The delightful commuter blog IRideTheHarlemLine has a fun little visit to Chappaqua station, with some eye-catching photos from IRTHL’s Emily, including some trippy fish-eye lens pics.

She writes:

When I started visiting stations I will admit that there were quite a few of them I was unfamiliar with, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. Chappaqua, and the gorgeously restored wood in the station was quite a pleasant find. Enjoy the photos: and if you get a moment, be sure to visit this gem of a station, rich with history.

Chappaqua’s close-up comes on the heels of a similar station visit to Pleasantville, with a special nod to the Pleasantville station’s quirky-yet-useful “Almost Home” art installation.

Emily notes:

The little station in the middle of the Harlem Line has character – a lot of which has to do with the Arts for Transit piece there. The station is easily accessible from the attractive green area in the center of the village. Part of the reason it differs from many of the other area stations is the fact that the platform is lower than the neighboring streets. As opposed to walking up a set of stairs to a vestibule above the tracks, the larger than usual vestibule and waiting area sits at street level, and you instead descend a set of stairs to the platform.

The Pleasantville Music Fest has signed up the biggest musical act in its six years of existence, booking Jakob Dylan–no, not that other Dylan–for this year’s event on July 10. (The Missus’ first reaction: I’m sitting in the front row. He’s cute.)

We go every year and it’s great fun, even if we wish the organizers would offer fresher acts, as opposed to their apparent fixation on bands that were popular 15 years ago. (Witness Joan Osborne two years ago, Big Head Todd last year, and Rusted Root–you know, those hippie “Send Me On My Way” guys that your roommate used to blast out of his boombox–this year.)

The event is completely outdoors, with multiple stages, and is a quick walk from the Pleasantville train station, which we had the pleasure of commuting from Tuesday.

The festival is part of what makes Priusville Pleasantville unique, and what made it the Best Damn Commuter Town Period last year, as voted on by readers of Trainjotting. Also making it unique–the county’s only brewery in Captain Lawrence, which will be set up at the festival.

Also performing this year: Kevin Bacon’s “Bacon Brothers” outfit (thank you sir, may I have another…song?) and Carney.

[image: USA Today]

Bike racks: Pleasantville 1, Hawthorne 0

I shook up my commuting routine a bit today, accompanying Little G up the road a bit to school in Priusville, where I was the guest reader and read G and his classmates a book on dinosaurs.

I then walked over to the Pleasantville train station, and appreciated some of the pedestrian action–actual signs of life–going on in Pleasantville. The station is of course smack in the middle of a lively little town. I had about 20 minutes to kill–thought there might be a bit of question-and-answer after Dinosaur Stomp, but no dice, and I was cut loose.

I got a cup of java over at Starbucks and read the paper.

I admired Pleasantville’s bike rack, which Hawthorne is still waiting on over at its train station, after our rack was felled by a snowplow back in the winter. I will address that in these cyber-pages if the rack is not in place in the morning. (My sources tell me the recently refurb’d Scarborough station has a gleaming new bike rack.)

Hawthorne will of course never be Pleasantville–we don’t really have cross streets in our little downtown, just Elwood/Commerce snaking along aside the tracks and the highway. But Mount Pleasant Today is about to circulate a commuter questionnaire regarding what to do with the delinquent–and soon to be freed up–Hawthorne station house, with a number of favorable options out there, including an eatery, a coffee shop, and other useful services. The questionnaire landed in Town Supervisor Maybury’s e-box today, and will reach commuters in the coming days. Fill the thing out and make your opinions on what to do with the space heard.

As I boarded the 9:49, a fat guy tried to sneak past me on my left flank. I see the guy on the train home a lot–always with the short-sleeve Det. Sipowiz shirts, always, always on the cellphone. It seemed as though the guy had a case of O.Seat.D.–clearly he wanted to squeeze in quickly and claim his seat so he could conduct his important phone business.

I got a shoulder in his way and grabbed a two-seater.

Cipowicz took the seat across the aisle from me and immediately started in on his all-important cellphone business.

I gave up my seat and headed through the train. Disoriented from entering at a different station, I headed to the front instead of the back, and had to settle for a folding seat, squeezed in across from a beefy guy reading the Daily News.

On to Gotham, four minutes tacked onto my daily routine.

C’mon, folks, get those votes in for the Best Damn Commuter Town Period contest.

