I don’t know about you, but my history classes in high school were a big snooze—most of the time, I was bored out of my mind (how many times exactly do we need to learn about the War of 1812?) and, frankly, disinterested in the fuzzy photographs and in the so-called lives of George Washington’s army. But a funny thing happened on the road to maturity—I am now fascinated by the subject (the War of 1812 notwithstanding).
I’m not the only one. Our last history issue, January 2009, was a huge success. We know because you told us so. Our newsstand sales spoke loud and clear, too. There’s no arguing with success, so we decided to revisit the topic—in a photo essay format. And as the pictures rolled in (yes, some are fuzzy from the prehistoric pre-digital days), it was wonderful to watch the staff hover around, trying to figure out where exactly those wooden shacks they were looking at were then and what stands in their place today; giggling at the clothes worn by the men and women who used to call Westchester home; and wondering how their towns’ main streets changed so radically over the years.
We all know the saying that if you don’t learn from history, you’re doomed to repeat it. We’re not about to preach about doom and gloom (we had enough of that last year, thank you very much), but we hope you do learn something new about this county we call home and its history and that you have as much fun reading our cover story as we had creating it.
Esther Davidowitz
Editor-in-Chief
