Twentieth Century
During the 20th century, the primarily rural character of Westchester would yield to the suburban county known today. Between the County's railroad network and the proliferation of the automobile in the early 20th century, working in New York City and living in the country became possible for the middle class. In 1907 the Bronx River Commission was established to acquire the necessary lands to eliminate nuisance conditions along the river's banks and improve its water quality through a joint undertaking between New York City and Westchester County. The Commission's efforts led to the creation of the Bronx River Parkway Reservation, completed in 1925, and the first modern, multi-lane limited-access roadway in North America. The success of the Bronx River Parkway Reservation encouraged the County government to develop its outstanding parks system, preserving great tracts of open space.
Playland in Rye, a National Historic Landmark, opened to the public in 1928, was the first totally planned amusement park in the country. It continues to be operated by Westchester County. The development of Westchester's parks and parkway systems supported existing residential communities and encouraged the establishment of new ones. New homes were constructed on former estates and farms. The parkways were a boon for commuters and transformed the development pattern of Westchester. New businesses appeared in response to expanded markets; White Plains, with branches of many New York City stores, became the County's central shopping center. With the need for new homes for new families following World War II, multistory apartment houses appeared in the urbanized areas of the County, while the market for single family houses continued to expand. By 1950, the total County population was 625,816.
Major interstate highways were constructed in Westchester during the 1950s and 1960s. The establishment of these roadways, along with the construction of the Tappan Zee Bridge, encouraged many major corporations, such as PepsiCo, General Foods, Ciba-Geigy and IBM to establish headquarters in Westchester. They accomplished this by assembling large tracts of property to construct office facilities, which were often designed by world-famous architects and enhanced by extensive landscape.
Today it is one of the most affluent counties in the country, home to many of New York City's most desirable suburban communities. It is a haven for commuters, whether traveling by car or by the Metro-North Commuter Railroad.
Read more about this topic: Westchester County, New York, History
Famous quotes related to twentieth century:
“In the twentieth century, death terrifies men less than the absence of real life. All these dead, mechanized, specialized actions, stealing a little bit of life a thousand times a day until the mind and body are exhausted, until that death which is not the end of life but the final saturation with absence.”
—Raoul Vaneigem (b. 1934)
“Predatory capitalism created a complex industrial system and an advanced technology; it permitted a considerable extension of democratic practice and fostered certain liberal values, but within limits that are now being pressed and must be overcome. It is not a fit system for the mid- twentieth century.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“War is bestowed like electroshock on the depressive nation; thousands of volts jolting the system, an artificial galvanizing, one effect of which is loss of memory. War comes at the end of the twentieth century as absolute failure of imagination, scientific and political. That a war can be represented as helping a people to ‘feel good’ about themselves, their country, is a measure of that failure.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“... the nineteenth century believed in science but the twentieth century does not. Not.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“The phenomenon of nature is more splendid than the daily events of nature, certainly, so then the twentieth century is splendid.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)