When asked how the closing of Bodle’s Opera House, which operated as a restaurant and performance venue for 25 years until September, will affect the village’s economic prospects, Valastro laments that the shuttering of Bodle’s is keenly felt downtown. Valastro is quick to point out that new businesses have opened up recently on Main Street, including the Angles and Cuts hair salon and A Music Place, a center for musical instruction, and that many empty storefronts are in the process of being refurbished.
The strength of Chester, Valastro believes, lies not in its buildings but in its people. “Whenever the chips are down in this community—when something terrible has happened—the community rallies around to help and gets involved,” says Valastro, citing several instances, including a native son killed in Iraq, whose family was provided with every type of support possible, financial and otherwise. “Yes, we are a bedroom community, but when things are really down, that’s when you see the best of Chester come through. When adversity strikes, we’ll be there for you. Whether you’re family or not, we treat everyone as family.”
Famous Alumni
Driving northeast on Route 94 from Chester to Washingtonville, the two-lane road meanders through rural countryside, eventually crossing Moodna Creek just before entering the village. Moodna is a corruption of the Dutch Moordenaars—Murderers’ Creek. It’s said that the creek, which parallels Route 94 for a couple miles around Washingtonville, gets its name from the massacre of an early family of settlers, the Staceys, along its banks by Native Americans in the early 18th century. (In nearby Salisbury Mills, the creek is traversed by the Moodna Viaduct, a railroad trestle almost a mile long and 193 feet high at its highest point, the highest and longest railroad trestle east of the Mississippi River. The Viaduct appeared as a backdrop in the 2007 thriller Michael Clayton, starring George Clooney. The film was directed by Tony Gilroy, who attended Washingtonville High School. Other notable former students in the school district include Scott Pioli, general manager of the Kansas City Chiefs, screenwriter James Mangold, Yankees’ general manager Brian Cashman, and Mel Gibson, who attended six grade here before moving to Australia.)
The high school is one of the first large structures you’ll pass coming in to Washingtonville, and if you happen to do so as the school is letting out, you’re likely to get caught in what passes for a traffic jam in the village. Michael Rossi, the principal at the high school, is a 20-year resident of Washingtonville, where he and his wife have raised their three children. “You have a suburban community, still with some farmland, though not as much as there used to be. But Washingtonville has kept its sense of small town community. When something bad happens, it’s great to see people rally round and help out. I don’t see my myself moving outside this community, it’s the best.”
In the center of the village is the Moffat Library, named for railroad magnate Samuel Moffat, who donated the money to build the library in 1887, on the site of his former home. Added to the Register of National Historic Places in 1994, the library boasts a formidable clock tower and stained glass Tiffany windows. Assistant director Carol McCrossen, an impressive repository of knowledge about the area, enjoys Washingtonville’s access to nature. “I like the country feel of it, the proximity to the natural world,” says McCrossen.
Laurel Stauffer-Daly, who owns Curves of Blooming Grove of Salisbury Mills, also enjoys the area’s outdoor attractions, like nearby Schunemunk Mountain, the tallest point in the county (1,664 feet), where she leads walking groups. Stauffer-Daly’s clientele at Curves, a women’s gym focused on 30-minute circuit workouts, run the gamut in age from 9 to 90, with the majority being moms and retirees. Stauffer-Daly says she never wanted to own a woman-focused business, as she “didn’t want to deal with the catfights,” but it’s been smooth sailing with Curves. “There’s never an argument or verbal altercation in my gym,” says Stauffer-Daly. “All the women know each other because their kids are in the same school or the same church. It really feels like small-town America.” It’s exactly this small-town vibe that has led Stauffer-Daly to try and convince Dr. Mehmet Oz to bring his Highway to Health Bus to Washingtonville and feature the town on his television show.
