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Request A Call HereLocated on the former Rockefeller Estate, Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture is a business seeking to make the world a better place. This farm and educational center promotes sustainable and community-supported agriculture and the use of local food. They do wonders for educating the public on how we can make our planet healthier through more mindful farming practices and have inspired countless young farmers to enter the industry. Here are some reasons why our Mount Vernon personal injury law firm appreciate Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture:
The Stones Barn property was once part of Pocantico, a Rockefeller estate. The stone barns were commissioned by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. for use as a dairy farm. In the 1950s, this complex fell into disuse and was used primarily as a storage facility. In the 1970s, the property experienced an agriculture rebirth after David Rockefeller's wife Peggy started a successful cattle breeding operation.
The Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture was created by David Rockefeller, his daughter Peggy Dulany, and Rockefeller associate James Ford as a memorial for Peggy Rockefeller, who passed away in 1996. The facility opened to the public in May of 2004.
The Stone Barns Center raises a variety of livestock, including chickens, turkeys, pigs, sheep, and bees. Livestock farmers here make it a priority to raise these animals in a way similar to their evolutionary instincts. For example, the chickens, turkeys, sheep, and geese are raised on pastures with rotational grazing. Sheep and pigs have their bedding packs regularly turned and composted.
Farming at Stone Barns is governed by a principle called agroecology, which is a style of farming that uses resilient and regenerative farming methods in order to grow seasonal food that is appropriate to the region its grown in. These methods include composting and crop and animal rotations, which helps enrich soils and boost their ability to produce nutrient-rich food. This helps create a naturally self-renewing system which does not require the use of chemical fertilizers or pesticides.
The Young Farmers Conference is an event that gathers farmers, chefs, scientists, and activists from across the country to discuss ways to transform our agriculture into a more sustainable system.
The conference had a variety of enriching programs in 2018, such as:
If you're looking for activities to do with your kids, Our Westchester Personal Injury Lawyers Recommend A Trip to the Westchester Children’s Museum.
Hastings Flea Market is a flea market experience like no other. Located in the beautiful riverside town of Hastings-on-Hudson, this flea market celebrates the artists and craftspeople of the Hudson Valley. Hastings Flea Market is a curated specialty flea market, which showcases both regular and rotating vendors. Along with a huge selection of unique clothing and home decor items, visitors can enjoy crafts, music, food, and just having fun with their friends, family, and fellow community members. Our Westchester personal injury attorneys love these vendors at the Hastings Flea Market:
Maggie Chow is an artist who specializes in beautiful handmade ceramic pottery. Each of these handcrafted pieces is one-of-a-kind and they are sure to catch the eye of anyone who visits your home. We highly recommend stopping by her stand at the flea market and checking out the colorful bowls, jars, teapots, and vases.
If you or someone in your family is a fan of bugs, then you should definitely check out the God of Insects stand while you're at the flea market. This quirky business sells museum-quality insects and other arthropods, both dead and alive. These specimens can be used for many purposes, such as photo shoots or science lessons. Not all of the bugs are available for purchase, but the business offers access to thousands of different insect species.
If your family is fond of unique and eye-popping furniture, lighting, and other home decor items, then definitely make a stop by the Home Again Consignment stand. This business offers a carefully curated collection of slightly used items, with the inventory mainly focusing on antiques, mid-century modern, and contemporary pieces. They also have an impressive selection of high-quality art to finish out your redecorating project.
Mosaic Dreams is a project by Kristin Javier, a mosaic artist based in the Hudson Valley. Her pieces combine fragments of glass, gold, marble, and various found objects before setting them into cement to create new works of art from the broken pieces. You can find all kinds of unique mosaic pieces at the Mosaic Dreams stand in the flea market, from fine art pieces to wearable pendants.
If you're looking for beautifully crafted gold and silver gemstone jewelry, we highly recommend finding Lola Richards Designs during your trip to the Hastings Flea Market. This Connecticut-based artist creates intricate pieces which showcase brilliant gemstones. Find one with your birthstone as a Christmas gift for Mom.
