Irvington, New York

Irvington, sometimes known as Irvington-on-Hudson,Staff (ndg
"The Irvington Gazette (Irvington-On-Hudson, N.Y.) 1907-1969"
Library of Congress is a suburban village in the town of Greenburgh in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is located on the eastern bank of the Hudson River, north of midtown Manhattan in New York City, and is served by a station stop on the Metro-North Hudson Line. To the north of Irvington is the village of Tarrytown, to the south the village of Dobbs Ferry, and to the east unincorporated parts of Greenburgh, including East Irvington. Irvington includes within its boundaries the community of Ardsley-on-Hudson, which has its own ZIP code and Metro-North station, but which should not be confused with the nearby village of Ardsley.

The population of Irvington at the 2020 census was 6,652. Because many of Irvington's residents – especially those in the upper income brackets – live in Irvington and work in New York City, the village has a reputation as a "commuter town" or a "bedroom community".

The village's half-mile-long (0.8 kilometers) Main Street area has been designated as a historic district by New York State and on January 15, 2014, was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 2010, ''Westchester Magazine'' ranked Irvington as the "Best Place to Live in Westchester".

History

Before the area where Irvington is now located was settled by Europeans, it was inhabited by the Wickquasgeck, a band of the Wappingers, related to the Lenape (Delaware) tribes which dominated lower New York state and New Jersey.The name of the Indian band has variously been spelled Wiechquaeskeck, Wechquaesqueck, Weckquaesqueek, Wecquaesgeek, Weekquaesguk, Wickquasgeck, Wickquasgek, Wiequaeskeek, Wiequashook, and Wiquaeskec. The spelling given here is one widely used for the original name of Broadway in lower Manhattan: "The Wickquasgeck Trail". The meaning of the name, however spelled, has been given as "the end of the marsh, swamp or wet meadow", "place of the bark kettle", and "birch bark country". See Trumbull, James Hammond (1881)
''Indian Names of Places, Etc., in and on the Borders of Connecticut, With Interpretations of Some of Them''
Hartford: Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company. p.81 The Wickquasgeck still lived in the area as late as 1775.

After the Dutch came to the area in the 1600s, the land was part of the Bisightick tract of the Adrian Van der Donck grant. Early settlers in the Irvington area were Stephen Ecker, Jan Harmes, Captain John Buckhout, and Barent Dutcher. The Van der Donck grant was purchased by Frederick Philipse in 1682, after the British had taken over the area in 1664. At first it was settled by tenant farmers,Greenburgh Bicentennial Commission (1988) ''Greenburgh: A Glimpse of Our Past: Town of Greenburgh: 1788-1988'' Greenburgh Bicentennial Book Committee, pp.171-176 but by the 1700s, most of the settlers were artisans. The King's Highway – later the Albany Post Road, and now Broadway – which connected New York City with Albany, was built through the settlement by the 1720s, which created a need for inns and taverns to supplement Odell's Tavern, which was built in 1690.

In 1785, the state of New York confiscated the Phillipse's land from his grandson, Frederick Philipse III, after he sided with the British in the American Revolution, and sold it to local patriot farmers who had been tenants of the Phillipse family. This is presumably how part of it came to be the farm of William Dutcher. Dutcher sold half of his farm to Justus Dearman in 1817, who then sold it to Gustavo F. Sacchi in 1848 for $26,000. Sacchi sold the parcel to John Jay – the grandson of the American Founding Father by the same name – that same year, and Jay laid it out as a village which he called "Dearman", after Justus Dearman, and sold lots at auction in New York City starting on April 25, 1850.

The organization of the streets into a right-angled grid pattern was criticized by Andrew Jackson Downing, who was at the time the foremost expert on landscape design. Downing condemned the use of the street grid outside of cities and saw the hilly and heavily wooded site of Dearman as particularly suited to his own theories, which called for curvilinear roads and irregular lots which followed the contours of the land. With the frequent steamboat, stagecoach, and train transportation available, he felt that Dearman could have been an ideal suburb, instead of "mere rows of houses upon streets crossing each other at right angles and bordered with shade trees".

