Westchester County, NY The Golden Apple

Westchester Westchester County NY

The Golden Apple

Nicknamed The Golden Apple because of its proximity to NewYork City and its affluent communities, Westchester is the first northern suburb of New York City.

To give you an idea of how close; if you started at Times Square and drove directly north on Broadway for about 12 Miles you would be on Broadway in Yonkers, the first city over the Bronx Line.

Westchester has a population of about 1 million people. There are 32 municipalities in Westchester, a somewhat confusing mix of towns, villages and cities. The reason it is a little confusing is that the post offices, school districts and town borders can overlap and be different.

You can have a White Plains Post Office address, be in the Town of Greenburgh, and go to Valhalla Schools, or you can have a Scarsdale or Bronxville Post Office and be in the Town of Yonkers with Yonkers Schools. So you have to really familiarize yourself with the systems if you are moving here.

There are many affluent communities as well as some large cities. Yonkers, New Rochelle, Mount Vernon and White Plains are some of the larger, more well known cities.

It is a beautiful county full of trees and a great amount of park land. There are parks up along the Hudson River and many along the Long Island Sound.

The Metro North System has 3 train lines that come up from Grand Central Station. The Harlem Line goes up through the center of the County Through White Plains. The Hudson Line goes up through the River Towns on the Hudson. The New Haven Line goes up the Eastern Part of the County along The Long Island Sound into Connecticut. Many of our North Eastern towns border Connecticut. Many people don't realize that Greenwich, CT is only about as far North as White Plains.

There are 2 major highways that run north and south, Interstate 95 and 87. Interstate 287 runs east and west through the center of the county. We have 4 parkways that run north and south, The Saw Mill River Parkway, The Sprain Brook Parkway, The Bronx River Parkway and The Cross County Parkway runs East and West through Southern Westchester.

The shopping in Westchester is terrific, with the exclusive Westchester Mall to open malls and freestanding major department stores and one of the original outdoor Malls at Cross County in Yonkers.

The single family home prices start around $200,000 and the most expensive estate on the market right now is $95,000,000 (Part of this estate is in Connecticut, part in NY). There are 17 properties on the market for over $10,000,000. Our lifestyle goes from downtown city, to almost rural areas in the North part of the county. We have co-op apartments starting under $100,000 and Condos starting under $200,000.

The prices are for the most part, much more reasonalble than Manhattan, and, with the easy commute, great shopping, beautiful parks it is a GREAT place to live and work.

I will be writing about the Individual Communities in the future.

All the best,

Kevin

White Plains, NY