An Eyesore and a Plague

Bronxville wasn't exactly an estate village, since it wasn't incorporated under Section 33. (What is Section 33? That's the law that allowed rich people to incorporate their tiny neighborhoods as villages, which we talk about in the first three episodes.)
But, like estate villages, the village of Bronxville was the passion project of one man, a millionaire named William Van Duzer Lawrence. Biographers credited Lawrence's success to his thrift, prudence, and enterprise, but in fact he made his money selling a patent medicine called Fellows' Compound Syrup of Hypophosphites. Later in his career, Lawrence decided to pivot to property development. He bought 86 acres in the suburbs north of New York City, and invited artists and well-to-do professionals to live there.
But not everyone was invited to live in Bronxville. Certainly not the people of Tuckahoe, an adjacent hamlet that had the idea to incorporate as a village...and who wanted to include the neighborhood of Lawrence Park, the artist colony that Lawrence considered his own.

In 1910, Roswell Eldridge had it all: cars, yachts, money, and a beautiful beachside mansion. There was just one problem...
In New York, villages are a type of municipality. They were intended to be densely-populated places where officials could tax residents and provide infrastructure, like running water or sewers, with the proceeds. But in 1910, wealthy suburbanites like Roswell Eldridge managed to change Village Law so that they could incorporate their private estates into villages. They did that to exercise more control over their land, and also avoid paying property taxes for public works projects that they disapproved of.
This is the story of one of the first estate villages: Saddle Rock, which was almost exclusively composed of Roswell Eldridge's enormous private home.
Find notes here, including sources for all quotes read during the episode: https://www.aneyesoreandaplague.com/saddle-rock

Welcome to the Saddle Rock Bonus Episode! (If you haven’t listened to Episode 1 of this podcast, you may want to do that first, since we talk about how we made the episode here.)
Jon and Paulina talk about recording the music for Episode 1 of this podcast:

• How to play drums when you’re not a drummer (step 1: never think about how awesome you sound)
• Using VST (virtual) instruments, and why Mellotron presets sound like new money
• Why they did not put Wurlitzer electronic piano on every single song even though they kind of wanted to

Also! How to tell if you’re micing a speaker and not a shelf(?), on writing happy music instead of sad music, and a preview of Episode 2: Sands Point!
Notes and transcripts to the Saddle Rock episodes: https://www.aneyesoreandaplague.com/saddle-rock

In 1910, New York State made it possible for tiny neighborhoods to incorporate as villages. Some villages incorporated to dodge local taxes, or escape a school district they didn't feel like contributing towards. But many villages incorporated to prevent outsiders - even people who lived just a couple of miles away - from enjoying the public beaches within the village limits.
This episode is about Mill Neck, Bayville, and Sands Point, and how they manipulated local laws to keep the public off the public beaches.
Find notes and transcripts on our website: aneyesoreandaplague.com/the-beaches

In 1910, the New York State legislature made it possible to incorporate any neighborhood with at least 50 people into a village. (What is a village? We explain in Episode 1, but it's an unnecessarily cutesy synonym for "municipality." It's basically a very small city.)
In Episode 1, we talk about how a wealthy landowner named Roswell Eldridge incorporated his personal estate into a legal village, just so he could dodge local taxes. In this episode, a group of millionaires try to do the same thing to their neighborhoods: tiny, wealthy districts called Motts Point, Barkers Point, and Sands Point. Here, lawyers and suffragists live in lavish homes nestled among the mansions of Goulds and Guggenheims. It was the inspiration for East Egg in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. But although Sands Point is just minutes away from Roswell's Saddle Rock, the middle-class residents who lived just outside the village limits were horrified by the proposed incorporation. And they decided to fight back.
Find notes and transcripts to this episode here: https://www.aneyesoreandaplague.com/sands-point