Ossining Village

Westchester County, New York

Ossining Village Hall is located at 16 Croton Avenue, Ossining NY 10562.
Phone: 914‑941‑3554.

Beginnings [1]

The community known as Ossining was once part of the Manor of Philipsburg which extended along the Hudson River from Spuyten Duyvil Creek on the south to the Croton River on the north. The Albany Post Road was laid out through the manor in 1723 and the area between the Post Road (now Route 9, Highland Avenue) and the river was worked by tenant farmers, with scattered farmhouses fronting on what is now Main Street.

By 1813 when the community, as the village of Sing Sing, became the first incorporated municipality in Westchester County, noticeable growth had occurred at the conjunction of the village's three main thoroughfares. Churches, hotels and taverns served the needs of travelers along the Post Road, and frame stores along Main Street were patronized by villagers settling in adjacent residential areas, and by farmers taking produce to the river docks. Activity in the area increased in 1825, with the establishment of the New York State Sing Sing Prison, just half a mile south of the village center.

1. Robert D. Kuhn, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation, Downtown Ossining Historic District, nomination document, 1988, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.

Nearby Towns: New Castle Town • Sleepy Hollow Vlg •