These community builders enhanced Mamaroneck and Larchmont by blazing a trail, creating organizations or institutions, bringing distinction to the community, or inspiring or informing others.

More Mamaroneck and Larchmont notables: Read the other parts of the series

This is one of a series of pages on notable residents of Mamaroneck and Larchmont.

Here are the other parts. Tap the links to go to those pages:

• Actors, entertainers, singers: Matt and Kevin Dillon, Joan Rivers, Carly Rose Sonenclar and many more.

• Directors and writers: Ang Lee, D.W. Griffith, Robert Ripley ('Believe It or Not'), Edward Albee ('Virginia Woolf'), Gail Sheehy ('Passages') and more.

• List: 21 from Mamaroneck High School who became famous

• Athletes, including World Series hero Scott Leius.and Yankees ‘Iron Man’ Lou Gehrig

• Artists including Norman Rockwell.

• At a glance: 50 celebrities from Mamaroneck and Larchmont, past and present.

  Plus

• Street names: The notable people behind Mamaroneck’s street names.

Notable community trail blazers

1943: Battista 'Busty' J. Santoro is Mamaroneck’s first Italian-American mayor, coined 'Friendly Village' motto

Battista J. Santoro (1901-1980), known as "Busty," served as a village trustee from 1937-43 then four terms as mayor from 1943-51, the first Italian-American elected to that post.

He was born in Raccura, Sicily, but his family moved to Mamaroneck in 1905 and he graduated from Mamaroneck High School in 1920.

In June 1945 while he was mayor, a committee was planning the 50th anniversary of the village’s 1895 incorporation. The Daily Times reported: “In opening the meeting, Mayor B.J. Santoro set the keynote for the celebration when he said he hoped it would emphasize the friendliness of Mamaroneck and would achieve the purpose of bringing together residents and neighbors from all parts of the village. ‘Mamaroneck - the Friendly Village’ was adopted as the theme for the observance.” Santoro ordered the motto printed on village stationery. Village residents embrace the sentiment to this day.

Below: Read two news stories from 1945 chronicling the origin of ‘Mamaroneck - The Friendly Village’ as the village’s motto:

When he resigned as mayor, The Daily Times in an editorial said, “Mr. Santoro has been the Friendly Village personified.”

After serving as mayor, Battista Santoro was a Mamaroneck Town councilman from 1956-61, Mamaroneck Village's third manager from 1961-65, and Playland Park general superintendent from 1965-70.

Santoro knew construction because he partnered with his father in Carmello Santoro & Son construction company. The company helped build St. Vito's Church at no profit to itself.

Sources:

• “Varied Events To Mark 50th Year of Village,” with account of origin of ‘Mamaroneck – The Friendly Village,’ slogan, The Daily Times, June 21, 1945.

• ‘The Friendly Village Now Official Slogan,’ The Daily Times, Sept. 11, 1945.

• Battista Santoro welcomed to village board as new trustee, The Daily Times, April 6, 1937.

• Editorial: ‘Regretable Loss,’ on Santoro’s resignation as mayor, The Daily Times, Jan. 3, 1951.

• "B.J. 'Busty' Santoro dies at 78, The Daily Times, Oct. 15, 1980.

• “Italian Americans make mark in Mamaroneck,” The Daily Times, Oct. 12, 1992.

Timeline: Sampling of Local ‘Firsts’

Profiles continue below timeline

1943: Mamaroneck elects its first Italian-American mayor, Battista 'Busty' J. Santoro

1950: Mamaroneck appoints its first Black police officer raised in the village, Robert E. Taylor

1954: Mamaroneck Village elects first female trustee, Josephine O’Connell

1957: First Black teacher to teach regularly in the Mamaroneck schools, James C. Hall

1960: First woman synagogue president in NY metro area elected, Fayvelle Mermey, at Larchmont Temple

1969: First female town supervisor in Westchester elected, Christine Helwig of Mamaroneck Town

1975: First Black member elected to Mamaroneck Board of Education, Lloyd King, later Westchester’s first Black elections commissioner

1977: Mamaroneck elects first woman mayor, Suzi Oppenheimer

1980: First Black resident to have Mamaroneck park named for him, Richard 'Bub' Walker, Washingtonville youth activities leader

1984: First woman mayor of Larchmont elected, Miriam Curnin

1984: Mamaroneck Village hires first woman police officer

1984: Larchmont's appoints first woman volunteer firefighter

1985: Mamaroneck's first Black fire chief elected, David Vaughn

1986: Mamaroneck Town Fire Department hires first female paid firefighter in Westchester

1987: Mamaroneck Town and Larchmont hire their first woman police officers

2021: Mamaroneck Village’s appoints its first woman police chief, Sandra DiRuzza

2023: Mamaroneck elects its first Hispanic mayor, Sharon Torres

1950: Robert E. Taylor becomes Mamaroneck’s first Black police officer raised in the village

Robert E. Taylor (1914-1995) became Mamaroneck Village's second Black police officer and the first born and raised in Mamaroneck.

Taylor excelled in football at Mamaroneck High School and graduated in 1935, according to an obituary in The Daily Times of Mamaroneck. During World War II, he served with the Army in the Pacific.

Taylor was hired as a probationary patrolman on Jan. 1, 1950, and appointed permanently on April 1, 1950. In 1952, he saved the lives of a couple who had been overcome by coal gas, earning a commendation. In 1958, he revived a child who had stopped breathing. He also assisted in the delivery of a baby.

