Hastings-on-Hudson is a village in Westchester County located in the southwestern part of the town of Greenburgh in the state of New York, United States. It is a suburb of New York City, located approximately north of midtown Manhattan, and is served by a stop on the Metro-North Hudson Line. To the north of Hastings-on-Hudson is the village of Dobbs Ferry, to the south, the city of Yonkers, and to the east unincorporated parts of Greenburgh. As of the 2020 US Census, it had a population of 8,590. The town lies on U.S. Route 9, "Broadway" and the Saw Mill River Parkway.

History The area that is now Hastings-on-Hudson and Dobbs Ferry was the primary settlement of the Weckquaesgeek Algonquian people, who called the community Wysquaqua. In the summer, the Weckquaesgeeks camped at the mouth of the ravine running under the present Warburton Avenue Bridge. There they fished, swam and collected oysters and clamshells used to make wampum. On the level plain nearby (which is now Maple Avenue), they planted corn and possibly tobacco.

The findings of large numbers of artifacts have suggested that there was significant tribal activity in the confluence of Factory Brook and Scheckler's Brook just behind what is now the Cropsey Studio, but the interest in the site failed to generate any archeological inquiry.

Early history During the colonial times, the area was part of the extensive Philipsburg Manor, which included what is now Hastings-on-Hudson. After dividing the area into four nearly equal-sized farms, Frederick Philipse, the first lord of the manor, and his heirs leased the farmland to Dutch, English, and French Huguenot settlers.

During the American Revolution, what is now Hastings-on-Hudson lay between the lines of the warring forces in the so-called Neutral Ground. In reality, the area became a no-man's land and was raided repeatedly by both sides. One of the Philipses' tenant farmers, Peter Post, played a role in a Revolutionary War skirmish known as the Battle of Edgar's LaneThe battle is named after the lane retroactively. At the time of the skirmish in 1778, the encounter was actually unnamed or occasionally referred to as the "Mertz Affair" after Lieutenant Balthazar Mertz (or Merz), the defeated Hessian lieutenant. The actual Edgar's Lane appeared decades later, named after William Edgar, a prominent New York merchant who acquired a large parcel of property from James DeClarke, including the site where the famous Revolutionary War skirmish took place. that was fought in a ravine in the vicinity of his house. The skirmish was a notable, albeit small-scale, American victory.

Following the Revolution, the Philipses, who were staunch Loyalists, saw their vast lands confiscated and sold (mostly to the Philipses' former tenant farmers) by the newly established American state. In 1785, the four farms comprising today's Hastings-on-Hudson were bought by James DeClark, Jacobus Dyckman, George Fisher, and the above-mentioned Peter Post, who opened a tavern at his house. Post's land would become the center of the village of Hastings. (His house still stands. Known as the Post-Baker House, the building is a private residence marked by a historical sign.)

Around the same time, Westchester County, which had been established as one of the 10 original counties in New York, was divided into towns, and the area that is now Hastings-on-Hudson became part of the town of Greenburgh. The village was incorporated in 1879 and its name changed from Hastings-Upon-Hudson to Hastings-on-Hudson.

Before and during the American Civil War, the Underground Railroad ran through Westchester County, with vital stops in Hastings-on-Hudson and Tarrytown.

Industrial heyday Stone quarrying was the earliest industry in Hastings-on-Hudson. From 1865 to 1871, hundreds of Scottish and Irish laborers blasted huge quantities of dolomitic marble from a white Westchester marble quarry. An inclined railroad carried the marble down to the quarry wharf where it was dressed by skilled stonecutters and loaded onto ships bound for cities like New York and Charleston, South Carolina.

By the 1880s, Hastings Pavement was producing hexagonal paving blocks which were used extensively in Central Park and Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Between 1895 and 1900, Hastings Pavement produced 10 million such blocks and shipped them throughout the United States and to cities in Canada, Brazil and England. By 1891, the National Conduit and Cable Company had established an operation on the waterfront producing cables for utility companies here and abroad. In 1912, labor strife between striking workers and their employer, the National Cable and Conduit Company, left two striking workers and two bystanders dead. Similar labor unrest occurred in 1916, whereby the Village was put under house arrest.

During World War I, 200 National Guardsmen were stationed in Hastings-on-Hudson because of the security interests of the National Conduit plant and a chemical plant opened by Frederick G. Zinsser that produced a wood alcohol called Hastings Spirits.Hastings History

The plant was important because in 1915 it took orders from the UK to produce .303 ammunition, but they could not pump up the production, so the contracts were cancelled in late 1916. In 1917, it produced .30-06 ammo for the US Navy and Army.Frank Wade Hackley, Eugene L. Scranton, W. H. Woodin History of Modern U.S: Military Small Arms Ammunition. 1880-1939, p. 290

While the industry grew on the waterfront, affluent professionals and artists from New York City were buying former tenant farms and developing estates on the Hastings hillsides; the village became a fashionable summer retreat.

