What’s Not Happening At The Ardsley-on-Hudson Train Station

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The Gilded Age version (left) and the sad state of the present Ardsley Train Station

July 18, 2024

By Barrett Seaman–

In January, after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) transferred ownership of the Ardsley-on-Hudson train station to Yonkers developer John-Michael DeGennaro, Irvington resident Chet Kerr, a board member writing on behalf of the Friends of the Ardsley-on-Hudson Train Station (FAHTS), wrote to Irvington’s Building Inspector and Village Administrator requesting that they enforce the provisions of the transfer that require DeGennaro to maintain and protect the building, which is eligible for inclusion in the National Register for Historic Buildings, and to apply for a special permit to subdivide the property on which the station sits—part of which is still owned by the MTA.

Since then, nothing has happened.

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For starters, the Building Inspector has said that he does not have the authority to enforce those provisions without authorization by the Board of Trustees. So Kerr has written directly to Jon Siegel, Irvington’s Mayor, and the Board, asking them to direct the Building Inspector to compel the new owner to fulfill his obligations under village law.

In the same week in which Kerr submitted his letter, John Costa, President of the Hudson House Tenants Corporation, wrote to Mayor Siegel, saying that the residents of that 84-unit cooperative apartment building, which is adjacent to the station, are concerned that they might lose “the continuing and uninterrupted provision of mail services” from the U.S. Post Office branch housed in the train station.

One would think a strongly worded letter from the village, perhaps the threat of shuttering the building, would be enough to get DeGennaro to comply, but as Kerr points out, “there are no simple solutions.”

“It is up to the village to decide what enforcement authority the Building Inspector should use to make DeGennaro do anything–if the village decides that the status quo is unacceptable.” Kerr believes. He also doubts that any of the complaining parties would want the Village to do anything that would lead to the building’s closure or curtailed access to the Post Office.

Faced with all these knotty problems, the village is trying another approach. They have provided Greenburgh Tax Assessor Edye McCarthy with information needed to calculate the value of the property and then send Mr. DeGennaro a tax bill. Kerr, the residents of Hudson House and those concerned with the train station’s historical significance are hoping that will get his attention. “Meanwhile,” says Kerr, “the building continues to disintegrate.”

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