For more things to do in Westchester, see: Reasons Why Our Westchester Personal Injury Lawyers Love Playland Park
For 90 years, Westchester families have been visiting Playland Amusement park, a.k.a. Rye Playland, for fun summer days. This iconic amusement park has even made several appearances in pop culture, including various television shows, movies, music, and literary references. It's also listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Many families from NYC also take the drive out to Westchester for an exciting day at the park. Our Westchester personal injury law firm love bringing our family here for the thrill rides, entertainment, carnival food, and everything else that we all love about amusement parks. Here are some of our favorite aspects of Playland Park:
Playland is a very family-friendly park, with a nice selection of rides and attractions that both kids and parents can enjoy together:
If you've got some adrenaline junkies in your party, you've got plenty of exciting thrill rides to choose from at Playland Park:
Kiddyland is a section of the park dedicated to rides and attractions for younger kids. These fun rides are a great way to introduce your kids to the wonders of amusement parks before they're old enough to move on to the thrill rides:
Rye Playland had free daily entertainment, including a variety of fun shows that make for a good break from the rides. In 2018, the park held the following daily entertainment events:
Beginning Memorial Day Weekend and extending through Labor Day Weekend, Playland Park holds beach and pool hours. Only the beach is open until June 17, and the pool opens June 22. They also have a boardwalk which is always a great place for a romantic stroll or to simply relax and sit on a bench while taking in the views of the beach and boardwalk.
For more outdoor activities, see: A Day In The Outdoors At Tibbetts Brook Park
Westchester is a great place to raise a family, with plenty of educational and recreational activities designed just for kids. If you're looking for a good educational weekend field trip for your kids, we think the Westchester Children's Museum is a great choice. This hands-on museum helps kids learn new things through interactive activities and exhibits. Our Westchester personal injury attorneys love bringing out little ones here to supplement their school curriculum. Here are some of our favorite current exhibits at the Westchester Children's Museum:
Toddler Beach is an exhibit overlooking the Long Island Sound and Playland Boardwalk. This colorful environment encourages young children to practice and develop gross motor skills through movement and climbing, with assistance from their caregivers. We love this exhibit because kids have fun and enjoy themselves while developing new skills.
In this exhibit, kids can learn about motion, force, and speed while building their own rollercoasters. Interlocking pieces in this exhibit fit together, allowing kids to work with each other to build roller coasters with their own choice of drops, loops, barrel rolls, and other fun features. It's like a live-action version of a computer theme park simulation game.
Makerspace is an open creative environment for kids, where they can create and design their own projects. This exhibit has activities in a variety of subject, including art, design, technology, and science. Kids can create something new every time they visit the Makerspace. We love how this encourages creativity and helps kids develop new skills.
At the Construction and Architecture Design Gallery, children can participate in an interactive experience where they use small building planks to create their own construction and architecture projects. The exhibit has thousands of these pieces, allowing for nearly limitless creativity. Participants will learn about art and architecture, build creativity, and learn the value of team work.
This special exhibit is currently being hosted at the Lavan Family Gallery and consists of a collection of illustrations which celebrate childhood wonder and "imaginary friends." These pieces may make you feel nostalgic and take you back to a simpler time. We highly recommend checking this exhibit out before it ends on November 26.
At the Creativity Table, kids can create their own artworks, design projects, and inventions. Participants have the choice between completing special projects developed by the museum's educators or creating something that's all their own.
For more places to visit in Westchester, see: Our Top 5 Restaurants In Mount Vernon
Our Mount Vernon personal injury attorneys love visiting ice cream and frozen yogurt shops during the summer. Fortunately, there are many excellent places to grab a cone, cup, or sundae in Westchester County. Trips to the ice cream shops are one of our favorite ways to bond as a family during summer evenings. Here are some of our favorite ice cream shops to visit in this region:
Sugar Hi is essentially heaven on earth for a sweet tooth. Along with a wide selection of delicious ice cream, this sweets shop sells just about every other sweet treat you could ask for, including a variety of baked goods, chocolates, waffles, candy, and much more. We like coming here year-round, as the warm baked goods are always delicious when the weather is too cold for ice cream.
