Local HistorySeptember 28, 2017

A Walk through History

A Walk through History By Paul Hicks In his invaluable history of Rye (published in 1871), Charles W. Baird preserved important information about the community’s […]

Local HistoryJuly 18, 2017

Rye’s Public Beaches

A Bit of Local History Rye’s Public Beaches By Paul Hicks Credit our civic leaders for creating and preserving our beaches and shore-front park. In […]

Local HistoryJune 24, 2017

Tale of Wonder

By Paul Hicks The new film featuring Wonder Woman (aka Diana, Princess of the Amazons) has sparked widespread interest in the legendary comic book character, […]

Local HistoryJune 16, 2017

Putting Rye on the Map

By Paul Hicks <“A map does not just chart, it unlocks and formulates meaning; it forms bridges between here and there, between disparate ideas that […]

Local HistoryApril 24, 2017

When White Plains Was Part of Rye

By Paul Hicks Rye residents contended with rival claims to the territory they acquired more than once. The concept of “manifest destiny” was first promoted […]

Local HistoryApril 1, 2017

Long Island Sound, aka The Devil’s Belt

By Paul Hicks In 1614, five years after Henry Hudson sailed up the river that bears his name, a Dutch navigator, Adriaen Block (for whom […]

Local HistoryFebruary 2, 2017

Governing the City of Rye

By Paul Hicks

Livingston Platt served as mayor of the Village of Rye for twelve years before he became the City of Rye’s first mayor in 1942. Although he was a leader of the Republican Party in state and national politics, as mayor he took pride in being an independent and in making non-partisan appointments. 

When Platt resigned as mayor in 1943 to become head of the Westchester County Republican Committee, an editorial in The Rye Chronicle stated: 

“The one thing of which this community is most proud is the fact that party politics has never been considered in the choice of its public officials. Ever since Rye became an incorporated village, we have been holding Citizens Caucus meetings where the voters get together, Democrats and Republicans alike, and nominate their candidates for office. It is one of our most  cherished traditions…Rye is dominatingly Republican in county, state and  national elections, yet the Republicans who  live in Rye are independent enough in thought and action to fully realize that partisan politics have  no  place in a friendly, neighborly community of 10,000  inhabitants.”

Platt’s two successors as mayor — Julian Beatty and Grenville Sewell —were nominated by the Citizens Caucus, but in 1949, Karl T. Frederick ran successfully for mayor as a Republican. The Rye Chronicle acknowledged that non-partisan politics had ended by noting in an editorial that, “While defeated by decisive margins, the Democratic candidates can find substantial consolation in the fact that the margin of victory compiled by the Republicans was far less than in previous years.”

Throughout the 1950s, Rye was governed by Republicans, led by Mayors Joseph Hannan and Robert Hughes, although Hannan also had Democratic endorsements. In 1959, Rye voters had to decide whether to amend the City Charter to adopt a City Manager/Council form of government. A Rye Chronicle editorial counseled: “The City Manager Plan, so ardently supported by the Democrats should be entirely disassociated from the vote for party candidates.”

Former Mayor Livingston Platt told The Chronicle: “Rye does not need a city manager any more than it needs a paid mayor…It will cost the city a lot of money…Also, in many communities where a city manager has been employed, it has proven most unsuccessful…I cannot see why [the mayor] should be ‘kicked upstairs’ to chairman of the board…With the City Manager doing all of the work, we can expect to see the council meetings held monthly instead of every two weeks.” The City Manager Plan was adopted, and Platt’s predictions proved to be wrong.

Although the Republican candidate, Clay Johnson, won the contest for mayor in 1961, his Democratic opponent, John Carey, made a strong showing in winning 44 percent of the total vote. In a notable bi-partisan move by Mayor Johnson and his fellow Republicans, John Carey and Thomas Butler, both Democrats, were appointed to two of three vacancies on the City Council in 1963.   Carey was quoted as saying, “Democrats do not want control of the City Council, but…forty-five percent of the voters need representation.”

By 1967, Rye was rife with partisan politics. A Democratic advertisement read: “The City Council is no longer a one-party, one-voice administration, smug and complacent. The Democratic Councilmen have questioned, challenged, and probed…Responsive government has taken on new meaning in Rye the last four years. Two-party government has worked, and the need is greater than ever to keep an open mind and an open heart at City Hall.”

Local HistoryMarch 19, 2017

A Bit of Local History

By Paul Hicks

In the seventy-five years since Rye became a city there have been sixteen mayors. Some of the earlier mayors are still remembered, such as Livingston Platt (for gaining the city charter) and Edmund Grainger (for defeating the bridge). Others have long been forgotten by most of the community, including Karl T. Frederick, who served as mayor from 1948 to 1950. A multifaceted man, he was an Olympic gold medalist, a prominent conservationist, and a respected head of the NRA who favored gun controls.

The Frederick family finally settled in the Finger Lakes area, where Karl Karl Telford Frederick was born in 1881 in Chateaugay, a town in upstate New York on the Canadian border. His father, a Presbyterian minister, moved the family frequently to various communities in the region, and, in the process, Karl developed a lasting love of the Adirondacks.

After completing high school at the age of 16, he enrolled at Princeton University, his father’s alma mater, but family financial problems required him to cover the tuition costs by tutoring. He won the premier senior prize at graduation and was also awarded a fellowship for graduate study in Economics and Politics. Graduating from Princeton in 1903, Frederick spent a year at its graduate school, financing his studies by teaching at Lawrenceville School.