Taylor joined the detective bureau in 1971. He served on the village's Traffic Commission in the late 1970s.

Sources:

• Robert E. Taylor obituary, The Daily Times of Mamaroneck, Feb. 23, 1995.

• Robert E. Taylor joins the Police Department, The Daily Times, April 1, 1950

• Robert E. Taylor appointed a probationary patrolman, The Daily Times, Dec. 13, 1949.

1954: Josephine O’Connell elected Mamaroneck Village’s first female trustee

Josephine O’Connell (1896-1967) was elected to the village Board of Trustees in March 1954, the first woman ever, though more headline-worthy at the time was her being the first Democratic board member in 20 years.

“Our village needs the woman’s point of view,” the former Rye Neck High School teacher and League of Women Voters president told a campaign gathering a week before the election. “We have a population more than half female which is unrepresented … I can speak for the women of this village and give voice to viewpoints which generally are unheard.”

O’Connell served two terms and in 1958 lost in a try for a third term when the Republicans regained full control of the village board.

Sources

• Josephine O’Connell speaks at campaign gathering, The Daily Times of Mamaroneck, March 9, 1954.

• “Democrats Defeated in Board Races,” The Daily Times, March 19, 1958.

• Josephine O’Connell obituary, The Standard-Star of New Rochelle, Jun 19, 1967.

1957: James C. Hall is first Black teacher to teach regularly in Mamaroneck schools

James C. Hall taught sixth grade at Chatsworth Avenue School beginning in September 1957. He rose to principal of Mamaroneck Avenue School in 1963-64 after a year as a system-wide resource teacher. The Bronx resident resigned in 1965 to become coordinator of demonstration schools in the Virgin Islands School System.

“Jim Hall has been in this district only eight years,” Mamaroneck Schools Superintendent Bernard Haake said at the time of Hall’s resignation, “but in that short time he earned the respect and admiration of the entire community. He is leaving to accept a position of heavy responsiblility.”

Hall had traveled to the Virgin Islands in 1962 as a member of a New York University team evaluating the teaching staff there. Hall received a master’s degree from NYU that year. He had earned a bachelor’s degree from Brown University and spent three years in the Marine Corps.

Sources:

Mamaroneck hires first Black teacher, The Daily Times of Mamaroneck, May 14, 1957.

“Gingrich, Hall Resign School Principal Posts,” with profile: “Hall Served System For Eight Years,” The Daily Times, Feb. 10, 1965.

1960: Fayvelle Mermey is first woman synagogue president in NY metro area

Fayvelle Mermey (c. 1916-1977) was elected president of the Larchmont Temple for 1960-61 and served again from 1972-74. When elected in 1960, the Larchmont resident was the first woman president of a temple in the metropolitan area and one of the few in the United States. She had been serving as first vice president, one of several temple offices she had held.

She told the New York Times she did not think of herself as a feminist. “I was elected because I have the ability to do the job, not because I was breaking ground for women.”

As president, she founded the Women’s Interfaith Seminar for Larchmont Jewish and Christian women.

A graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she worked for The Daily Times of Mamaroneck from 1964 to 1970 as a feature writer and columnist.

Sources:

• “Mrs. Mermey Named as Temple President – First Woman to Hold Post,” The Daily Times of Mamaroneck, April 8, 1960.

• “Favelle Mermey, 61, First Woman To Head Her Synagogue, Is Dead,” The New York Times, March 14, 1977.

1969: Christine Helwig becomes first female town supervisor in Westchester

Christine Helwig (c. 1914-2009) served as Mamaroneck Town supervisor from 1969 to 1976.

During her tenure, she successfully pushed to reroute 60 percent of jet traffic from residential communities near Long Island Sound. She headed a Thruway Noise Abatement Committee devoted to quieting the noise from the New England Thruway, the beginnings of a fight that decades later led to erection of sound barriers. Passionate about conservation, she persuaded Westchester County to turn over to the town 54 surplus acres that became the Leatherstocking and Sheldrake trails.

A Republican, she had been appointed to the Town Board in 1959 by Supervisor George Burchell after she worked with a Republican reform group to get him elected. She was deputy supervisor and when Supervisor Peter F. Kane Jr. died and she became supervisor and went on to be elected several times.

In 1969 some were skeptical of a woman as town supervisor. A big snowstorm hit that January. “So I went down to the highway garage and volunteereed to take messages to the men, who otherwise would have been tied up with the phone, could go out and work,” she told Journal News columnist Phil Reisman in 1999. ”The thing was that I got a lot of very annoyed calls, one of which was from a man who said, ‘I suppose now that we have a woman supervisor, the roads won’t be cleared for a week!’ And I said, ‘Sir, I am your woman supervisor, and I am manning the phone so that men can work’”

There was a stunned silence from the caller. “The man just shut up and hung up!” She added, “It was a great moment for me.”

As town supervisor, Helwig also served on the Westchester County Board of Supervisors, which held an annual golf dinner. “It was an all-male affair and I was not invited,” she recounted in a 1988 interview. “I wrote them a letter because I thought it was an insult to the town, not to me. Eventually, they apologized.”

She had encountered politics from an early age. She was born in Stanford, Calif. Her father was a history professor and Herbert Hoover was a neighbor and family friend. Her family had tea with the Hoovers in the White House.

Her family moved to New Rochelle in 1926 and she attended New Rochelle High School and Vassar College. She and her husband settled on Seton Roadin Mamaroneck in 1941 and the mother of two daughters got involved in the PTA, then served on the Mamaroneck Board of Education from 1949-59 and chaired it from 1949 to 1955. She lived in town for 57 years.