Here are some of our favorite items at Sugar Hi:
If you're looking to satisfy your sweet tooth in the Valhalla area, then we think Village Creamery & Sweet Shop is your best bet. This shop has an incredible selection of flavors, with a nice mix of original flavors and popular classics. They also serve coffee and acai bowls, along with offering a selection of candies, cakes, chocolate-covered pretzels, edible cookie dough, and other sweets.
Some of our favorite ice cream flavors at Village Creamery & Sweet Shop include:
Located on Main Street in Tarrytown, Main Street Sweets is another great Westchester ice cream shop with a wide selection of unique, expertly-crafted flavors. Their selection is also frequently changing, with new flavors being cycled in all the time.
We recommend trying the following flavors at Main Street Sweets:
This small, cozy neighborhood spot features a fantastic selection of delicious homemade ice creams. They offer both indoor and outdoor seating, making it a great place to visit throughout the year. They also have vegan options.
Here are some of our favorite flavors offered at The Blue Pig:
If you're looking for a quick ice cream cone while on the west side of Westchester County, Penny Lick is always a good choice. Like the other shops on our list, this simple shop offers both traditional and more unique flavors.
We regularly order the following flavors at Penny Lick Ice Cream:
Looking for local museums to visit? Check out: A Visit To The Philipsburg Manor
Westchester County is full of parks and other green spaces which offer numerous opportunities for recreation. In operation since 1927, Tibbetts Brook Park is one of the county's first developed parks and remains a popular destination for locals and visitors over 90 years later. The park also houses the home field of a United States Australian Football League team called the New York Magpies. Our Mount Vernon personal injury lawyers love taking our families here on weekends during the spring, summer, and early fall.
Some of our favorite aspects of Tibbetts Brook Park include:
This park is named after George Tibbetts, who was the Briton that settled the land in 1668. During the American Revolution, his descendants were exiled from the land because they chose to remain loyal to the British Crown. Their land was confiscated and sold.
This park was also partially the site of the Battle of Tibbett's Brook (also known as the Battle of Kingsbridge) in 1778. During this battle, a Native American chief named Daniel Nimham joined with American Revolutionary forces to fight the Queen's Rangers led by John Graves Simcoe. The British were victorious, and Nimham and three other militia members died during the battle. These men were buried in an area called Indian Field in Van Cortlandt Park.
Tibbetts Brook Park is home to a small waterpark, which is a great place to take the kids when you're looking to have some fun and cool off on a hot summer day. The park features a recently renovated swimming pool which has been in the park for decades, along with new waterpark attractions that were added in 2011.
Some of our favorite features of the waterpark include:
Tibbetts Brook Park is outfitted with facilities that cater to virtually any type of summer recreational activity. Some of our favorite ways to have fun at this park include:
Additionally, the Park contains an activities lawn which is used to host various ethnic celebrations. festivals, fairs, and other events during the warmer months of the year. Tibbetts Brook Park is open 7 days a week from 8 am to dusk. If you're looking for a fun place to spend the day with your family when the weather gets nicer, we highly recommend taking a visit here.
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At Banville Law, our Westchester personal injury lawyers think it's important for all Americans to be aware of our country's history - including both the positive and negative aspects. Philipsburg Manor is, in our opinion, one of the best places to learn about the dark history of slavery in the northern colonies. Here, you can walk back in time to the 1750s and learn what daily life was like for the 23 Africans who were enslaved on this property, along with the Europeans who enslaved them.
Today, Philipsburg Manor is comprised of three main sites:
The Philipsburg Manor House is located in the Upper Mills section of Philipsburg Manor, in Sleepy Hollow, New York. This house was built in 1693 by a wealthy merchant named Frederick Philipse after he was granted a charter for 52,000 acres along the Hudson River by the British Crown. The facility rests at the confluence of the Pocantico and Hudson Rivers and was used as a provisioning depot for the family's Atlantic sea trade and worldwide shipping operation.
