Walkable Towns in Upper Westchester or Putnam (New Rochelle, Ossining: houses, good schools)

[rimbri]

Hi,
Can anyone recommend towns in Westchester or Putnam that are walkable.
We will be leaving Brooklyn in the next year and do not want to relocate to a town that you need your car to get everywhere.
Thanks.

[Monikini]

Walkable is really high on our decision matrix as we have been searching for a home in Westchester for the past 6 months. The train station is critical and we looked at communities with less than an hour commute. The best way to explore the communities is to get off at the train station and look at the town center and how do people leave the statin. NB Walkable has a $$ premium.

Along the New Haven Line
Pelham - very pleasant, high walkability, high taxes
New Rochelle - East New Rochelle - great investment potential - but you are a bit of an urban pioneer at the moment - in 5 years it will be great.
Larchmont - high walkability, houses $$$, taxes $$$
Mamaroneck - very walkable, varied housing stock, taxes $$

HARLEM LINE
Crestwood - very walkable, low taxes, limited school choices
Pleasantville - very walkable, good schools

HUDSON LINE
The River towns have maintained their village characteristic and have very pleasant centers. Irvington and Tarrytown are our favorites.

Good luck - enjoy discovering Westcester - we have...

[Natalpaz]

Mt Kisco is very walkable with a good variety of housing options. You might also want to try Scarsdale, however, it is considerably more expensive. Further north Yorktown might be a good choice too, depending on what type of commute you will tolerate. Good luck!
Natasha

[bkjlynn]

Hi. We moved fairly recently from Park Slope to Cold Spring. (coldspringliving.com). The commute is a bit further (1hr 10min) but it is hands down the most walkable small town that doesn't feel like the suburbs close to NYC. And we looked everywhere. Tarrytown was second on our list but just didn't compare to the prices and the access to farmers markets and hiking trails that you get here. I can walk 5 min to train from my house as well as grocery store, drug store, wine shop, restaurants, kayak rental, antique stores, a town bar, tots park, and some of the best hiking in NY state. Schools are good, and walkable from town as well. Ironically, once we moved here we have met several people--mostly young couples with babies--that recently left Brooklyn for here. Lots of neat pre 1900 houses here in need of fixing up and many being fixed up in last several years. Great if you like historic properties.

[dma1250]

There are a lot of good choices in upper Westchester for towns that are totally walkable, very un-suburban, and close to great nature preserves with excellent hiking.

Croton is totally walkable and a great town. You can walk anywhere in town (stores, library, parks, playgrounds, schools), including the riverfront park and the town's extensive hiking trails (one of which goes along the Croton River and another of which climbs the hills and affords breathtaking views of the Hudson). The town has a great beach on the Croton River for swimming, and you can use the Cortlandt pool, which is huge. The town is full of ex-Park Slopers.

Katonah is also very walkable. You can easily walk to all the stores, library, town park and pool, train station, and schools. Katonah is a really beautiful town with lots of amazing Victorian homes. There's also a great museum in town.

Peekskill is totally walkable too. The town has lots going for it--art museum, Paramount art center, galleries, restaurants, stunning riverside park, and great old houses. You can walk from town into the 1,500 acre Blue Mountain Reservation. The schools have a poor reputation, and the town does have a low-income population--as well as a large population of artists and recent arrivals from NYC.

Mt. Kisco and Ossining are also very walkable. Yorktown Heights is actually one of the most walkable towns around, but it is not the prettiest (and you have to drive to the train).

We moved to southern Yorktown from Brooklyn a few years ago and totally love it up here. There are lots of people from Park Slope (and other parts of Brooklyn and the Upper West Side), so you should feel at home. We started our search in Cold Spring, but decided the commute was too much for us. We also wanted to be closer to a variety of towns and amenities. For what it's worth, we picked a more rural area (that definitely requires a car), because we felt that if we were leaving the city we wanted to get things that the city can't offer--land, beauty, and privacy. We need to drive to the store, but we can walk from our backyard into hundreds of acres of trails in the neighboring horse farm and state-owned land, or we can walk down the quiet road to the reservoir. Personally I love car life and would rather be able to walk into the woods than to the corner store, but that's just me.

My best advice is to spend plenty of time touring the area and checking out all the options. Also, be sure to try the various commutes. Good luck!