I know they’re a dangerous invasive species, but I don’t have the heart to kill anything deliberately. I stayed for a while hoping it would open its wings, because the crimson hind wings are truly spectacular. It’s actually quite beautiful. It’s a pity we don’t have the parasitic wasps that keep the population down in Asia.

A fellow traveler.

Train now arriving on Track 2. Unfortunately, not mine. Just another Metro North commuter train.

Interesting (at least to me) light poles.

Taken with a Sony RX10 IV.

The Briarcliff Manor-Scarborough Historical Society (BMSHS) recently organized a presentation on Harold Caparn, a well-known landscape architect. The presentation was titled “Gardens by Design. Formal and Informal Garden Designs by Harold Caparn” and it was given by a relative of Caparn’s: Oliver Chamberlain. About 25 people attended.

Harold Caparn opened his landscape architecture office at Yonkers, NY, in 1898. Besides commissions for private estates, he won a competition to design two Yonkers city parks. Working as a one-man firm, he gave personal attention to his clients, drawing plans, selecting plant material and overseeing the implementation of the plan to his exacting requirements.

After four successful years in Yonkers, he moved his office in 1902 to 156 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. He was already engaged in designing The Bronx Zoo.

Caparn worked from late 1899 through 1904 as the landscape architect of the New York Zoological Park-The Bronx Zoo-the largest metropolitan zoo in the United States. He designed the Entrance Concourse and central Court, working alongside Heins and LaFarge, the architects of the animal buildings. He laid out open-air animal areas and walkways giving access along the Bronx River and to the outdoor animal exhibits. The Bronx Zoo is now a designated New York City Landmark.

Because of the quality of his landscape designs and his published articles, in 1905 he was elected a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects (FASLA).

Caparn designed the estate and business landscapes for many clients from 1900 through the mid-1930s who were well-to-do and leaders in business, such as William Tully, Counsel for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., whose home and estate was on the north shore of Long Island. Caparn designed a rose garden for Tully that became the model for the rose garden of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Caparn also designed the grounds and entrance for the Tully estate.

He also designed the landscapes for two notable houses (Greylock and Hohensichtlich) in Briarcliff Manor, where Caparn himself also owned a house.

Oliver Chamberlain has published articles on Harold Caparn and Caparn’s early employer J. Wilkinson Elliott and has provided text and photographs on Elliott and Caparn for The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s “Pioneers,” online. He has provided the entry on Caparn for the book Shaping the American Landscape, published in 2009. Chamberlain published his book Landscapes and Writings of Harold Caparn, 1890-1945, in 2013.

Chamberlain has held faculty and administrative positions at Bowling Green State University, OH, and the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He is the fifth generation of the Caparn/Chamberlain family with interests in the art of landscape design and visual and performing arts.

Some sources for the book come from his personal family collection, others from his extensive research. He lives with his family on a plot he has designed near Providence, R.I.

Below: our presenter Oliver Chamberlain with BMSHS Executive Director, Karen Smith down by the Hudson River where we had dinner after the presentation.

According to the museum’s website:

Located by Peekskill Bay on the east bank of the Hudson River, The Lincoln Depot Museum is a 3,000 square foot freight and passenger rail depot where President-elect Abraham Lincoln stopped to greet New Yorkers on February 19, 1861 during his inaugural train ride between Springfield, IL and Washington, DC.

New York State Governor George Pataki aided the City of Peekskill with a grant to restore the old rail depot as a museum. County Legislator John G. Testa, then the Mayor of Peekskill, steered a volunteer board of directors to incorporate The Lincoln Depot Foundation, Inc. as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization established to restore the Depot as a museum that would illuminate and celebrate Lincoln’s relationship to New York and to New Yorkers before and during the Civil War. Remembering and recounting Lincoln’s ties to Peekskill has special resonance for those who treasure the history of the Hudson Valley as well as lovers of Civil War history.

The mission of The Lincoln Depot Museum is to explore, remember, and educate audiences about the place that our local history played on the national stage.

HISTORY

The Hudson River Railroad finally reached Peekskill in 1849. Early City Historian Carlton B. Scofield described the original station as a “grimy, wooden shack measuring twelve by fourteen feet.” Due to a fire and the expansion of the railroad line to Poughkeepsie in 1850 and then to Albany in 1851, it was clear a new and larger station was needed. The combination Greek and Gothic Revival station visited by Lincoln in 1861 is one of only two surviving original locations visited by Lincoln on his Inaugural Journey. The other is located in Springfield, Illinois, where Lincoln’s trip began. The depot originally served as a combination passenger station and freight depot. The depot was eventually abandoned for passenger use in 1874 when the present Romanesque Style station was opened on Railroad Avenue. Although there are no known records showing the exact date the depot was constructed, the earliest known map depicting the depot is from 1852. An original copy of this map is on display in the museum.

Abraham Lincoln left Springfield, Illinois on February 11, 1861 and arrived in Washington DC on February 23rd for his upcoming Inauguration as President of the United States. His stop in Peekskill on February 19th was his only stop in Westchester County. He stopped at the invitation of one of Peekskill’s most prominent citizens, William Nelson, a local lawyer and former Congressman serving with Lincoln from 1847-49. Two village residents attending Lincoln’s visit were Chauncey M. Depew (26 years old) and James W. Husted (27 years old). Both men were recent graduates of Yale and these local lawyers led the local supporters of Lincoln. Together, they formed the Highland Wide Awakes and led pro-Lincoln parades through the streets of Peekskill. Both would go on to prominence of their own. Depew was a NY State Assembly member, NY Secretary of State, Westchester County Clerk, US Senator and President of the NY Central Railroad; he played an important role in Lincoln’s reelection obtaining the votes of NY soldiers in the field. Husted served 22 years as a member of the NY State Assembly spending time as Speaker and Minority Leader and he became a Major General for the Fifth Division of the NY National Guard. Additionally, he spent time as Superintendent of Peekskill Public Schools and Harbor Master of NY.

Taken with a Sony RX10 IV

Now the entrance to The Club, a senior living community this was once the entrance to The Briarcliff Lodge, a 300+ room luxury resort hotel. It was a notable example of Tudor Revival architecture, and at the time was one of the largest wooden structures in the United States. It was built by Walter W. Law in 1902 and the Law family owned it until 1937. When the lodge opened it was one of the largest resort hotels in the world.

In 1933, the lodge ended year-round service and housed a “health-diet sanitarium” until the Edgewood Park School for Girls began operation there from 1937 to 1954. From 1936 to 1939, the lodge was run again as a hotel in the summer months while the school was closed. From 1955 to 1994, The King’s College used the lodge building and built dormitories and academic buildings. Abandoned and unmaintained after 1994, the Briarcliff Lodge was destroyed between 2003 and 2004.

Although the Lodge is long gone the gates seen in the picture are original and were found some years ago in storage at the Briarcliff Manor Department of Public Works.

Taken with a Sony RX100 III

I described our lunch in Mount Kisco, New York in an earlier post (See: Lunch in Mount Kisco). As we walked back to the car we noticed what looked like a mobile pizza oven (it didn’t look that interesting so I didn’t take a picture of it).

Then I noticed the piece of sculpture the brick wall of a building (I have no idea what the building was, or why the sculpture was there).

Stonefire is directly opposite Oakwood Cemetery (See: A Cemetery in Mount Kisco). These monuments were a long way away, but once again the 31-465mm (35mm equivalent) lens did a decent job.

Taken with a Sony DSC-H50