Westchester’s first female mayor was Edith Welty, who was mayor of Yonkers in the 1940s. The first mayor of a Westchester village was Betty Potter in Mount Kisco, elected in 1957.

Sources:

• “Helwig led the way for women – and peace and quiet,’ Phil Reisman column The Journal News, Jan. 12, 1999.

• “The first woman supervisor in Westchester: Christine Helwig broke the ice,” The Reporter Dispatch, Dec. 4, 1988.

• “Spotlight on…Christine Helwig, Real No. 1,” The Daily Times of Mamaroneck, Jan. 4, 1971.

1975: Lloyd King is first Black resident elected to Mamaroneck Board of Education, became Westchester’s first Black elections commissioner

Lloyd King (about 1927-1999) served on the Mamaroneck school board from 1975 to 1978. In the 1990s, he became Westchester County’s first Black elections commissioner.

In the 1960s while living in Mount Vernon, he had played a major role in efforts to desegregate that city’s schools. In 1964 he sued on behalf of his son Jeffrey, then a 5-year-old kindergartner. Years of legal wrangling followed and the state finally ordered the schools integrated. Students from the predominantly Black South Side could attend North End schools when space was available.

Still dissatisfied with Mount Vernon schools and the city’s racial tensions, King and his wife, Barbara, moved to Larchmont in 1974. He was elected to the Mamaroneck school board the following year.

Sources:

• ‘Desegregation Effort in Mt. Vernon Is Advocate's Legacy,’ The New York Times, Dec. 19, 1999

• “Lives Lived Well And the Lessons That They Teach,” The New York Times, Jan. 2, 2000.

1977: Suzi Oppenheimer elected Mamaroneck's first woman mayor, later spent 3 decades in state Senate

Suzi Oppenheimer (born in 1934) worked as a securities analyst on Wall Street before going into politics and in 1977 became the first woman elected mayor of Mamaroneck Village.

With little expectation of victory in a then-predominantly Republican village, she nevertheless campaigned door to door, a rarity, and won, with some potentially skeptical male voters apparently concluding that because she had an MBA she would cut taxes, she told the Mamaroneck Historical Society. She also had been president of the Mamaroneck League of Women Voters and the Parent-Teachers Association of Central School.

Oppenheimer served four terms as mayor, then won election to the state Senate in 1984 and served until 2013.

In the Senate, in 2009 she became the first woman to chair the Senate Standing Committee on Education.

Before going into politics, she worked as an industry analyst for L. F. Rothschild & Company. She headed to Wall Street after earning a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Business, one of the first women to do so.

Sources:

• Mamaroneck Historical Society conversation with Suzi Oppenheimer, Nov. 19, 2024.

• "Women expand their influence in public," The Daily Times, Nov. 8, 1985

• "36th District hopefuls key on jobs, late budgets," The Daily Times, Oct. 17, 1996

• Former Sen. Suzi Oppenheimer page, New York State Senate.

• Suzi Oppenheimer profile on Ballotpedia.

1980: Richard 'Bub' Walker, Washingtonville youth activities leader, was first Black resident to have Mamaroneck park named for him

Richard "Bub" Walker became the first black community member to have a park named for him when a minipark at Plaza Avenue and Grand Street was dedicated in 1980.

Walker organized the first all-black drum corps in Mamaroneck, taught youngsters to box, and served as a scoutmaster.

While attending Mamaroneck High School, Walker played end for the football team and earned all-state honors. He later played semi-pro football with the Mamaroneck Dodgers.

In 1957, Walker was one of the first members when Mamaroneck created a Recreation Council.

Sources:

• Park dedicated to Richard 'Bub' Walker, The Daily Times, June 2, 1980

• "Mamaroneck Gets Recreation Council," The Daily Times, April 9, 1957.

1984: Miriam Curnin elected first woman mayor of Larchmont

Miriam Curnin (born about 1934) was elected Larchmont’s first female mayor in 1984 after serving three years as a village trustee. A Democrat, the former English teacher served for eight years as mayor before retiring from office in 1992. Curnin was succeeded by a woman, Cheryl Lewy, also a former village trustee.

Upon winning re-election in 1986, Curnin told The Daily Times of Mamaroneck, “I think I work with effectiveness and that’s apparent to the electorate.”

Curnin was elected twice more.

Sources:

• “Village elections: Larchmont and Buchanan elect first woman mayors,” The Daily Times of Mamaroneck, March 21, 1984.

• Miriam Curnin elected to second term, The Daily Times, March 23, 1986.

• Miriam Curnin unopposed for fourth term as mayor, The Daily Times of Mamaroneck, Jan. 31 and March 13, 1990.

1985: David Vaughn, Mamaroneck's first Black fire chief, active in recreation, King Award honoree

David Vaughn was elected second assistant chief of the Mamaroneck Fire Department in April 1985, becoming the department's first black chief. In 1987, he served as chief of the entire department.

Vaughn told a community gathering in 2009 that he wasn’t aiming to break down barriers when he joined the department, but he had always been enchanted by firefighting, according to The New York Times. He was turned down at all five firehouses, volunteer departments that recruited through friendship and family relationships. He persisted, won referrals from firefighters who knew his family, and on June 17, 1970, was accepted at Volunteer Engine and Hose Company No. 3, an Italian company. Then, he spent 15 years with Engine and Hose Company, serving in every office, until being made an assistant chief.