The side streets off the village's Main Street – or "Main Avenue", as an 1868 map has it – were originally designated "A", "B", "C", and so forth, but are today named after many of the area's early settlers,In order, from the river going up the hill along Main Street, the streets are Astor, Buckhout, Cottenet, Dutcher, Ecker, Ferris and Grinnell, until the pattern is broken by Croton Place and Aqueduct Lane, followed by Dearman Street, the last side street before Broadway. such as Barent and William Dutcher, Captain John Buckhout (who lived to 103) and Wolfert Ecker (or "Acker").

American Revolution

Wolfert Ecker's house, then owned by Jacob van Tassel, was burned by the British in the Revolutionary War because it had become a notorious hang-out for American patriots. Washington Irving later wrote about it under the name of " Wolfert's Roost" ("roost" meaning "rest"), and purchased and re-modeled another house on the land to become " Sunnyside". Another early settler was Capt. Jan Harnse, and the Harnse-Conklin-Odell Tavern on Broadway was built in 1693 and became an inn in 1743. (See below) It was at Odell's Tavern that the Committee of Safety, the executive committee of the legislature of the new State of New York, officially received the news that George Washington had lost the Battle of Long Island, and, later, British troops camped nearby, putting Jonathan Odell into custody in the Old Dutch Church in Sleepy Hollow. No major battles of the Revolutionary War were fought in the area, only minor skirmishes between residents and soldiers.Dodsworth (1995)

With the capture of New York City by the British, Irvington and the rest of southern Westchester County became the "Neutral ground", an unofficial wide zone separating British-occupied territory from that held by the Americans, and the people of the area who remained – many of the Patriot population had fled – traded with both sides to great profit. However, there was also a great deal of pillaging and plundering, even of Tory households, both by the regular British army and loyalist militias and irregulars, all in the name of hunting down rebels. pp. 246-247, 254 By the time the war was over, the countryside had been ravaged:

The country is rich and fertile, and the farms appear to have been advantageously cultivated, but it now has the marks of a country in ruins, a large portion of the proprietors having abandoned their homes. On the high road where heretofore was a continuous stream of travelers and vehicles, not a single traveler was seen from week to week, month to month. The countryside was silent. The very tracks of the carriages were grown over with grass or weeds. Travelers walked along bypaths. The villages are abandoned, the residents having fled to the north, leaving their homes, where possible, in charge of elder persons and servants.

Eventually, the area recovered and continued to develop. The Hudson River Railroad reached the settlement on September 29, 1849; the first passengers on a regularly scheduled run through the village paid fifty cents to travel from Peekskill to Chambers Street in Manhattan on September 29, 1849. By 1853, a ferry ran across the Hudson from Dearman to Piermont on the west bank, the village had a population of around 600, a hotel, six stores, a lumber yard and around 50 houses, and the hamlet of "Abbotsford" – which would later become Ardsley-on-Hudson – was forming along Clinton Avenue.

A change of name

In 1854, Dearman and Abbotsford combined, and by popular vote adopted the name "Irvington", to honor the American author Washington Irving, who was still alive at that time and living in nearby " Sunnyside" – which is today preserved as a museum.Although Sunnyside was considered to be part of Irvington (or "Dearman") at the time, the neighboring village of Tarrytown incorporated first in 1870, two years before Irvington, and when the official boundaries were drawn, the estate ended up in Tarrytown rather than Irvington, as did Lyndhurst, the estate of robber baron Jay Gould.

Just how the change in our northern boundary occurred I could never find out to my satisfaction. Some say this calamity happened over night, so to speak, when our officials were napping or away on vacation. But this I know, that fully a dozen of our most prominent citizens and their magnificent estates were suddenly taken from Irvington territory and the village boundary was moved to the center of Sunnyside Lane. ... The part that most saddened our hearts was the fact that Irving's home, "Sunnyside", for whom Irvington was named, no longer rests in the town in which he originally thought he lived." Jennie Black (quoted in Graff & Graff, pp.54-56)

Influential residents of the village prevailed upon the Hudson River Railroad, which had reached the village by 1849, to change the name of the train station to "Irvington", and also convinced the Postmaster to change the name of the local post office as well. It was thus under the name of "Irvington" that the village incorporated on April 16, 1872.

