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After a lot of searching, my husband and I have decided to narrow our home search to Pelham. We love Pelham Manor and have seen some great homes in the Prospect Hill School area. There are two homes on the market in northern Pelham, on Second and Third Aves just south of Chester Park, that look interesting. Is this a nice area? How does it compare to the area near Prospect Hill? The homes are zoned for Hutchinson. Is this a good school? My kids are only 18 months, but both seem to be developing normally - would the average kid fit in?
Prospect Hill and Pelham Manor are "nicer" in the sense that the high end of the market goes a lot higher. It's the fancier side of town. But it's all good. [disclosure: I went to Prospect Hill. But it was long, long, LONG ago. But it still looks exactly the same. At that time Pelham Manor was WASPy and professional and viewed North Pelham as "Italian" and working class. ]
Recently moved to Pelham ourselves and our child started at Prospect this week. It was an exhausting search for us, but throughout it all, we looked at homes in all areas of Pelham. We thought Chester Park was such a great community, but we just didn't find anything there that worked for us.
What I did that I found helpful was visit the elementary schools to get a feel for each one. The schools were great about accommodating my request to visit. After elementary school, all students merge and attend the one Middle and one HS.
Even though my kids are young, I visited anyway to see what they are like as we plan to use public all the way through.
We ended up in Pelham Manor for no other reason than we found a house that fit what we needed. The houses in the north end can be a bit smaller than the homes in the manor. The homes in the north end are a bit closer to town I think, which is convenient. Overall, it seems like a nice town and so far we have been happy here.
I won't ask you the years you were at Prospect, but I was at The Ursuline School in (!)1967-every Italian girl lived in Pelham Manor. Was it before this that PM was 'waspy?'
I won't ask you the years you were at Prospect, but I was at The Ursuline School in (!)1967-every Italian girl lived in Pelham Manor. Was it before this that PM was 'waspy?'
Change of topic, I know...
Yup, that was the era. To be clear, I'm talking about the social mileau at the time, not literally "no Italians in Pelham Manor." Actually my best friend was Italian. But if you were Italian or Jewish you'd never set foot in the Pelham Country Club, your mom wouldn't see the inside of the Manor Club and you wouldn't be going to the ridiculous, invitation-only dance class where you'd eventually mingle with kids from Bronxville, Larchmont and Rye. Those days are largely behind us but there are still vestiges depending on who you keep company with.
I only say that because I have relatives with very Italian names who were members of WCC in the early 60s. Granted, they were wealthy peeps, but I remember going to cousin's weddings at WCC back then.
Sometimes I think these ideas stick, and become an accepted idea, when really, they have many many exceptions. I always read that Bronxville discriminated against Jews and Blacks, but there must have been some living there. I was playing with family members in Bronxville in the (gasp) 50s, again, Italian and Catholic. Whenever I hear this stuff, I always say, "Hey, wait a minute...wasn't Uncle Ted a member of ...?"
The Bronxville thing is a legend-everybody repeats it often on this site, but I wonder how true it was in reality. Same with these Pelham clubs...
I only say that because I have relatives with very Italian names who were members of WCC in the early 60s. Granted, they were wealthy peeps, but I remember going to cousin's weddings at WCC back then.
Sometimes I think these ideas stick, and become an accepted idea, when really, they have many many exceptions. I always read that Bronxville discriminated against Jews and Blacks, but there must have been some living there. I was playing with family members in Bronxville in the (gasp) 50s, again, Italian and Catholic. Whenever I hear this stuff, I always say, "Hey, wait a minute...wasn't Uncle Ted a member of ...?"
The Bronxville thing is a legend-everybody repeats it often on this site, but I wonder how true it was in reality. Same with these Pelham clubs...
I think there's probably something to what you say. Still, the Pelham club stuff was pretty bad. Add to that the invitation-only "Skating Club" and Jr League.
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