HOW MUCH HAS THE TOWN OF ORANGETOWN CHANGED SINCE THE 50's ?

How Has Orangetown Changed Since the 1950’s

Up until WW II, when the Federal Government, in 1943, built the largest military Port of Embarkation in the world named Camp Shanks, Orangetown was only known outside of the State for Lederle Laboratories, Rockland State Hospital and the ferry on the Hudson River between the Villages of Nyack & Tarrytown.

Oh sure, there were many busy “Bee Hives” of robust businesses in Nyack, Pearl River, Piermont, family farms all around town and a Revolutionary War historic era complex in Tappan, which is still there, but none on the scale of Lederle Laboratories and Rockland State Hospital.

Then the Fifties swept in a storm of changes. The TZ bridge was built in 1952 to replace the ferry. This was followed by the New York State Thruway in 1954 and Palisades Interstate Parkway in 1958. In 1952, the Dominican Nuns of Sparkill who had been operating an orphanage on their campus for many decades opened St. Thomas College. Four years later, the Dominican Nuns of Blauvelt, who had also operated an orphanage on its campus for decades opened Dominican College. Camp Shanks, through which 1.3 million soldiers went to war with the nazi army, was closed and transfigured into the nation's largest GI housing operations before its 2,300 acres returned to its pre-WW II status with a small exception.

Just a few years later in the Sixties, many families used the PIP, Thruway and the TZ bridge to move out of a dangerous Bronx and the family farm land was converted to modest single family homes, the costs of which were modest compared to todays’, and the property taxes much much much less.

Thus a new Orangetown bloomed into existence.

Other changes were also happening. Rockland State Hospital became Rockland Psychiatric Center and its population dwindled from 9,500 to under 400 patients trigged by a de-institutional culture of family-sized housing. Many of its original 600+ acres were sold/repurposed. The internationally esteemed New York State Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research was built on the site as well as the largest Gaelic Athletic Association [GAA] Sports Center in the USA and a ultra modern JPMorgan-Chase Bank Data Center. Much of the property became home for a host of youth recreational sports fields and an national soccer training facility.

The two orphanages operated by the Dominican Nuns also migrated into a more enlightened personal foster care culture. In the case of the Sparkill Dominicans, they built the county’s largest affordable housing for seniors - Thorpe Village/Dowling Gardens. Lederle Laboratories closed in 2008. Nyack College closed after 100 years and sold to a Yeshiva. And I moved into one of the many housing programs for senior citizens that are popping up everywhere.