For more than three decades, Philipse and his family used this site to ship hundreds of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic ocean. By the mid-1700s, this operation had become one of the largest slave-holdings in the northern colonies. Various European farmers rented out the manor. In 1750, 23 African men, women, and children lived and worked at the Philipsburg Manor.
When the American Revolution began, the Philipse family supported the British Crown. Their landholdings were seized and auctioned off, and the Philipsburg Manor House was used by the British for military activities.
In 1961, the manor house was named a National Historic Landmark. Some of the historical aspects of this home which are still present today include:
Located in Yonkers, Philipsburg Manor Hall is a historic house museum. This structure was the original family seat of Philipse Manor and is Westchester County's oldest standing building - dating from the year 1682. Today, Philipsburg Manor Hall is owned and operated by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation.
A Dutch-born merchant and trader named Frederick Philipse began building the Manor Hall in 1682. By the time of his death, this property grew to a 52,000-acre estate along the Hudson River, which encompassed the entirety of present-day Yonkers and a sizeable portion of Westchester County.
Today, visitors can learn the history of the colonial north through several collections at Philipsburg Manor Hall, including:
The Old Dutch Church of Sleep Holly is a 17-century stone church located in Sleepy Hollow. This is the second oldest surviving church and the 15th-oldest surviving building in the entire state of New York. The church's 5-acre churchyard is famously featured in Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". In 1961, the church was designated as a National Historic Landmark.
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If you're a serious hiker living in New York State, you're probably familiar with Anthony's Nose. This peak at the northern end of Westchester County offers some of the most majestic views of the Hudson River and Valley. Anthony's nose and Dunderberg Mountain help make up the South Gate of the Hudson Highlands. When climbing this peak, you might feel like you're on a natural staircase. The hike is short, of moderate difficulty, and quite steep. But it's a small price to pay for the incredible views you'll be treated to once you make it to the top.
Some of our Westchester personal injury lawyers' favorite aspects of Anthony's Nose include:
Anthony's Nose has had its unique name since at least 1697. A grant patient from that year is the first document in which the name appears. Historians speculate that the peak could be named after Saint Anthony since a rock formation known as Saint Anthony's Face was part of Breakneck Ridge before it was destroyed by quarrying.
The former owner of this mountain, Pierre Van Cortlandt, believed the peak was named for pre-Revolutionary War sea captain Anthony Hogan. The story says that one of Hogan's mates compared the peak to the captain's nose when they sailed past it, joking that they were the same size.
Another story claims that the peak was named for a deacon of the Dutch Reformed Church and early settler, Anthony de Hooges. Hooges' was also known for his large nose.
A portion of the famous Appalachian Trail runs through the overlook of Anthony's Nose. This trail runs upward and you follow it to get to the summit of Anthony's Nose. This is where you'll find some of the most breathtaking views of the Hudson Valley, featuring the river and a backdrop of beautiful trees and other vegetation.
We think the great outdoors is the best place to get a workout in. Hiking Anthony's Nose will certainly get your heart rate up, and you may be feeling the burn once you arrive at the top. This is extremely rewarding in our opinion, as you not only get to improve your health, you get to enjoy gorgeous views once you complete your hike.
Anthony's Nose has another alternate hike, which offers its own unique views. We think it's worth it to take trips here for both routes. It's about the same distance and difficulty as the Appalachian Trail hike.
Also see: Our Favorite Vendors at the Hastings Flea Market
The state of New York may be best-known as the home to one of the world's most thriving metropolises, but the state also has plenty to offer outside of urban life. Outside of the city, you can find some of the most gorgeous landscapes and natural beauty the Northeast has to offer. Bear Mountain State Park is one of our favorite places for escaping to nature. This beautiful park offers breathtaking views of the Hudson River in a natural setting, along with a litany of fun activities the whole family can enjoy.