When he became assistant chief, he said four of Mamaroneck's five fire companies had no black or Hispanic firefighters. "I hope I can be an example ot enable people to recognize that the success of any village depends on the people," he told The Daily Times then.

Vaughn was also active in recreation as chairman of the Larchmont-Mamaroneck NAACP Youth Commission, member of the village's Recreation and Parks Commission, and director of the Twilight Basketball League. In 1980, the league's Most Valuable Player Award was renamed The David Vaughn Most Valuable Player Award.

In 1996 at age 55, he received a Mamaroneck Martin Luther King Jr. Award for his 25 years of volunteering, and in 2000 the Washingtonville Housing Alliance honored him.

Sources:

• “Witness to Change, but Still Cautious,” including how David Vaughn’s journey to become a volunteer firefighter, The New York Times, Feb. 5, 2009.

• David Vaughn called village's MVP, The Daily Times, July 8, 1985.

• David Vaughn reappointed to Recreation Commission, The Daily Times, April 5, 1966.

• Mamaroneck Village Fire Department list of past chiefs.

2021: Sandra DiRuzza named Mamaroneck Village’s first woman police chief

Sandra DiRuzza, born and raised in Mamaroneck, became the village’s first woman chief of police in 2021 after 18 years with the department. She got interested in law enforcement thinking about how she could make a difference after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

She joined the department in 2004, and rose to detective in 2008, sergeant in 2015 and lieutenant in 2018. She was the department’s first female DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) officer, teaching the program at Rye Neck Middle School, Mamaroneck Avenue School and Westchester Day School between 2006 and 2011. In 2007, she was assigned to create the department’s Domestic Violence Unit and still instructs new recruits on the topic at the Westchester County Police Academy.

Upon becoming chief, she told The Journal News that she hoped to show other women that they could reach higher positions within departments or companies.

Sources:

“Mamaroneck appoints first female police chief,” The Journal News, Oct. 29, 2020.

Chief Sandra DiRuzza biography, Mamaroneck Police Department website.

2023: Sharon Torres becomes first Hispanic mayor of Mamaroneck

Sharon Torres, a human resources executive, defeated three-term incumbent Democrat Tom Murphy in November 2023 to become Mamaroneck Village's first Hispanic mayor.

Torres, a lifelong Democrat, ran on an independent Building Bridges line on a ticket with incumbent Democratic Trustee Nora Lucas.

Torres works as chief human resources officer for Catholic Guardian Services.

"I felt like having moved from the Bronx up to here that I had found this really friendly little village by the water," she says in an interview on the village website, "and I have found over time, particularly probably because of national politics and the very divisive nature of that, but it's trickled down and it's trickled down not just to our local politics but to people.... there is this feeling of just if we don't agree then that's it, we're done, and I don't see people saying hello anymore and I don't see the same level of friendliness that I saw before....

“So, one of the things that I love is that I've started to see a little bit of that pick up.... so I hope that we're heading back towards maybe a different version of The Friendly Village. I want people to feel more relaxed and more happy about living here.”

Sources:

'In Mamaroneck Village, outsider Sharon Torres becomes first Hispanic woman mayor,' lohud.com, Nov. 9, 2023.

Sharon Torres interview (video), Mamaroneck Village website.

Notable community-builders

These notables created an organization or facility or brought distinction to the community.

Gloria Poccia Pritts: led 1816 Schoolhouse move to Harbor Island Park

Gloria Poccia Pritts (1924-2021), longtime Mamaroneck Village historian and president of the Mamaroneck Historical Society, led the effort to save the 1816 Schoolhouse and move it to Harbor Island Park.

The “little schoolhouse” was first at Mount Pleasant and Mamaroneck avenues, where Smashburger is now. The school grew too small, was sold in 1855, moved with oxen and wagons to 229 Waverly Ave., and became a residence, according to a 2010 Patch feature article.

In 1993, descendants of the family that had owned it since 1855 put it up for sale. Pritts asked if Mamaroneck could have the building. “They said they’d be happy to give it to the town if it could be moved off the property,” she told Patch in 2010.

With the help of volunteers, the house was moved to its present spot along Boston Post Road in Harbor Island Park and renovated to show what it would have been like in its school days, complete with bell tower, ink wells, and a wood-burning furnace that would have been tended by students. For a number of years, school classes took field trips there and found Pritts in Colonial dress.

“Each child is given chalk and a small slate board to write on. We read from primers of that era,” Pritts said in 2010.

The Mamaroneck Historical Society, which owns the building, opens it to the public the last Sunday afternoon of every month.

As Mamaroneck Historical Society president and village historian, Pritts worked to preserve landmarks and educate residents on local history. Among other projects, she strove to make the Historic Harbor Street Fair a walk through Mamaroneck history.

For many years Pritts for the Mamaroneck schools running the instructional materials center.

Sources:

• “The 1816 Schoolhouse: A loving renovation of a historical building allows children to study like it’s pre-Civil War times,” Larchmont-Mamaroneck Patch, June 9, 2010.

• Gloria Poccia Pritts obituary notice, Jan. 12, 2021.

Mike Chiapparelli: beloved baseball, hockey coach has led Mamaroneck teams to 4 state championships

Mike Chiapparelli, known as “Chap,” led teams that won three state Class AA baseball championships (2003, 2008, 2009, 2015), one ice hockey Division 1 state championship (2016), and in both sports a total of 12 sectional championships.