1920s to the present The Anaconda Copper Company took over National Conduit in 1929, and a few years later acquired the Hastings Pavement property. By the end of World War II, Anaconda owned most of the industrial waterfront. Anaconda closed its Hastings-on-Hudson plant in 1975, bringing to an end the century-long era of heavy industry on the Hastings-on-Hudson waterfront.

The Hillside-on-Hastings sanitarium and hospital opened in 1926. It was a pioneering facility aimed at treating "borderline" cases to prevent serious mental conditions. In the late 1930s, the hospital attempted to expand at its Hastings location, but the village denied the request due to changing zoning laws. This led the hospital to relocate to its current site in Glen Oaks, Queens, in 1941, where it became a national leader in mental healthcare.

Billie Burke, actress (the "Good Witch" in The Wizard of Oz), lived in Hastings-on-Hudson and left her property to the school district, which still owns it, and uses it for various sports.

Benjamin Franklin Goodrich, from Ripley, in western New York, used real estate profits to purchase the Hudson River Rubber Company, a small business in Hastings-on-Hudson. The following year, Goodrich relocated the business to Akron, Ohio.

Children's Village, a boarding facility for children in difficult circumstances, located in neighboring Dobbs Ferry, sold about of its property in Hastings-on-Hudson to a developer in 1986. The developer was planning to build close to 100 homes that would result in traffic on the roads adjoining Hillside Elementary School. Local residents formed a committee called "Save Hillside Woods" and raised close to $800K. As a result of the 1987 stock market crash and the subsequent receivership of the bank that held the mortgage on the property, the Village purchased this parcel from the FDIC with the funds accumulated and a bond floated by the Village of Hastings-on-Hudson to expand and maintain Hillside Woods.

The Jasper F. Cropsey House and Studio and Hastings Prototype House are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The John William Draper House is listed as a National Historic Landmark

Geography Hastings-on-Hudson is located at (40.991102, -73.874114) in an area of hills on the Hudson River opposite the Palisades cliffs, north of the city of Yonkers. The Village is bordered by the Hudson River to the west, and the Saw Mill River to the east. The areas facing the Hudson River have views of the Palisades to the west, Manhattan to the south and the Mario Cuomo Bridge to the north.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the Village has a total area of , of which is land and , or 32.65%, is water.

Several small tributaries and headwaters of the Hudson River are located in the village, including Scheckler's Brook which originates in Hillside Woods and Factory Brook which begins in a spring in the southern end of the Burke Estate, these merge behind the Cropsey Studio west of the Aqueduct Trail.

Transportation

Although a suburb of New York City, Hastings-on-Hudson enjoys better mass transit service than many other suburbs in the United States. Commuter rail service is available via the Hastings-on-Hudson railway station, served by the Metro-North Railroad's Hudson Line to Grand Central Terminal, Croton-on-Hudson and Poughkeepsie; transfers to Amtrak's Empire Corridor are available three stops south, at the Yonkers railway station. Additionally, several bus routes operated by the Bee-Line Bus System, connect Hastings-on-Hudson with other places in Westchester and northern sections of the Bronx.

The Saw Mill River Parkway has exits in Hastings-on Hudson - Northbound at Exit 12 at Farragut Parkway and Exit 13 at Farragut Avenue, and Southbound Exit 14 at Clarence Avenue and Exit 15 at Cliff Street. US Route 9 runs through the Village, as Broadway.

Demographics

2020 census As of the 2020 census, Hastings-on-Hudson had a population of 8,590. The median age was 44.8 years. 24.4% of residents were under the age of 18 and 19.5% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 90.8 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 86.3 males age 18 and over.

100.0% of residents lived in urban areas, while 0.0% lived in rural areas.

There were 3,121 households in Hastings-on-Hudson, of which 37.1% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 59.7% were married-couple households, 11.9% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 23.9% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 22.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.

There were 3,298 housing units, of which 3,121 were occupied and 177 were vacant (94.6% occupied and 5.4% vacant). The homeowner vacancy rate was 0.6% and the rental vacancy rate was 5.3%.

+ Racial composition as of the 2020 census Race Number Percent White 6,577 76.6% Black or African American 256 3.0% American Indian and Alaska Native 13 0.2% Asian 502 5.8% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander 1 0.0% Some other race 332 3.9% Two or more races 909 10.6% Hispanic or Latino (of any race) 971 11.3%

Income and poverty As of the census of 2020, the median income for a household in the Village was $139,879. The per capita income for the Village was $79,190. About 2.9% of families and 2.5% of the population were below the poverty line.

2000 census As of the census of 2000, there were 3,093 households, out of which 33.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 57.0% were married couples living together, 8.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.4% were non-families. 27.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.47 and the average family size was 3.05.