A week ago, we announced the second running of Trainjotting’s search for the best commuter town in the area, based on train service, downtown options, property taxes, walkability, a**hole factor, and other factors that make a cool town cool.

Is it Mamaroneck? Summit? Revitalized Rockville Centre, fey English spelling and all?

Or something from the Nutmeg state: The wilds of North Stamford, or the Aryans who make Darien so special?

Will Pleasantville repeat its 2008 win? Get those votes in, either via the Comments section or by email.

A comment from a reader today who, after “extensive” research on the topic, decided the best commuter town in the area was Westfield, New Jersey, has prompted Trainjotting to conduct its second-ever Best Damn Commuter Town Period Contest.

It is you, readers, who decide which town has the best mix of commutability, walkability, and other overall abilities. Who’s got a nice downtown, including a Manhattan-esque restaurant or two, reasonable taxes, decent schools and a relatively low a**holes-per-capita rate? Sidewalks? A movie theater? A town pool? A beach?

Pleasantville, NY won the first and most recent time we conducted the poll, beating out the likes of Mamaroneck, Ho-Ho-Kus and a handful of other hamlets. “P’ville is eminently walkable and human scale, being a classic pre-automobile village, as yet unsullied with sprawling development,” wrote reader Peter. “A very livable little burg.”

Your best town can be any relatively commutable burg in the tri-state area (if you really want to nominate something in Pennsylvania, you better make a very strong case). Send your pick in via the comments section or drop us an email at trainjotting@gmail.com.

Seeing as we’re caught up in a bit of Olympic hysteria, Trainjotting will be awarding the gold, silver and bronze medal to three separate towns.

Some $67 million worth of renovations are in the works at the Philipse Manor, Scarborough and Don Draper’s own Ossining station houses, reports the Journal News. The projects should be completed by Aug. 1.

Among the improvements: digital message boards telling you when the train is coming, less harsh lighting, and walls and structures to block those brutal winds coming off the Hudson.

Those being the artsy river towns and all, the stations are also getting new artwork that reflects the local landscape.

Philipse Manor already has its piece, a set of stained-glass windows designed by Manhattan artist Joseph Cavalieri [Pictured above]. They depict a stylized blue tree on a bold yellow background with a haiku Cavalieri created, written as a single line on the main tree branches: “A gentle Hudson whistle begins my journey north and south and home.”

Cavalieri, who grew up in Pleasantville and has relatives in the Tarrytown area, said he unofficially dedicated the work to his mother and father, and saw in it the idea of family.

“The whole design itself is like a big, strong old tree and that just represents a community, almost like a family tree,” he said. “But it encompasses the community there.”

We continue with another excerpt from Mount Pleasant: The History of a New York Suburb and its People. Chapter 5 is called “The Coming of the Railroad.”

Philip F. Horne writes:

Until the 1840s a man who wished to leave the city and move to Westchester was forced to cut his ties of employment to New York. Travel was difficult over poor roads; New York was many hours ride by horseback or coach, and even river travel was some distance from Unionville, Nanahagen and Robbins’ Mills, as well as being useless in the winter. When Joseph Miller moved to Robbins’ Mills in 1835 “for the children,” he went to farming.

Of course, that all changed when the train rolled in. In April 1831, a charter was granted to the New York and Harlem Railroad for a line to run from lower Manhattan to Harlem. The charter was amended in 1840 to allow the train to run through Westchester.

By 1844, it reached White Plains.

Two years later, the line was extended to Hawthorne (then “Unionville”) and Pleasantville. A guy named Nathaniel U. Tompkins had a store that became the Unionville train depot.

The sight of the train running through the area was of great interest to the locals. Notes the railroad’s civil engineer, Allen Campbell:

The first running of the trains through the country was a matter of great curiosity, and great crowds of people surveyed it from the adjoining hills.

The 9:16 was pretty full this morning. I took an aisle seat in a four-seater, hoping I’d get to keep the leg room and unobstructed view for the remainder of the ride.

Alas, a young man took the seat across from me, though the two window seats were more open than Tony Gonzalez against the Jets secondary yesterday.

He was about 20, black, wearing a baseball hat and jeans.

Right away he makes eye contact and starts chatting. Ten seconds in, and he’s broken every unwritten rule of commuting.

“Can’t believe it’s almost Christmas,” he says. “It feels like it was just summer.”

