Touring Westchester this week, any suggestions!

[Swurgen]

Armonk, NY is also in line with the communities you mention and a helluva lot closer to Tarrytown than Ridgefield. There is a great bagel place right on Main Street and I can personally recommend Fernando's Pizza (don't go to the pizzeria near the bagel place!).

[havoc315]

I am sorry you took such offense in broad generalizations, though I recall you making such broad generalizations that Yorktown primary schools are superior to Croton. As I have maintained consistently, they are both very good school districts with different pros and cons, depending on the preferences of the parent. We have neither the knowledge nor time to do a detailed breakdown, going over every individual teacher, every extra curricular activity, every elective course offered, etc, etc.
So of course we resort to broad generalizations.

And you became so defensive, that you missed my points, though all your statements confirm my points.

Yes, Yorktown is a large area, composed of many different neighborhood, that are even divided into different primary schools. On the other hand, Croton largely has the feel of being 1 close neighborhood. All the kids attend the same school, with only 100 kids per grade.

You seem to be trying to correct my statement about school size, but you simply confirm my original statement. I said from the start, that Katonah and Yorktown are both large school districts. I never assigned that label solely to Yorktown.

Further, you confirm my initial comparison of home prices, where I said that Katonah was the most expensive, and Somers and Yorktown had the best values.

Commuting to NYC, I am sorry you took offense from the generalization. But I stand by the veracity of my statement, that the train commute is not especially easy from most parts of Yorktown. This is probably a non-factor for Asil, but more important to other people.

You took offense about comparison of "walking towns" and shopping access. I see no reason for offense. From some neighborhood in Croton and Katonah, you can walk to the train, shopping district, etc. As you said, Yorktown is as large as Queens. Croton lacks easy access to big stores and chains. From Yorktown, you have easy access to the Jefferson Valley Mall, etc.
For some people, this would be a plus in favor of Yorktown. ( I listed it as a pro for Yorktown). For some people, the small town feel of Croton would be more of a plus.

There is no single utopia town that has all things for all people. It depends on the individuals needs, preferences, and priorities.

[dma1250]

Havoc,
Reread my posts because I really think you are missing every point I made. You're looking for black/white statements, when I'm pointing out nuances. Yes, parts of Yorktown are cheaper than Croton; but parts are more expensive. Yes, parts are far from a train; but many parts are quite close. Parts are close to big box stores, but many parts are no closer to Jeff Valley than Croton is to the Cortland Center (pro or con, depending on your shopping habits). My point is that you simply can't make generalizations about a town the size of Yorktown, or Yorktown Heights for that matter. Living in Teatown is a different experience than living in Granite Springs or Croton Heights (part of Yorktown), let alone Shrub Oak. But they'all give you a small, very close knit community with lots of pros. And I was not disagreeing on the school issue--I was pointing out that the experience for grades K to 5 is the same in Yorktown as in Croton regarding the number of students per grade in a school. Again, not disagreeing, but pointing out a critical nuance.

As often occurs on this site, this is becoming one of those studpid spats.

[havoc315]

dma, with due respect, you have missed my points. You are trying to nuance away differences, especially with an apparent defensiveness about any comparisons to Croton. While I've simply been pointing out the nuanced differences between these similar regions.

So I think I've beaten this point to death, in terms of the "small town" and small school comparison of Croton versus Yorktown, but I'll sum it up by these very simple and truthful statements:

-Within the Croton school district, your typical 8-year-old knows every single other 8-year-old in Croton. Within Yorktown school district, your typical 8-year-old doesn't even go to the same school as half the other 8-year-olds. (For many people, that difference may be entirely irrelevant. Some other people might like the opportunities that can be offered by a larger and more populace district. While other people, may like the closeness of the smaller district).
-Yorktown has a mall, and many chain stores. Croton has no mall, and other than a couple mid-sized grocery stores, virtually no chain stores, fast food restaurants (there is 1 Subway), big stores, etc. This difference may be irrelevant to some people, or may cause some people to prefer one over the other.

And in terms of home values -- For the same amount of money, you can get more house for your money in Yorktown school district than in Croton, and much more for your money than in Katonah. Personally, my family has looked in all 3 areas (plus Somers, Armonk, Pleasantville, Chappaqua, and then south in Irvington, Ardsley and Rye Brook). Looking in a price range around 750K-- In Katonah we found decent smaller houses. In Croton, we found fairly large and updated homes, but nothing luxurious. In Yorktown, we found houses that bordered upon luxurious in that price range.

For my family, we largely crossed Yorktown off our list, because of commuting to NYC issues for my wife. (Similarly, we largely crossed Somers off our list).

[dma1250]

No I got your points, but you're missing mine. I'm not trying to "nuance away" anything at all and there's no defensiveness--just total annoyance at your continuing to make overly broad generalizations about a large and diiverse town. Other than school size, what you say is true of parts of Yorktown but not at all true for other parts.

750K will get you a large mint condition house in parts of Yorktown and a small one in need of work in other parts.

The commute will be tough from some parts of Yorktown but quite easy from others (when we were looking we did dry runs of the commute from various points and crossed out Katonah village, Somers, and large parts of Cortlandt and Yorktown because of the length).

You'll be close to big box stores in some parts of Yorktown but quite far in others.

That's all I'm saying.

As for the school size issue, again my point was simply that kids in K-5 in Yorktown will be in school with everyone in their community and will have a small school. Once they hit middle school, that won't be true.

[Viralmd]

And with that, I believe this topic has been completely covered.