He is a fixture in the Mamaroneck-Larchmont community. “Chiapparelli is known by many for his eccentricities – whether it’s shorts in freezing temperatures, 6 a.m. runs on Mamaroneck’s campus or his fast-talking style,” Vincent Z. Mercogliano wrote in The Journal News in 2015 when “Chap” entered the Westchester Sports Hall of Fame. “But….there is an undying sense of loyalty and respect from those who have flourished under his guidance. He’s been one of the most successful baseball and hockey coaches ever in Westchester County.”

Besides the Westchester Sports Hall, in 2019 Chiapparelli was inducted into the New York State Baseball Hall of Fame.

Longtime assistant Artie Bruno said in 2015, “He’s the greatest motivator that I’ve ever met. He was born to coach. It’s what he lives and dies for.”

Chiapparelli was also born to wear Mamaroneck’s black and orange. He starred in baseball and football at Mamaroneck High and graduated in 1974. He taught physical education in the Mamaroneck schools for 45 years before retiring from teaching – but not coaching – in 2024.

“About all I have in my closet is black and orange T-shirts and jackets and coats,” he told The Journal News in 2015.

Sources:

• “Mamaroneck coach ‘Chap’ enters Westchester Hall of Fame, Vincent Z. Mercogliano, The Journal News, Oct. 21, 2015.

• Coach Michael Chiapparelli inducted into the NY State Baseball Hall of Fame, Mamaroneck schools, Nov. 4, 2019: https://www.mamkschools.org/cf_enotify/view.cfm?n=472

• “Mamaroneck ices 1st state championship,” The Journal News, March 13, 2016.

• Mike Chiapparelli retires from teaching, but not coaching. The Globe, The Student News Site of Mamaroneck High School, July 21, 2024.

Martha Lopez-Hanratty: a founder of Hispanic Resource Center, KEEPS

Martha Lopez-Hanratty (born in 1958) co-founded the Hispanic Resource Center of Larchmont/Mamaroneck in 1998 (later the Community Resource Center) with Olga Ochoa and served as its president for two years. It was one of several community groups Lopez-Hanratty played significant roles in locally as well as in Westchester and more recently New Rochelle.

In Mamaroneck/Larchmont, she was also a founding member of the board of KEEPS after-school program, served as Emelin Theater board of directors secretary, and was assistant director of the Washingtonville Housing Alliance for 18 years. For their work with the Hispanic community, Lopez-Hanratty and Ochoa shared the Dr. Martin Luther King Human Rights Award in 2000.

In 1992, Lopez-Hanratty was the first Hispanic candidate to run for Mamaroneck Village public office when Democrats nominated her for the Village Board. However, she and the other Democratic candidates lost in a Republicans sweep.

A native of Mexico who came to the U.S. at 15, Lopez-Hanratty told a King Day panel in 1993 about the sting of discrimination after she became a naturalized citizen. “I came to realize that the rights of all Americans – white, Black, Latino and Asian – was what Dr. King was fighting for.” His dream is for “anyone who believes in equality for all.”

Lopez-Hanratty, whose father was a laborer and mother a worker in a factory, graduated from Mamaroneck High School in 1977 and went on to Lehman College then earned a master’s in social work from Columbia University. Her parents had wanted her to get an education, but “I don’t think they ever dreamed about the Ivy League,” Lopez-Hanratty told the Mamaroneck Historical Society.

Outside of Mamaroneck, Lopez-Hanratty was Westchester County’s director of Hispanic affairs from 2001-09 and in 2018 she was appointed assistant to the County Executive – Immigrant and Community Affairs. She has also been active in the Minority Women Business Enterprise Program.

She has lived in New Rochelle since 2005 and was elected to the New Rochelle City Council in 2020 and continues to serve as a councilwoman.

In 2023, Mamaroneck Village elected its first Hispanic mayor, Sharon Torres.

Sources:

• Mamaroneck Historical Society Interview with Martha Lopez-Hanratty, Nov. 4, 2024.

• “Mamaroneck Democrats nominate Martha Lopez: Washingtonville Housing Alliance administrator becomes village’s 1st Hispanic candidate,” The Daily Times of Mamaroneck, Jan. 29, 1992.

• “GOP takes control of board,” The Daily Times, March 18, 1992.

• “Panel finds King’s dream still a dream,” The Daily Times, Jan. 14, 1993.

• Martha Lopez-Hanratty and Olga Ochoa joint recipients of 13th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Award, The Journal News, Jan. 11 and 13, 2000.

• “Day laborers find ally amid chaos,” The Journal News, May 29, 2001

• Council Member Martha Lopez-Hanratty biography, New Rochelle city website.

Olga Ochoa: Hispanic Resource Center co-founder helped link Hispanic residents to services

Olga Ochoa (born in 1949) did outreach to the Hispanic community for Mamaroneck Village and in 1999 co-founded the Hispanic Resource Center of Larchmont/Mamaroneck (later the Community Resource Center) with Martha Lopez-Hanratty.

Many of the people Ochoa helped “were not speaking English at all,” Ochoa told the Mamaroneck Historical Society about her village outreach work from 1988 to 1992. “They were educated. I remember (a) doctor who was working at the gas station. I was filling my tank with gas. I don’t know what we were talking about, but he said, ‘I’m a doctor.’” She met another immigrant doctor who was working cleaning houses.

Ochoa herself, oldest of five children, grew up in Guatemala, in Guatemala City, and studied there to become a teacher, graduating from an institute. At age 19, she came to the United States, following her father and a brother. Her father worked as a welder for Derecktor boatyard in Mamaroneck. Olga Ochoa commuted to New York City to learn English and worked packing tomatoes at a factory on Palmer Avenue.

