On any given day on 10591, the official Facebook group for Sleepy Hollow and neighboring Tarrytown, dogs are lost and found, bake sales are held, traffic is bemoaned, coyotes are spotted and newcomers ask, for the 97th time, whether the fire whistle in town is really necessary. This last one in particular is a hot-button topic, as it tends to divide the longstanding town residents, who love the whistle, and newcomers, who don’t understand why it continues to exist. (The short answer: It’s nostalgia, a fondness for the days when the General Motors plant was still open, there was a Woolworth’s on Broadway in Tarrytown and no multimillion-doll ar condos by the riverfront.)
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and its famous Headless Horseman (whose likeness is emblazoned on the village ambulances, fire trucks and street signs) was part of the appeal that drew my family to the Westchester village, but 10591 has become my required reading, both my instruction manual to life in a small Hudson River town and a constant source of entertainment. Fans of the show “Gilmore Girls” will understand when I say that the Facebook group is like a town-hall meeting in fictional Stars Hollow, Conn. All we need is a troubadour. Started in 2011 by Jenifer Ross, who is now joined by main administrators Anne Richards and Melissa Weaver, the group has just under 7000 members
I’ve only lived in Sleepy Hollow for a little over three years, but the 10591 page has come to represent pretty much everything I love about the town. The group is diverse, rowdy, funny, beautiful, awkward, strange — a pregnant crawfish was once advertised — frequently argumentative but still respectful and doing a pretty good job of getting along, even as the town changes.
It’s like the old tradition of the town General Store, except online.
Sometimes discussions will get out of hand — a lively thread where someone was called a “homewrecker” comes to mind, and a post about a loose bat in someone’s house became strangely contentious — and the group administrator will get involved. But for the most part, the group lacks the bile you find in most Internet comment sections.
10591 is a microcosm for America at its best, a place where people still know their neighbors, still have arguments and respect each other — even though they aren’t all alike.
These are people who live next door to each other in real life, after all. No one wants to get into a flame war with a person they’re going to see later on at the Stop & Shop.
“Have you seen 10591 yet?” my friend, who got invited to the closed group, will e-mail me. “AMAZING discussion about syringes found in the park. People are taking pictures of the needles and calling the cops. Getting heated but really entertaining.” This friend doesn’t even live in Sleepy Hollow or Tarrytown, but in nearby Dobbs Ferry. She joined the page a year ago because her own town page was subdued and mostly mountain-bike-related.
So what makes the 10591 page so great where others fail? Well, for one thing, unlike many Westchester hamlets, Sleepy Hollow and Tarrytown have diverse populations, in all senses of the word. The population is 51 percent Latino (compared with only 3.79 percent in the neighboring town of Irvington). There are people who are poor and people who are middle class and people with a lot of money; people whose families have lived in the area for decades — sometimes centuries — and those like me who stumbled into the area a few years ago from the city.
To that end, a few years ago, one member announced that he would be starting a splinter group called 10591 Lifers, Not Yuppie Liberal Transplants From NYC, sparking a debate that lasted three days and which effectively ended with someone pointing out that since author Washington Irving, who moved into the area at age 52, was pretty much the original NYC Yuppie Transplant, then they were proud to be one. Boom!
If one person complains about people going through their recycling bags and making a mess on the sidewalk, you can be sure that the trash picker will come on to defend themselves and explain that they weren’t trying to make a mess, they were just trying to make some extra money because their family is going through a rough time.
Even casual offhand comments reveal a lot about the town and the type of place people want to inhabit. “Why is it that there is this population of people here that cannot say hello to you or simply smile when you pass by???” asked one frustrated woman last week. Many agreed with this point, while others explained themselves: When you’re used to living in the city, you don’t greet people you don’t know.
These everyday squabbles — which often tackle pretty big issues — are the backbone of any healthy community. Increasingly, college campuses are shutting down debate in favor of an enforced political correctness that puts an emphasis on “safe spaces” over free speech, leading President Obama to call attention to the need for debate this fall.
“When I hear, for example, folks on college campuses saying, ‘We’re not going to allow somebody to speak on our campus because we disagree with their ideas or we feel threatened by their ideas,’ I think that’s a recipe for dogmatism and I think you’re not going to be as effective,” he said in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos.
This is a worrisome trend on its own, and it’s made more disturbing when coupled with the fact that one-third of Americans have never met or interacted with their neighbors, according to a 2015 report from City Observatory — and their tendency to live in socio-economic bubbles surrounded largely by people like themselves. Given this, the need for true community — and all it entails — has never been greater.
10591 is a microcosm for America at its best, a place where people still know their neighbors, still have arguments and respect each other — even though they aren’t all alike. It’s proof that we don’t need to be protected from freedom of speech, but rather, encouraged to use it to the fullest. It’s the only way our towns, cities, college campuses and this nation can survive and thrive.