By the census of 1860, the population of the village was 599. A few years later, in 1863, Irvington was touched by the New York Draft Riots. Fearing that the violence in the city, which had to be put down by Federal troops, would spread to Westchester, special police were brought in and quartered in a schoolhouse on Sunnyside Lane. They were commanded by James Hamilton – the third son of Alexander Hamilton – whose estate, Nevis, was on South Broadway. The presence of this special force deterred any violence a group of draft protestors which passed through Greenburgh on their way to Tarrytown may have intended. This was the only instance in which Civil War-related activity directly affected Irvington.

With convenient rail transportation now available, the village's cool summer breezes off the Hudson and the rural riparian setting began to attract wealthy residents of New York City – businessmen, politicians and professionals – to the area to buy up farms and build large summer residences on their new estates, setting a pattern which would hold until the early 20th century. Still, the village continued to expand, with various commercial enterprises opening along the waterfront. Pateman & Lockwood, a lumber, coal and building supply company, opened in the village in 1853, and Lord & Burnham, which built boilers and greenhouses, in 1856. Both expanded to newly created land across the railroad tracks, in 1889 and 1912 respectively, and the Cypress Lumber Company opened on a nearby site in 1909. Notwithstanding this commercial activity, for many years, through the 19th and early 20th centuries, Irvington was a relatively small community surrounded by numerous large estates and mansions where millionaires, aristocrats and captains of industry lived – the population was reported as 2,299 in 1890 and 2,013 in 1898.

After World War I, some of the bigger estates in the area were broken up into smaller lots, and were developed into communities inside the village, such as Jeffrey Park, Matthiessen Park and Spiro Park. Many of the estates and mansions are now gone, but a small number still exist. After World War II, cooperative apartment complexes were built in the village, but despite these changes, Irvington still has many large houses, and is still an overwhelmingly well-heeled community.

Recent events

In June 2016, Irvington Fire Chief Christopher D. DePaoli was one of 23 recipients of the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission medal for heroism. In April 2015, DePaoli stepped in when he saw a woman being attacked by a man with a knife at the Irvington Metro-North Station. DePaoli was able get between the man and the woman, the man's girlfriend, who was on the ground being stabbed, and distract him with a baseball bat until the police arrived. The man was arrested and the woman survived the attack.

Since 2014, Irvington has held a "Celebrate Irvington" festival on the village's Main Street in the early summer.

Irvington's first murder since 1974 took place on April 25, 2018, when a recently-hired dishwasher stabbed Bonifacio Rodriguez, a prep cook, in the kitchen of the River City Grille at 6 South Broadway. The accused woman, New York City resident Rosa Ramirez, told police when she was arrested shortly after the incident. that she had suffered a " psychotic break". Ramirez pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, a Class A felony, on February 21, 2020, in return for an expected sentence of 17 years to life, which was made official in September 2020.

In May 2020, a lawsuit was filed against an 18 year old Irvington High School senior, Ellis Pinsky, who was accused with co-conspirators from the US and Europe of swindling digital currency investor Michael Terpin – the founder and chief executive officer of Transform Group – of $23.8 million in 2018, when the accused was 15 years old, through the use of data stolen from smartphones by "SIM swaps". The complaint alleges that Pinsky had a personal worth of $70 million as of December 2017. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in White Plains, New York and asked for triple damages. An investigation by the ''New York Post'' revealed that Pinsky lived a lavish lifestyle, driving an Audi R8, maintaining an account with a private air service, purchasing prime tickets to New York Rangers hockey games, and wearing expensive clothing. Pinsky had previously been recognized by the College Board as being an "AP Scholar".

Geography

The village has a total area of , of which or about Graff and Graff, inside front wing of dust jacket is land and , or 30.94%, is water.

The village's main thoroughfare is Broadway ( Route 9) originally an Indian footpath which gradually became a horse track and then a dirt road. It came to be called the "King's Highway" around the time that it reached Albany. Later, it was called the "Queen's Highway", after Queen Anne, the "Highland Turnpike" after 1800 – a name still preserved in the nearby town of Ossining – the " Albany Post Road" and, after 1850, "Broadway". The stretch that runs through Irvington was completed by 1723. During his tenure as Postmaster General, Benjamin Franklin had sandstone milestone markers placed along the Broadway, inscribed with the distance from New York City. Milestone #27 is still in place in Irvington, near the driveway to 30 South Broadway.

