Sound Shore

Mamaroneck Avenue will host what is being billed as the first annual Sound Shore St. Patrick’s Day Parade Sunday, March 18 at noon.

The Sound Shore St. Patrick’s Day Parade committee is organizing the parade, which will featuring musicians, dancers, local schools, police, firefighters, pipes and drums bands, and representatives of the area’s Irish community. Jim Killoran, Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity of Westchester, has been named Grand Marshal.

According to organizers, confirmed marchers in the parade include:
Police Emerald Society of Westchester Pipes & Drums
Westchester & District Pipe Band
O’Rourke Academy of Irish Dance
Hendry School of Irish Dance
Galwaymen’s Assoc.
Byram Hill High School
Mamaroneck HS baseball team
Emerald Society Dept. of Sanitation Pipes & Drums
Habitat for Humanity High School Volunteers
Mamaroneck Elks Lodge 1457
Eastchester Irish American Social Club
Brassmen Drum & Bugle Corps.
Port Chester Fire Dept.Lynn Academy of Irish Dance
Westchester Firefighter Emerald Society Pipes & Drums
NYU Pipes & Drums
Westchester & District Pipe Band
Village of Mamaroneck Fire Dept.
Town of Mamaroneck Fire Dept.
Mamaroneck Youth Hockey Assoc.
Harrison Fire Dept.
Tipperary N&B Assoc.
Village of Mamaroneck Mayor Norm Rosenblum
NYU Pipes and Drums
Mamaroneck Avenue School
Salesian High School marching band

The parade will kick off at noon at Nostrand Ave., near Mamaroneck Avenue School, and proceed down Mamaroneck Avenue, ending at Harbor Island. Prior to the parade, a celebratory mass will be held at St. Vito’s Church at 9:30 a.m.

Sponsors include The Garden City Group, Inc.; Eastern Design Tile and Marble, Inc; The Spillane Group (Molly Spillane’s); Dunkin Donuts; Collins Brothers Moving Corp.; and Murphy Brothers Contracting.

For more information on participating in the parade, becoming a volunteer, or to support the parade as a sponsor, contact the committee at info@soundshoreparade.com

Here’s a story that wouldn’t ordinarily make the local news report.

It’s a love story from Larchmont, shared by art gallery owner Kenise Barnes. She helped conspire, with the best of intentions, in her employee’s recent engagement. And this is a good day to pass it along.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Romance lives.  It lives right here in our midst.  Cupid and Eros together could not have come up with a story as good as this.

Leanne is the charming, effusive Gallery Manager at Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Larchmont.  She and Jorge have been a couple since their student days at Stony Brook University.  Friday January 27th marked their six-year “anniversary,” and Jorge, being the romantic type, wanted to give his darling Leanne a surprise she will always remember.  It unfolded like this:

First, it’s important to know:  Leanne and Jorge have endured a lot of time apart.  An ambitious, young professional in the financial field, Jorge has been posted to his company’s Paris office for the last two years. Leanne joined him there for a number of months last summer, but their romance in the past half year has been sustained mostly with Skype and text messages.

The time had come to do something about that.  Leanne and Jorge both knew they were meant to be together, but Leanne had no idea they’d be together on the day of their sixth anniversary.  Or that she would receive a proposal and a diamond and the promise of a many more days together.

To pull this off, Jorge conspired with Leanne’s boss, Kenise Barnes, way back in November, and made her promise that, under no circumstances should Leanne be allowed to take January 27th off.  His worst fear was that she would fly to Paris to surprise him on the exact day he was flying to New York to surprise her.

Kenise, being a romantic type herself, was happy to oblige.  And she recruited Alex, the proprietor of Le Wine Shop on Palmer Avenue, to help.  Alex, as it turned out, was quite a romantic too, and pulled off his role brilliantly.

MAMARONECK—The Larchmont-Mamaroneck Local Summit will host a panel discussion entitled “Why we still Love our Libraries in the Digital, E-Book Age,” from 7:45 to 9 a.m. Tuesday at Nautilus Diner, 1240 E. Boston Post Rd.

Guests will get to meet two new, local public library directors —Mamaroneck’s Susan Riley and Larchmont’s Laura Eckley. The panelists will be Linda Costelloe, Rye Neck’s Daniel Warren School library media specialist; Tina Pantginis, Mamaroneck High School librarian; Riley and Eckley.

Camp Mah-Kee-Nac, Massachusetts, assistant director Tracey Singer, far right, talks with potential camp family, from left, Michelle, Eddie and Jordan, 9, Dowdell of White Plains at the Family Camp Fair Tour at Mamaroneck High School on Feb. 11, 2012. Families met with several different camp directors from local day camps and sleep-away camps from across the region to explore their options for the summer. ( Xavier Mascareñas / The Journal News )

See more photos in a gallery online, and for the story go to LoHud.com.

Mamaroneck, Pelham, Harrison and New Rochelle have all had reports of armed robberies in recent weeks near local train stations. Rye police sent out an alert today telling residents to be on the lookout, though no such incident has been reported there.

