New Home for Goldens Bridge War Monument

GOLDENS BRIDGE, NY — It has been a fixture in Goldens Bridge for decades. Now the American Legion monument that memorializes hamlet residents who served in both World Wars has a new home at the Golden’s Bridge Fire Department.

The monument, a 4-ton granite stone affixed with a pair of bronze plaques emblazoned with the names of 76 Goldens Bridge residents, who served in the military and defended the nation during World Wars I and II, had been displayed outside the front entrance of the Community House on Old Bedford Road.

With the Community House now under private ownership because the Town of Lewisboro sold the building, Golden’s Bridge Fire District and Department officials petitioned the town board for permission to relocate the monument to the grounds of the firehouse.

Town Supervisor Peter Parsons agreed with Fire Commissioner Joe Simoncini and Second Assistant Fire Chief Al Melillo, as well as John B. Winter Jr. Post No. 1734 American Legion representative Charles Green, when they appeared before a town board meeting over the summer to make the case for the monument’s relocation to the Golden’s Bridge Firehouse.

The monument is now prominently located in front of the firehouse on Route 138, just to the left of the main entrance across from the fire bell and, appropriately, beneath the American flag that flies over the building.

A special dedication ceremony of the World Wars monument will be held at the Golden’s Bridge Fire Department third annual Community Day at the Firehouse Saturday, Oct. 19. The highly anticipated annual event with the “country fair atmosphere” will also feature dramatic demonstrations by firefighters and other emergency responders, along with hands-on activities, crafts and pumpkin painting as well as food, refreshments, promotional giveaways, prizes, child carseat installation and much more.

Fire department and American Legion officials expressed their enthusiasm over the monument’s relocation.

“Since the Community House is no longer a municipally owned property, it made perfect sense to move the monument to a more official site like the Fire Department. This landscape lends itself to a more central, well-traveled and prominent location in the hamlet, and where a 110-year-old quasi-government agency will be its caretaker and provide the dignity that this monument demands,” said Simoncini, who is a member of the fire district’s Board of Fire Commissioners and long-time member of the fire department.

The relocation is a homecoming of sorts for the monument, according to Melillo, another long-time fire department member who is familiar with the history of the granite memorial.

“The Fire Department was its original caretaker,” Melillo said. “The monument was displayed at the original site of the Golden’s Bridge Firehouse on Route 22, but was moved to the Community House when the Firehouse was relocated to its present Route 138 site as a result of the construction of Interstate 684.

"This is a natural move and it ensures that the memorial will be properly maintained in the future,” he said.

The inscription on the bronze plaque containing the names of 15 WWI veterans states: “Dedicated to the Boys of Golden’s Bridge Who Served Their Country — The Great War 1914-1918.” Beneath the names is an inscription that reads: “That all people under God might have a new birth of righteousness and that freedom, justice and peace might abound in all the earth.”

The bronze plaque honoring 61 Goldens Bridge residents who served in WWII is inscribed: “These Will Live In Honored Glory — World War II.”

The fire department secured the services of Stiloski’s Automotive Corp. — a Tarrytown-based company that provides heavy truck road service, towing and repair — to transport the monument from the Community House to the firehouse grounds. Stiloski’s Automotive performed the service at no charge to the department.

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