Broadway runs north-south parallel to the river, and connects Irvington to Dobbs Ferry in the south and Tarrytown in the north. All of the village's major streets, including Main Street, extend east and west from Broadway, and are designated as such. Broadway is designated "North Broadway" above Main Street, and "South Broadway" below it. Main Street begins at the Metro-North train station, just off the Hudson River, and travels uphill to Broadway. Side streets off of Main, which were originally designated A Street, B Street, C Street, etc. when the village grid was laid out, now have names, most of which come from local history: Astor, Buckhout, Cottenet, Dutcher, Ecker, Ferris and Grinnell.

The southbound Saw Mill River Parkway can be reached via Harriman Road/Cyrus Field Road, past the village reservoir, or East Sunnyside Lane/Mountain Road through East Irvington. The northbound Saw Mill and the New York State Thruway are accessible via Ardsley, and the Mario Cuomo Bridge is nearby in Tarrytown.

Commuter train service to New York City is available at the Irvington and Ardsley-on-Hudson train stations, served by the Metro-North Railroad of the MTA. Bus service is provided on Broadway by the Westchester County Beeline Bus System via route #1T (The Bronx-Yonkers-Tarrytown) and #1W (The Bronx-Yonkers-White Plains).

As with all river communities in Westchester, Irvington is traversed by a stretch of the old Croton Aqueduct, about long, which is now part of the Old Croton Trailway State Park. The Aqueduct is a National Historic Landmark.

Demographics

As of the census of 2020, there were 6,652 people and 2,141 households in the village. The population density was 2,384.23 people per square mile (920.56/km²). There were 2,141 housing units at an average density of 767.38 per square mile (296.29/km²). The racial makeup of the village was 82.3% White, 1.6% African American, 0.0% Native American, 7.4% Asian, 4.3% from other races, and 1.67% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 8.6% of the population.

There were 2,141 households, out of which 37.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 62.2% were married couples living together, 7.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.0% were non-families. 24.3% of all households were made up of individuals, and 9.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.60 and the average family size was 3.13.

In the village, the population was spread out, with 31.2% under the age of 18, and 14.4% who were 65 years of age or older. 54.9 percent of the population is female

The median income for a household in the village was $145,313, . Males had a median income of $85,708 versus $50,714 for females. The per capita income for the village was $74,319. About 7.1% of the population were below the poverty line. The average cost for a one-family house in 2010 was $585,780, below the Westchester County average of $725,000, although in 2009 the ''median'' home price was reported to be $790,000.Donelson, Dave (September 21, 2009
"Best Places to Live"
''Westchester Magazine'' Bloomberg ranked Irvington 54th in its March 2017 profile of "America's 100 Richest Places". In the 2018 survey, it ranked 67th of the over 6,200 places covered.

Housing

As of 2018, there were approximately 1,180 single-family homes in the village, as well as 100 mutli-family homes. Although Irvington primarily consists of single family homes, there are eight condominium complexes, 13 cooperative ones and 17 apartment buildings, totally almost 1,100 units altogether. Cooperative or condominium apartment complexes in the village include in the Fieldpoint development, Woodbrook Gardens located at 140 North Broadway, and Irvington Gardens at 120 North Broadway, as well as in the Half Moon development on South Buckhout Street.

In 1999, the village began a program to make affordable housing available to the public. Two buildings, The Burnham Building at 2 Main Street, and Hudson Views at Irvington at 1 South Astor Street, provide such units. As of February 2012, the village had passed a local ordnance requiring new developments to provide affordable housing.

The cost of housing in Irvington was pushed upwards by Greenburgh's town-wide re-evaluation of property values, which was initiated in 2016.

