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I would love to hear some of your ideas about which town you feel is the best fit for my family.
I'm a young jewish professional, wife stays at home with our 2 young children, and we are expecting our 3rd. We like to walk everywhere, rather than drive. Parks where lots of neighborhood kids go to play is crucial, empty parks are almost as bad as no parks. I commute to manhattan 5 days a week, so an easier commute is a plus.
I don't think Scarsdale is very walkable, but it is a place we're considering. What else is there for us, I want to find something I prefer to Scarsdale. We don't need the biggest jewish population, just a place we'd feel comfortable, and have it include the other factors we're looking for.
Definitely Larchmont - in the village. Fits everything that you need. But I will say that nowhere in Westchester can you literally walk everywhere if you are coming from the city.
I would agree that walking everywhere in a Westchester town is a little hard, but if you want something smaller where things are close together I would consider Irvington (small town by the river) and Chappaqua (if you live in "downtown" Chappaqua you can walk to parks, middle school, library, pizza, restaurants, train station, farmers market, doctors, etc).
Definitely Larchmont - in the village. Fits everything that you need. But I will say that nowhere in Westchester can you literally walk everywhere if you are coming from the city.
Visited Irvington today, it's definitely an option. That's some hill down to the river on Main St. It was real rough on the river today with 20 knot winds, and the one playground in town is right on the river bank, which would be great on a hot summer day, but come fall/winter really got to tough it out. It feels very safe there, and its proximity to Tarrytown is wonderful. I would definitely keep a boat on the river. Is there another park I don't know about in Irvington, besides Matthiessen?
What's the story with Mamaroneck? Rye Neck schools better or worse?
Is Rye Brook walkable? Can kids walk to each others houses and not need rides everywhere?
Chappaqua is definitely a place where kids need rides everywhere. I grew up in Great Neck, and that's a town that's truly walkable, so kids are really able to gain independence young by not needing a ride to or from their friends houses, they are able to travel by bike, skate, or on foot safely. What town in Westchester can you say that about?
As someone who grew up in Rye Brook, I would not consider it a walkable town. The neighborhoods are spread apart too far to walk from one to the other for the most part, especially between the ones on the Ridge St side of town and those over on King St. Where I lived, on Country Ridge Dr, I could easily walk to and from the Ridge St elementary school and Blind Brook High School, but you couldn't walk to the shopping area from there. Also, Rye Brook has no real "downtown" area with a main street with a sidewalk, and does not have its own train station. You'd have to go to Port Chester or Rye to catch the train.
The areas that have been mentioned above - Irvington, Larchmont and Pleasantville - sound like good choices for what you are looking for.
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