She and her husband, from Mexico, lived in Mexico for four years then returned to Mamaroneck, and she went to work for the village, part time. She said she helped Spanish-speaking residents from all over Westchester with various problems and informed them about services available to them.

When helping residents on housing, she worked with Martha Lopez-Hanratty, who was with the Washingtonville Housing Alliance. That led the two of them to create the Hispanic Resource Center in 1999. It was first called Voz y Vida and later the Community Resource Center. Lopez was the first president and Ochoa the vice president. Ochoa was involved with the center for five years.

“We knew that we were not enough to help all the people, and we had support of many people in Larchmont and Mamaroneck to have the idea of (a) Hispanic Resource Center,” Ochoa recalled.

In 2000, Ochoa and Lopez-Hanratty shared the Dr. Martin Luther King Human Rights Award for their work with the Hispanic community.

Trained as a teacher in Guatemala, Ochoa, a married mother of three, worked as a teaching assistant at Mamaroneck Avenue School for 25 years and helped Spanish-speakers there as well, working with the school’s social worker. She retired in 2016. Ochoa resided in Mamaroneck for 20 years and has lived in New Rochelle since 1999. Her daughter is a teacher, one son a car dealership manager, and the other a psychologist.

Sources:

• Mamaroneck Historical Society Interview with Olga Ochoa, Nov. 4, 2024.

• “Q&A with Olga Ochoa: Hispanic liaison helps immigrants cope with new life,” The Daily Times, July 3, 1989.

• Olga Ochoa and Martha Lopez-Hanratty joint recipients of 13th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Award, The Journal News, Jan. 11 and 13, 2000.

• “Helping Hispanic Clients Adjust to a New Life,” The New York Times, Feb. 27, 2000.

• “34 Get Tenure ,” Larchmont Gazette, April 18, 2006.

Bishop Alfred Powell: longtime Stait Gate pastor was force behind community center

Bishop Alfred Powell (1927-1984) was pastor of Strait Gate Church in Mamaroneck for 26 years and led an effort to build a community center.

Bishop Powell dreamed of building a youth center, and the Martin Luther King Community Center was completed in 1978.

The Rev. Dr. Calvin G. Sampson of Shiloh Baptist Church of New Rochelle wrote, “The Strait Gate Church family’s spiritual life and the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center, which was bult under his leadershp reflect the work of a man who was committed to the cause of Christ, dedicated to duty and pledged to progress.”

Wayne Powell added of his father, "His greatest concern was the idea of the community and people coming together....and sharing and becoming more sensitive to each other's needs."

"His nature was that of a giver," his son, Wayne Powell, told The Daily Times on his father's death. "and that is what he tried to instill in us. Since we have been in this house (25 years), more than 70 people have lived with us because they needed a home. We always had an extra one or two people. Some lived with us for years and others for a few days, both whites and blacks."

Wayne Powell succeeded his father as Strait Gate’s pastor. Over the years, the community center’s services included a shelter for homeless men in the mid-1980s and a day laborer hiring site around 2007.

The church is now located in Mount Vernon, with Wayne Powell still its spiritual leader. The former community center is now the home of Swim Tank swimming programs.

Sources:

• Bishop Alfred Powell's obituary in The Daily Times of Mamaroneck, April 9, 1984.

• “In Mamaroneck, Taking a More Hospitable Approach to Day Laborers,” The New York Times, June 13, 2007.

• Church recently designated as shelter for homeless men, The Daily Times, Jan. 8, 1986.

• Swim Tank website.

Mamaroneck community figures with buildings named after them

F.E. Bellows: Rye Neck educator for whom school is named

Frederick E. Bellows (1861-1954), Rye Neck schools superintendent for 34 years, attained what The Daily Times called “the crowning achievement of his career” when a school was named for him on his retirement in 1934. At the time, the school on Carroll Avenue was the high school and became Frederick E. Bellows High School; it is now F.E. Bellows Elementary School.

Bellows was born in Vergennes, Vermont, a ninth-generation descendant of Elder William J. Brewster, one of the Pilgrim Fathers who landed at Plymouth Rock on the Mayflower. Bellows taught at Delphi Academy in Brooklyn before joining Rye Neck as a teacher by 1892. He served as Rye Neck High School principal as well as superintendent..

He was profiled in a 1928 article in The Daily Times and The Mamaroneck Paragraph and discussed his 42 years in education.

The reporter writes that Bellows "gives the impression of being ...as full of enthusiasm for his profession as he was when he embarked on it some forty years ago, mild mannered and pleasant...he directs the destinies of Rye Neck schools, with a firm, (yet) gentle hand, and has succeeded in placing it high in the ranks of the schools of this state, in point of scholastic record."

Bellows notes that during his time the number of subjects being taught had become "much greater and varied, and in their very variety present new attractions to the students."

But he cautions: "The one disadvantage in modern methods is that knowledge is liable to become more superficial. Studying as many different topics the students do not get so deep a grounding in essentials, and are not so sure of any one thing."

In 1893, the year after Bellows had joined the faculty, the Rye Neck district had 160 pupils. They were taught in one building on North Barry Avenue that had been built in 1857. That school was replaced in 1893. Those buildings stood where the Bellows faculty parking lot is now, across from Sedona Taphouse.

What is now F.E. Bellows Elementary School on Carroll Avenue was built in 1923 and was originally Rye Neck High School, with Bellows as its principal. By 1928, the Rye Neck district had grown to 800 pupils, according to The Daily Times.

