WESTCHESTER Square, even to the present day, appears to be a small town hub, clustering around the triangle formed by Westchester, East Tremont and Lane Avenues. The “town” has recently celebrated its 350th anniversary, having been settled here, as Oostdorp (‘east village’) by the Dutch in 1654 and taken over by the British with the rest of New Amsterdam in 1664. It became a busy port along Westchester Creek, which hastened its development; by 1693 St. Peter’s Episcopal Church was founded. During the Revolution, patriots dismantled a bridge over the creek, delaying British advancement (the present-day bridge carries East Tremont Avenue).
As you ride past on the #6 en route to the Westchester Square stop, you’ll see a forbidding-looking Gothic church in dark stone on the south side. It’s well worth a visit: St. Peter’s Episcopal Church was built in 1856 by Leopold Eidlitz when this was an isolated country village along the Westchester Turnpike, and then rebuilt in 1877 after a fire by the architect’s son, Cyrus. St. Peter’shas existed as a parish since 1693 and is the third church to exist on this site. The old St. Peter’s Parish House, now no longer standing, actually served very briefly as New York State Capitol in the 1790s when a plague forced lawmakers away from lower Manhattan (Albany was named state capitol in 1797). St. Peter’s churchyard contains many graves dating back to the early 1700s. Foster Hall, facing Westchester Avenue in the cemetery, was built by Leopold Eidlitz in 1868 and is currently used as a community theater.
There are additional colonial stories abounding here. The Westchester Creek Bridge spans the eponymous Avenue over the creek separating old Westchester Village from the old towns of Middletown and Schuylerville in Throgs Neck. Here, patriots scored a victory over British General Howe on October 1776 when the Americans ripped up the old wood bridge and opened fire on the surprised redcoats. Howe turned back and landed further north at Rodman’s Neck (now the NYPD firing range) a few days later. A bascule bridge opened in 1938, while Westchester Creek was filled in within a few decades.
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2/29/24
4 comments
Unusual for Forgotten New York, confusion abounds with this post. There is no bridge carrying Tremont Avenue over Westchester creek. The creek begins south of Lehman High School. Westchester Avenue does not cross Westchester creek nowadays.
From all the use of the firing range (which we hear from our home in Neuro Shell), one would think the redcoats were still attacking.
Every time I’ve gone by St. Peter’s on the Pelham Bay elevated line, I’ve been floored at how much this church stands out. It’s like a church you’d expect to see in a small county seat in England and not along an elevated rail line in the Bronx.
That churchyard was used as a backdrop for the climactic final scene of The Amityville Story