Economy

Although Irvington is still an affluent suburban "bedroom community", with a large number of people commuting into New York City to work, there are also several notable businesses and institutions located in the village, such as:

* BrightFarms, a company that grows salad greens, is headquartered in Irvington.
* Verve Medical Cosmetics – In January 2021 this company announced that it will open Verve Loft Westchester in a left space on Bridge Street. It is expected to open on February 4.
* CastleGreen Finance, a private capital source focused on commercial PACE ( Property Assessed Clean Energy) financing, is headquartered in Irvington.
* Columbia University's Nevis Laboratories is a research center specializing in the preparation, design, and construction of high-energy particle and nuclear experiments and equipment which are transported to accelerators such as Fermilab, CERN and Brookhaven National Laboratory. The resulting data is analyzed at Nevis using their extensive computer systems. Twelve faculty members, fourteen postdoctoral research scientists and twenty graduate students work at the lab, along with an engineering and technical staff of twenty. The grounds also accommodate an agricultural research center. "Nevis" was the estate of Alexander Hamilton's son, and was named after Hamilton's birthplace, the Caribbean island of Nevis.
* Eileen Fisher, a clothing design company, has corporate offices and of a retail shop at Bridge Street Properties by the Hudson. In addition, in 2017, it opened in Irvington its first company-owned factory.
* The investment company Elm Ridge Management is based in Irvington.
* Flat World Knowledge is an online publisher of college-level open textbooks.
* House Party, Inc., an experimental marketing firm which specializes in arranging parties to promote their clients' products, has its offices at 50 South Buckhout Street.
* Hudson Loft – In August 2016 it was announced that a event space on the top floor of a three=story warehouse at 2 Astor Place in Irvington would be available beginning at the end of September for weddings, parties and other events. The space features panoramic views of the Hudson River and a 6,000-square-foot main space.
* The direct marketing agency Lockard & Wechsler is located in Bridge Street Properties.
* Monte Nido Treatment Center, a residential treatment center for eating disorders, was announced in May 2014 to be planned for Irvington. It would be located in a 10,000-square-foot, 20-room mansion at 100 South Broadway near Clinton Avenue. The organization has residential facilities in Malibu and Agoura Hills in California and in Boston, as well as a day-clinic in New York City.
* Natural Market Food Group, the parent company of the "Mrs. Green's Natural Market" supermarket chain, which operates primarily in the Hudson Valley area, has its offices in Irvington.
* PECO Pallet, a pooled pallet provider headquartered in Irvington
* STRATA Skin Sciences, formerly MELA Sciences, is a medical device company that focuses on the design and development of a non-invasive, point-of-care instruments to assist in the early diagnosis of melanoma. In 2015, the company acquired XTRAC and PhotoMedex.
* The Student Center, a community website for teenagers and college students, has offices on Main Street.
* X-Caliber Capital, a national, direct commercial real estate lender.

Government and politics

Irvington is one of six incorporated villages that lie within the town of Greenburgh.Hodara, Susan (August 1, 2018
"Living in: Irvington, N.Y.: A Walkable Village With Striking Manhattan Views"
''The New York Times'' The village is governed by a mayor, who is elected every two years in odd-numbered years, and four trustees, who also serve two-year terms. Two of the trustees are elected in odd-numbered years, with the mayor and the other two in even-numbered years. Each year, the mayor appoints one of the trustees to be deputy mayor. A paid village administrator is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the village, assisted by a clerk-treasurer. The administration is divided into eleven departments:

*Administrator
*Building
*Clerk-Treasurer
*Fire
*Justice Court
*Library
*Parks and Recreation
*Police
*Public Works
*Town Hall Theater
*Water and Sewer

In addition, the mayor and board of trustees are assisted in the governance of the village by a number of voluntary boards and committees:

*Architectural Review Board
*Beautification Committee
*Cable Advisory Board
*Citizens' Budget Committee
*Climate Protection Task Force
*Community Advisory Board
*Environmental Conservation Board
*Ethics Board
*Library Board
*Main Street Zoning Committee
*Open Space Advisory Committee
*Parks and Recreation Master Plan Committee
*Planning Board
*Recreation Advisory Committee
*Theater Commission
*Trailways Committee
*Transportation Committee
*Tree Preservation Commission
*War Monument Committee
*Zoning Board of Appeals

Irvington is protected by its own 22-person police department, along with a volunteer fire department and volunteer ambulance corps, all of which are located on Main Street. Irvington's government communicates with the village's citizens through a newsletter, e-mail notifications and the village website.