Sources:

• F.E. Bellows, Educator, Dies: Former Superintendent Gave Name To Rye Neck High School, The Daily Times of Mamaroneck, May 7, 1954.

• Bellows Reviews His 40 Years as a School Teacher, The Daily Times and The Mamaroneck Paragraph, May 19, 1928

• Teachers Institute attendees listed (includes Frederick E. Bellows), The Paragraph of Mamaroneck, April 8, 1893.

• Other Mamaroneck Daily Times articles that mention Bellows, Oct. 19, 1925, and Oct. 15, 1931.

Daniel Warren: Rye Neck school named for him

Daniel Warren (1861-1931), for whom Rye Neck's Daniel Warren School is named, was an import company executive, one of Mamaroneck Village's first presidents (mayors), and a longtime member of the Rye Neck Board of Education, according to an obituary in the New York Times.

Warren was born in Rye Neck. According to HouseHistree.com., when he was about 20, he was working as a clerk at the Harrison train station. "One morning in 1881, he stopped Ulysses D. Eddy from falling in front of a train and in gratitude Eddy gave him his card. That fortunate encounter led to the start of his career with Coombs, Crosby, Eddy & Co., that eventually became better known as the American Trading Company." Warren worked his way up to become a company director and vice president.

In Mamaroneck, Warren served as president of the village - mayor - from 1902-10 and on the Rye Neck Board of Education from 1892-1928. The village's first sewers were installed while he was president.

He lived on Union Avenue. After retiring in 1916, he and his wife, Ellen Connolly Warren, had a house built on Alda Road in Shore Acres that looked out over Long Island Sound.

Sources:

• Daniel Warren profile, House Histree.com.

• Daniel Warren obituary, The New York Times, Sept. 18, 1931.

Emanuel Joseph Emelin: Theater named for him

Emanuel Joseph Emelin (1874-1940), for whom the Emelin Theater is named, operated Emelin's Pharmacy from 1909-39 on Mamaroneck Avenue where The Regatta is now. He also played a major role in the founding of the Mamaroneck Free Library, now the public library.

Emelin’s son Arthur Emelin (1904-1978) donated $360,000 to the library for the construction of the theater that opened in 1972 next door. The theater is named in memory of Arthur Emelin’s father.

Emanuel Emelin had been born Emanuel Joseph Yusselvich in Minsk, Russia, and his family immigrated to the United States around 1890. While crossing New York Harbor from Ellis Island, he is said to have noticed a river boat called “Emeline,” and changed his name to Emelin, according to an account in The Daily Item of Port Chester.

Emelin apprenticed at a New York City pharmacy before opening his own store in Mamaroneck.

Arthur Emelin helped out in his father’s pharmacy starting when he was 12 years old, and returned after obtaining a degree from the Columbia University School of Pharmacy in 1924. Later, he also ran the Mamaroneck Pathological Laboratory, then moved on to management positions at pharmaceutical firms. After retiring, he ran Topkapi arts and crafts store in Mamaroneck.

Upon his death in 1978, then-library Director Sally Poundstone said: “Arthur Emelin was a man with a vision for his village, and a dedication to the library which was a legacy from his father.”

Sources:

• '24-year-old theater named for library founder,' The Daily Times of Mamaroneck, Feb. 16, 1997.

• Emanuel Joseph Emelin profile in 'Biographies of Prominent Men,' The Daily Times, June 22, 1929

• 'E.J. Emelin Dies; Long Prominent in Civic Affairs,' The Daily Times, April 13, 1940

• ‘Theater benefactor Arthur Emelin dies,’ The Herald Statesman of Yonkers, Jan. 14, 1978.

• “The Emelin and Uris heaters make their formal, artistic bows,” The Daily Item of Port Chester, Nov. 24, 1972.

• ‘Though aged, the once ‘new star’ in Mamaroneck’s sky still shines, The Daily Item of Port Chester, April 12, 1998.

Mamaroneck and Larchmont notable local journalists, editors

George Forbes Sr.: newspaper publisher started Larchmont weekly, The Daily Times of Mamaroneck

George Forbes Sr. (1881-1973) came from a newspapering family. His father, George Morris Forbes, started the first newspaper in Mamaroneck, The Investigator, a weekly, in 1879. Three of George Forbes Sr.’s brothers were in the newspaper business, two in New Rochelle and one in Florida and other members of the extended Forbes family were in newspapers as well. Forbes family papers became six local daily newspapers in Westchester, in Mamaroneck, New Rochelle, Port Chester, Mount Vernon, White Plains and Ossining.

In 1900, George Forbes St. started a weekly newspaper, The Larchmont Times and later merged with with another weekly, The Larchmonter. Then, in 1925 he started The Daily Times of Mamaroneck. He published both newspapers until 1943, when the paper was sold.

See below the front page of the first edition of The Daily Times of Mamaroneck, Oct. 1, 1925. See a pdf version of the front page here.

Along the way, Forbes served as Larchmont’s postmaster for four years, appointed in 1915 by President Woodrow Wilson. Forbes was credited with the creation of local free mail delivery – on foot or via horseback – despite thoughts of making Larchmont a substation of New Rochelle.

His son Goerge P. Forbes Jr. (1911-1988) served as Larchmont village attorney under nine mayors from 1952 until 1981.

Sources:

• “Town Council Pays Tribute to G.P. Forbes,” The Daily Times, May 14, 1943.

• “Forbes Traces Local History of Newspapers,” The Daily Times, Oct. 9, 1943.

