The Rye community lost one of its most talented residents with the recent death of Paul Rheingold. Along with many others, I will remember him as an avid historian, writer, and publisher of books and articles about Rye’s history.
The first of his books was “Views of Rye 1917 & 2007,” published by The Rye Historical Society. In the introduction, Paul wrote that it was “two books in one. The first is a reproduction of the 96-page book, ‘View of Rye,’ which shows houses and various other scenes in and around Rye in 1917…. The second book shows the same views as of 2007, some ninety years later…. On occasion, where there is nothing to update, we have used views of places that did not exist in1917.”
Regarding the 245 photos of residences in the 1917 book, Paul wrote that “about 130 were still there in 2007,” and added: “It appears that Rye had undergone a period of major house building between 1914-1918. Farms and large tracts of land were being divided, and wealthy people were building.”
Paul also noted that the author of the 1917 book, Blakeman Quintard Meyer, was a New York City realtor, who ran a magazine advertisement in 1917, extolling shore-front estates in the Parsonage Point area of Rye.
According to Meyer, the population of Rye in 1917 was just over 5,000. For his wealthy prospective clients, he added “there were 166 firemen, with three auto apparatus and four horse-drawn plus 30 patrolmen in the summer (12 only needed in winter).” “Views of Rye 1917 & 2007” can be purchased from The Rye Historical Society (“The Square House”) at 1 Purchase Street.
Long before Paul wrote “Views of Rye,” he became a major collector of historic postcards (known as a “deltiologist”). In 2009, he selected about 220 Rye photos from his collection to include in a second book, published by Arcadia Publishing in its Postcard History Series. Titled just “Rye,” it can be purchased online from Amazon and from Arcadia.
The earliest photo postcards of Rye were made between 1905 and 1915, when the “picture” postcard industry flourished, due to increased tourism as well as improvements in photography and printing technology. At a talk about the book in 2009, Paul noted that the most interesting ones to him were the older ones, which could be purchased at local drug stores.
The book is divided into 10 chapters, each with a brief introduction. The first chapter, (“Downtown”) starts with a view (taken around 1906) of a trolley moving past the Square House on tracks set on an unpaved Purchase street. Other memorable views include one of “St. Benedict’s Home for Destitute Colored Children,” which was located on the Post Road for more than 60 years, and a photo of “Playland Airport and Flying Boats.”
As noted in his obituary, Paul donated his collection of more than 50,000 photographs and postcards to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst Libraries, where it is preserved in the Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center.
In 2022, Paul again collaborated with The Rye Historical Society to publish his third book: “The Streets of Rye — How They Got Their Names.” The introduction notes that the book is largely a history of more than 40 subdivisions of land in Rye. There are many maps, photographs, and real estate advertisements that are historically and visually interesting.
If you are interested in the name of a particular street, start with the index at the back of the book. For example, I grew up on Holly Lane in Loudon Woods, which is discussed in Chapter 3 (Subdivisions 1909-1920):
“Loudon Woods was a neat, self-contained subdivision of land formerly owned by Jared Peck,” for whom Peck Avenue was named.
Also interesting are the brief comments about streets named after civic leaders and other notable people, many of which are found in Chapter 6 (“Individual Streets Added After 1960”). In 2023, Westchester County renamed part of Playland Parkway “John Carey Place” in honor of a former Rye mayor, who had a long and distinguished career in public service.
Paul gave the rights to “The Streets of Rye: How They Got Their Names 2022” to the Rye Historical Society. It can be read online at ryehistory.org, but for those who have more than a casual interest, it can be purchased at the Square House gift shop for only $30.
Note: Readers of this column are invited to send me information about other street names that do not appear in this book, and I will attempt to research them with the aid of artificial intelligence, reporting any success in future columns.