2005 mayoral election

The controversial 2005 Irvington mayoral election was held on March 15, 2005, but was not decided until October 27, 2005. The race between Republican incumbent Dennis P. Flood and Democratic challenger Erin Malloy ended up being decided "by lots", as required by New York state law when a village election is tied (847 votes for each candidate).

The count that took place on election night gave Flood a one-vote lead. On March 18, the Westchester County Board of Elections recounted the votes, giving Malloy a one-vote lead. Turning to two unopened absentee ballots, the board found that one was for Flood, resulting in a tie. The other absentee ballot was not opened as the name on the envelope did not match any names on the voter-registration list. Susan B. Morton, who had registered to vote as Susan Brenner Morton, stepped forward three days later and demanded that her vote for Malloy be counted. For several months afterward, various suits, motions, and appeals were filed in state courts. On October 20, the Court of Appeals, New York State's highest court, denied requests by Malloy and Morton, leaving the election in a tie. To comply with state law, the village had to use random lots to decide the winner.

State law does not specify the method of drawing lots, so the village opted to draw quarters from a bag. Eight quarters were used. Four had a bald eagle on the back and represented Malloy. Flood was represented by four quarters with the Statue of Liberty on the back. Village Trustee/Deputy Mayor Richard Livingston, a Republican, drew a quarter from the bag. It was handed to Village Clerk Lawrence Schopfer, who declared Flood to be the winner. Flood was then sworn in for his sixth two-year term as mayor of Irvington.

Months later, to complicate the situation even more, it was learned that an Irvington resident who has two houses and was registered to vote in both Irvington and a Long Island suburb, inadvertently broke the law by voting in both elections, although his intent was to cancel his Irvington voter registration. He was an adamant supporter of Flood.

Erin Malloy was elected mayor in the election of 2007, but resigned in 2008 to spend more time with her injured daughter.

Infrastructure

Irvington is one of 83 communities in New York State which are being considered by the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority (ERDA) for the installation of a microgrid system, which would run under Main Street. The village's power lines would be moved underground and solar and natural gas generators would be utilized to make it 80% power self-sufficient. In the initial phase, the board of trustees is in discussion with a possible technology provider. There are no current community microgrids in New York.

On March 4, 2021, Irvington received from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) bronze-level certification as being a "Climate Smart Community", one of 65 such in the state. The certification was based on 17 actions taken by the village, including its Comprehensive Plan, last updated in 2018, an energy audit for the Town Hall, the village's flood mitigation program, the conversion of 81.5 percent of the villages street light to LEDs, and the establishment of a drop-off food waste program. The Climate Smart program, which began in 2009, is designed to provide technical support and guidance to the efforts of communities to deal with the effects of climate change, by, for instance, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving their response to extreme weather. The village also participates in the ERDA's "Clean Energy Communities" program, and has previously received grants from the DEC for flood mitigation and as part of its Municipal Zero-Emission Vehicle program.

Education

Primary and secondary schools

Irvington Union Free School District

Irvington is part of the Irvington Union Free School District, which also includes East Irvington, an unincorporated area of the Town of Greenburgh, and the Pennybridge section of Tarrytown, Irvington's northern neighbor. The schools are Dows Lane School (K-3), Main Street School (4&5), Irvington Middle School (6–8), and Irvington High School (9–12). The Middle School and High School are sited together on a combined campus on Heritage Hill Road off of North Broadway, on the site where the Stern castle, "Greystone", once stood. Stern purchased the property from Augustus C. Richards in the late nineteenth century.

Abbott School

Located in Irvington, but not part of the regular public school district, was the Abbott School, which served homeless, neglected, abused, or developmentally disabled boys in grades 2 through 9. The students came both from the residential Abbott House, where the school was located, and as day students from community schools in Westchester County, Rockland County, and New York City. The school graduated its last class in 2011. Currently, Abbott House operates a number of programs to support children and families with challenging circumstances. Abbot House's administrative offices remain in the former school building in Irvington.