• ‘Newspapers are root of Forbes’ family tree,’ The Daily Times, Aug. 5, 1984.

• ‘Geo. P. Forbes, Elks Ruler 50 Years Ago, To Be Honored,’ The Daily Times, April 2, 1958.

• ‘Dean of municipal lawyers’ George P. Forbes Jr. dies, The Daily Times, Jan. 13, 1988.

Charles Rice, Mamaroneck Paragraph editor, 1901-24

Under Charles Rice’s 23-year tenure as editor, The Paragraph Mamaroneck weekly newspaper grew from four pages to 12. Rice was born about 1877, raised in West Boylston, Mass., and came to Westchester to work on the New Rochelle Paragraph, owned by his cousin Charles P. Nutt. When Nutt sold that newspaper, Charles Rice moved on to edit the Mamaroneck Paragraph, which had been founded in 1890 and which Nutt edited and managed for a time.

See below the front page of the first Mamaroneck Paragraph weekly newspaper, Oct. 4, 1890. View a pdf of the front page here:

The afternoon of March 31, 1924, Rice strolled from the Paragraph office to Emelin’s Drug Store on Mamaroneck Avenue. He was waiting to have an (unspecified) prescription filled when he collapsed and died of heart failure. He was 47. He and his wife, Clara Jensen Rice, had two sons.

“His interests have centered about Mamaroneck Village ever since he became editor of the paper here,” The Paragraph wrote in his obituary. “His thoughts have always been toward the progress and the harmony of the people here.”

Rice belonged to at least eight community organizations and served as an officer on several. He sang with the St. Thomas Episcopal Church choir for 20 years. Hundreds attended his funeral at St. Thomas, The Paragraph reported.

Thomas M. Kennett in the Pelham Sun wrote of Rice: “We liked Charley Rice – he was a type of sincere, clean-souled man, whose ideal was to publish a newspaper that could go into any home in the community and be read and appreciated by every member of the household. He succeeded.”

Sources:

• “Editor Charles F. Rice Dies Without Warning,” The Paragraph, April 3, 1924

• “Life of Charles Franklin Rice an Example of Simplicity and Love,” The Paragraph, April 3, 1924

• “Funeral Services of Charles Franklin Rice,” The Paragraph, April 10, 1924.

• Pelham Sun report on Charles F. Rice’s death, The Paragraph, April 10, 1924.

H. Richmond Campbell: Daily Times editor, general manager 1943-70

H. Richmond Campbell (1897-1984) spent 34 years with The Daily Times then in retirement explored local history in Mamaroneck’s Early Days, a historical reference work based on taped interviews with older residents.

As editor, Campbell would often say, “Always remember that in this newspaper what happens to a local resident is more important than what happens to the president of the United States,” according to longtime women’s page editor Ruth Taub.

Campbell became editor and general manager in 1943; he had joined the paper as city editor in 1937 after working as a reporter and editor in New York, New England, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and elsewhere in Westchester. In Mamaroneck he belonged to several community groups, and over his tenure a dozen organizations honored him for his community service. He received the Mamaroneck Rotary’s “Outstanding Citizen Award” in 1952 to “his fearless and objective treatment of the news.”

Source:

“H.R. Campbell, former editor, is dead at 86,” The Daily Times of Mamaroneck, April 8, 1984.

Ina Meyers, Daily Times reporter, editor 1961-1987

Ina Meyers (1921-1997) was a reporter and editor of The Mamaroneck Daily Times from 1961 to 1987. As an editor, she supported educational endeavors and preservation of parkland.

She was born in Warsaw, Poland, and arrived in America at age 13 “a small girl with the wrong clothes and another language.” She became proficient in English and studied at Hunter College, Columbia University and New York University.

She joined The Daily Times as a reporter in 1961, became city editor in 1968 and managing editor in 1974. From 1987 until retiring in 1990 she served on the Gannett Westchester Newspapers editorial board. Before joining the paper, she was active in the Mamaroneck schools while her three children attended.

Meyers saw great technical changes in newspapers during her career from typewriters to computers. She embraced the changes. “As for the old days, let others wax nostalgic. There was nothing very good about them except the people.”

Source:

• “Ina Meyers, retired Gannett editor, dies,” The Reporter Dispatch of White Plains, April 16, 1997.

• “A few parting words sans nostalgia,” Ina Meyers column, Gannett Westchester Newspapers, Nov. 23, 1990.

Share your tips, info on more Notables

The Mamaroneck-Larchmont Notables project is ongoing. Share suggestions for others to include by emailing the Mamaroneck Historical Society at MamaroneckHistory@gmail.com.

More Mamaroneck and Larchmont notables: Read the other parts of the series

This is one of a series of pages on notable residents of Mamaroneck and Larchmont.

Here are the other parts. Tap the links to go to those pages:

• Actors, entertainers, singers: Matt and Kevin Dillon, Joan Rivers, Carly Rose Sonenclar and many more.

• Directors and writers: Ang Lee, D.W. Griffith, Robert Ripley ('Believe It or Not'), Edward Albee ('Virginia Woolf'), Gail Sheehy ('Passages') and more.

• List: 21 from Mamaroneck High School who became famous

• Athletes, including World Series hero Scott Leius.and Yankees ‘Iron Man’ Lou Gehrig

• Artists including Norman Rockwell.

• At a glance: 50 celebrities from Mamaroneck and Larchmont, past and present.

  Plus

• Street names: The notable people behind Mamaroneck’s street names