Letters

Underhill Farm Developer Has Failed to Protect the Site’s History

Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.

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As an architectural historian I’ve been asked to weigh in on the Underhill Farm site in Yorktown. As of Feb. 5, Unicorn and its agents have not demonstrated that the original core of the landmark site will be protected, including view corridors.

This farm site needs to be protected, and the developers have demonstrated little commitment to preserving this essential part of Yorktown’s history.

History is but one driver of sustainable tourism in the Hudson Valley, and to let the Underhill site be demolished or encased in an insensitive wall of other, new cookie-cutter structures will not help the town or demonstrate respect for the lessons of the past. It would also deprive the town’s core of a potential visitor-attractant and the dollars that come with such an attraction.

People outside Yorktown are now hard-pressed to think of a reason to intentionally travel there. We need to turn that around.

Jeffrey Gold
Director, Institute for Rational Urban Mobility

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