I turn down my iPod and nod.

“Time goes so fast,” he says.

I fold my Times Business section and smile.

The guy then tells me he knows what he’s doing for New Year’s: giving his girl an expensive necklace. I tease him about getting her a ring and he smiles. He’s got a pleasant way about him.

He tells me he splits time between a parent in Pleasantville (I guess that explains his pleasantness) and his girl in Far Rockaway; the Metro-North/subway trip can take as much as three hours, he said.

We engaged in (very) small talk until North White Plains.

There was a lull. I slid my earbuds back in and picked up my Times again.

At White Plains, he wordlessly got off.

I kept the legroom and unobstructed view the rest of the ride.

I’ve parked my bike in a different spot the last few days. In a nod to the daily forecast for thunderstorms, I’ve eschewed the bike rack I fought so hard for to park under the staircase overpass. I’ve also noticed there’s only one bike there chained to the overpass fence; there used to be four or so bikes, which was what initially prompted me to pester Town Hall for the bike rack.

Anyway, while parking in the new spot, I’ve noticed a white painted crosswalk spanning from the crummy old station house across the station byway, to the greenery bordering Elwood Ave. on the other side. I even saw a pylon informing motorists to let pedestrians pass under state law.

I’m fairly certain I’ve never seen this before. If so, kudos to Mount Pleasant for showing bipedals the love. Whether motorists will or not is to be determined.

By the way, dedicated Trainjotting readers (Hi Mom!) may have noticed that I’ve stopped referring to Hawthorne as “Hummerville” and Pleasantville as “Priusville.” This is due primarily to one thing: We had our home appraised for refi purposes, and the appraisor was a man from Pleasantville who parked his big honkin’ Hummer in front of our house.

Moreover, I no longer see the 2-3 Hummers that once dotted–OK, dominated–my immediate neighborhood, surely victims of those escalating gas prices last summer. I’ve even seen a few Priuses around little Hawthorne.

“Priusville” worked as a stand-in for Pleasantville because Pleasantville is crunchy and artsy–a little slice of Boulder/Burlington along the Saw Mill. That, and we see a red Prius every time me and Little G visit his beloved Dump Truck Playground.

“Hummerville” was always intended not so much as a characterization of Hawthorne residents’ love of ridiculous former military vehicles, but a general label for the suburbs–where the car is king, and pedestrians (and cyclists) took an, um, back seat to automobiles.

But that’s all changed now that we have a pedestrian crosswalk.

I must say, I’m really not impressed by this year’s lineup at the Pleasantville Music Festival, which takes place July 11. It’s a great little fest–you can show up in the middle of the day, toss a blanket down a hundred feet from the stage, enjoy a brew from local Captain Lawrence (although you’re confined to the bier garten/holding pen whilst quaffing your brew), and take in some fun musical acts–some that you’ve even heard of.

Kids are everywhere, with bouncy houses, crafts and other pleasant diversions for the thigh-high set. And the whole shebang, located at Parkway Field, is about a five minute walk from the Pleasantville train station.

Last year we saw Joan Osborne, among many others. The year before, Shawn Mullins and some talented Brooklyn hipsters called the Damnwells. Both years we caught a fun band called De Sol (not to be confused with De La Soul, of course), a Santana-esque outfit that really, truly seemed psyched to be rocking out in Pleasantville that day.

[beware the big head]

Music…arts…locally brewed beer…it’s all part of what makes Pleasantville a hip little town–and the best commuter town in the tri-state area, voted thusly by Trainjotting readers.

The festival has grown each year, so naturally expectations were that there’d be a couple blue-chip acts on the bill for 2009. Alas, the headliner is Big Head Todd and the Monsters–that Colorado college campus second-fave from, oh, 1993 or so. Second billing is Hill Country Revue, who I never heard of, and after that it’s Davy Knowles with Back Door Slam. We caught Back Door Slam last year: young English blues guys–good, but very, very loud, and just wrong for an outdoor fest crawling with kids. I distinctly remember lots of people walking away from the stage, fingers jammed in their ears like the squeaky 6 was pulling into Union Square Station.

I wish the organizers would put more emphasis on up and coming acts, such as those Damnwells guys, and less on the bands who are so obviously on the back nine of their career.

Oh well. With Little G and Little Miss C in attendance, we’ll surely be heading home before Big Head Freakin’ Todd even takes the stage.