Theresa Juva-Brown reports on LoHud.com today:

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Police are warning commuters to watch out for an armed mugger who robbed two men, injuring one of them, in separate incidents as they walked from the Mamaroneck and Harrison train stations on Thursday.

A 59-year-old Mamaroneck village man told police he was walking from the Metro-North train station at 8 p.m. near Stanley Avenue when a man came up behind him with a gun and demanded his property. The robber fled on foot with undisclosed property.

An hour later, as a man walked from the train station near South Road and the Interstate 95 bridge in Harrison, he was struck in the head with a blunt object. The mugger then took his cell phone at gunpoint. The victim was taken to White Plains Hospital with a head injury.

Investigators believe the two incidents are connected and said the robber may have taken the train between robberies.

The suspect is approximately 5 feet 10 and weighs 180 to 200 pounds. He was last seen wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, blue jeans, and a light-colored bandanna or mask. He was carrying a silver or black handgun, police said.

Anyone with information should call Harrison police at 914-967-5111, Ext. 1, or Mamaroneck village police at 914-825-8541.

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Crime Stoppers had an alert earlier this month:

Mamaroneck town officials are exploring the scenarios that could result from a possible dissolution of the nearby Rye Town—including the adoption of about 7,600 new residents.

The neighborhood known as Rye Neck—about 1.4 square miles—would become an orphan of sorts if Rye town decides to go out of existence. A study is under way to determine whether taxpayers would save money by doing away with Rye town or by merging municipal services in some other way.

Rye town envelops the villages of Port Chester and Rye Brook along with Rye Neck, a separate fragment of land that belongs to Mamaroneck Village.

The Town of Mamaroneck is a bystander in the study, but has a serious stake in the outcome.

“It’s an interesting, but very complicated issue,” Supervisor Nancy Seligson said this week as the town board ventured into a discussion on the matter.

If Rye Neck becomes part of the Town of Mamaroneck, it would still receive most services from the Village of Mamaroneck. But Rye Neck residents would no longer pay a slight premium for town recreation services like Hommocks pool, for one thing. But their town taxes might rise, according to one former study on the question. Under a second scenario,the Village of Mamaroneck would secede from the town, taking Rye Neck with it and becoming its own “town-village.”

Mamaroneck Town Administrator said he report to the town board by April with a look at the potential impact from the two alternatives. Any change in the municipal map would require a referendum.

The Rochester-based Center for Governmental Research is conducting the study for Rye Town and the villages of Port Chester, Rye Brook and Mamaroneck through a state grant. Information about municipal services and videos of the related public forums are online at www.cgr.org.

UPDATE: I’ll be on the 8:43 from White Plains, due in Grand Central at 9:23. If you’re on the same train and going to the parade, let’s talk Giants!

Looks like I’ll be riding a train into NYC tomorrow morning to cover the Giants parade. If you’re among the Giants fanatics who will be doing the same, let me know what train you plan to take (I’m not sure yet whether I’ll take the Harlem or New Haven line) and where you plan to watch the parade. I’ll be looking to talk with folks from the area.

Write me at erauch@lohud.com if you’re interested in connecting. You can follow me on Twitter, too: @NPRauch.

In response to a number of resident requests for information about crime prevention, the Town of Mamaroneck and the Larchmont Gardens Civic Association are jointly sponsoring a Crime Prevention Workshop at the VFW/Senior Center located at 1288 Boston Post Road on Wednesday at 7 p.m. A similar seminar was offered three years ago at the Weaver Street Firehouse.

Representatives of the Town’s Police Department will be on hand to answer questions as will Town Supervisor Nancy Seligson and Town Administrator Steve Altieri. For more information please contact Supervisor Nancy Seligson at 381-7805.

Larchmont Mayor Josh Mandell is the featured speaker at the next Issues Breakfast of The League of Women Voters of Larchmont/Mamaroneck, set for Friday at 8:15 a.m. at The Nautilus Diner on Boston Post Road in Mamaroneck. The cost is $8, payable at the door.

Southern Westchester lost a great promoter of film and fine arts last week with the death of Marilyn Ackerman, 81, at her home in Mamaroneck on Jan. 24.

From a writeup submitted by her son, Brian Ackerman, the programming director at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville:

“She was deeply involved in the world of film, along with her husband, who operated art theatres in Manhattan and Westchester, including the Fine Arts Cinema in Scarsdale. In 1982, with Beth Kochen, Marilyn began the innovative Westchester Cinema Club, where film-lovers could gather to view new films from all over the world—without knowing what they were to see, and before they opened in the US — followed by a discussion with film critics and scholars. It became a model for film clubs nationwide, and the Westchester Cinema Club has remained oversubscribed for all of its 30 years. She and her husband, Meyer, spent many years traveling to international film festivals, and she immensely enjoyed their years in the heart of the film industry. In 2003, the couple was given a Special Honorary Award For Their Contribution To Film by the County of Westchester.”

Survivors include her husband, Meyer; their three children, Farrell, of La Jolla, CA; Harriet, of Hastings on Hudson; and Brian, of Croton on Hudson, and five grandchildren.