Immaculate Conception School

The Immaculate Conception School, a Catholic elementary school located in Irvington, was closed by the Archdiocese of New York in June 2008, after 100 years of existence. In the 2009–2010 school year, John Cardinal O'Connor School, a Catholic non-denominational school for students in grades 2 through 8 with learning disabilities, which had formerly been St. Ursula's Learning Center in Mount Kisco, moved into the vacant building.

Colleges

There are no colleges totally within Irvington, although part of the campus of Mercy College, founded in 1950, is located there, while the majority is just over the southern border in Dobbs Ferry, very close to Irvington's Ardsley-on-Hudson train station, which is sub-labelled "Mercy College".

In 1890, schoolteacher Mary F. Bennett founded the Bennett School for Girls in the village. The school offered a six-year course of study: four years of high school and two of higher study. In 1907 it moved to Millbrook in Dutchess County, and dropped the high school grades, becoming a junior college; the school was renamed to Bennett College.Young, Michelle (June 10 2021
"Inside the Abandoned Bennett School for Girls in Millbrook, NY"
''Untapped New York'' In that same year, Marymount College was founded in Tarrytown, north of the village. It later became a campus of Fordham University, but closed in 2007.

Columbia University maintains in Irvington its Nevis Laboratories – which specializes in the preparation, design, and construction of high-energy particle and nuclear experiments and equipment, which are transported to major laboratories worldwide, and also houses the Radiological Research Accelerator Facility which specializes in microbeam technology. The grounds also hold an agricultural research center and the offices of Columbia University Press.

Culture

In 2018 Brooke Lea Foster of ''The New York Times'' stated that Irvington was one of several "Rivertowns" in Westchester County, which she described as among the "least suburban of suburbs, each one celebrated by buyers there for its culture and hip factor, as much as the housing stock and sophisticated post-city life." Of those, Foster stated that Irvington was the "toniest".

The Town Hall Theater, opened in 1902 and restored in 1979-80, is located in the village's "Town Hall". It was designed to be a replica of Ford's Theatre in Washington, and was widely thought to be one of the best "opera houses" in the Hudson Valley. It was used for public events such as school graduation ceremonies, police and fire balls, plays and other cultural events. Today, the Town Hall Theater presents a wide variety of events, including concerts, plays, musicals and film series. (For more, see below.)

In 2021, a lifelong resident of Irvington, Kamran Saliani, founded the Irvington Shakespeare Company and signed into an Arts Partnership with the Irvington Theater. ISC seeks to decolonize and perform Shakespeare's plays in ways that everyone can understand, aiming to showcase local talent in Westchester, the greater Hudson Valley, and throughout New York State.

Religion

Irvington has four Christian churches. Three of them, the Irvington Presbyterian Church (Presbyterian), the Immaculate Conception Church (Roman Catholic) and The Church of St. Barnabas ( Episcopal), are clustered together on Broadway, just north of Main Street. Th
Calvary Chapel of Westchester
(Evangelical) is located in the Trent Building on South Buckhout Street.

The Jewish community of Irvington is served by three nearby synagogues: the traditional/non-denominational Chabad of the Rivertowns, the conservative Greenburgh Hebrew Center in Dobbs Ferry and the dual reform/conservative synagogue Temple Beth Abraham in Tarrytown. Irvington itself features a "chavurah," or member-led Jewish congregation that follows in the conservative tradition, known as Rosh Pinah Chavurah of the Rivertowns.

Irvington is also the location of the Westchester Buddhist Center, whose executive director is interior designer Stacy T. Curchak.

Irvington is home to a number of members of the Unification Church, including several high-ranking families. There are several Church-owned estates and buildings located in Irvington and in the neighboring village of Tarrytown. Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the founder and, until his death in 2010, the spiritual leader of the church, had a large private estate of , the former Frederic Clark Sayles estate, on East Sunnyside Lane. As of 2012, the estate was still owned by the church, under its legal name "Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity".

Local media

From 1912 to 1998, Irvington's daily newspaper was the ''Tarrytown Daily News''. In 1998, the Gannett Company