Some of our Westchester personal injury lawyers' favorites parts of Bear Mountain include:
Constructed in 1915, the Bear Mountain Inn is one of the most iconic and influential examples of the famous Adirondack rustic lodge style. Over the years, this aesthetic has become extremely popular throughout the Adirondacks and the National Park System. We think a stay here is the best way to enjoy Bear Mountain, as you can fully immerse yourself in the natural beauty of the area. If you can put your smartphone away for long enough, you may even feel like you've gone back 100 years in time.
The Bear Mountain Inn was added to The National Register of Historic Places in 2002. It's undergone several renovations over the years but has never lost its classic rustic charm.
Some of the best views of Bear Mountain come on the drive up to the top of the park. The Perkins Memorial drive is famous for its scenic views all the way up. Once you make it to the summit, you can take in a breathtaking panoramic view of the region from Perkins Memorial Tower, including views of four states and the Manhattan skyline from 40 miles away.
Located at the former site of Fort Clinton, the Trailside Museums and Zoo is open for visitors year-round. It's named after the Appalachian Trail, which runs through the park. The zoo was initially a bear den, but today houses a variety of injured and rehabilitating wildlife. Some of the critters you can view here include:
The complex also has a Reptile and Amphibian House, where you can view a variety of fish, turtles, snakes, and frogs. There's also a Nature Study Museum, Geology Museum covering the Hudson Highlands, and History Museum covering colonial and Native American history and culture in this complex.
You can enjoy a wide range of fun physical activities within the beautiful nature at Bear Mountain State Park. Some of our favorite ways to have fun here include:
Bear Mountain is home to over 50 official trails, which vary in difficulties. You're sure to find a hiking path to suit your skill level.
See how our personal injury attorneys in Westchester help with Elder Abuse and Neglect in Westchester County.
Just a short 15-minute drive from New York City, Mount Vernon is a cute, small town which offers a quick escape from the craziness of city life. While NYC may be world-renowned for its restaurant scene, Mount Vernon also has several excellent restaurants. If you're looking to escape to somewhere a bit quieter and want to grab a quick bite to eat, our Westchester personal injury lawyers recommend checking out the following restaurants in Mount Vernon:
Chalanas is a simple Brazilian restaurant with a no-frills presentation, but excellent food. You order yourself, choose your own sides, and pay for your meal before you sit down to eat. You can find a variety of traditional Brazilian churrasco roasted meats here, along with delicious sides and desserts.
Some of our favorite choices on the Chalanas menu include:
The Wooden Spoon is actually located in New Rochelle, but it's always worth the short drive for a meal here. They offer premium bar food like burgers, tots, mac and cheese, and much more - along with an impressive list of craft and domestic beers. We love relaxing here for a filling, hearty meal while knocking back a few cold beers.
Some of our favorite dishes at the Wooden Spoon include:
When the snow starts falling and the temperatures begin to dip, we love warming up with some southern soul food at King's Southern Delight. King's offers all of your favorite dishes of country cooking at extremely affordable prices. This type of food can be difficult to find in the Mount Vernon area, so King's is a godsend for anyone who loves southern cooking.
Some of our favorite dishes from King's Southern Delight include:
If you're craving some authentic, premium Caribbean cooking, there's no better choice than Jus Jerk. In our opinion, this restaurant makes some of the best jerk-style cooking in the entire state of New York. Don't let the fast food exterior and prices fool you - this is a premium establishment. You can have your pick of several traditional Caribbean dishes at extremely affordable prices.
Some of our favorite things to order at Jus Jerk include:
Tino's Cucina is a trendy, atmospheric lounge which offers delicious Italian cuisine. It makes a great spot for a date night or a dinner with the whole family. While the atmosphere is likely to impress you right away, you'll leave even more impressed after enjoying some of the best Italian food in Mount Vernon.
Some things we recommend trying at Tino's Cucina include:
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