The Village of Ossining is struggling with a weighty matter. The old “Indian head” village seal is to be retired and the replacement deliberations are now stretching into their third year.
“This is not a minor deal,” mayor Rika Levin said in 2020. “This is a big deal. These seals are about as permanent an item as things get.”
She knows of what she speaks. From patrol car doors to business cards to stationery and parking ticket receipts, a municipality’s seal is akin to a neck tattoo or earlobe gauges—highly visible, and repairable only at significant cost and discomfort.
The prior seal was adopted when the high school team name was the Indians. But in 2001, the state education commissioner asked districts with Native American mascots to please consider changing them and—after a year of study—the Ossining school district complied, briefly becoming the Riverhawks, then going mascot- and name-less altogether, eventually settling on the Pride for team name and allowing a big O to occupy graphical niches.
This is not O-Town’s first branding crisis. Known as Sing Sing—after the Sintsinck Indians, from whom the area was purchased by invasive Europeans in 1685—the village, which in 1813 was the first in Westchester to obtain a state charter—became the home of the Mount Pleasant Prison in 1826. Mount Pleasant which, as today, was more of an inland concern (it is the township that now includes the landlocked villages of Pleasantville, Sleepy Hollow, as well as part of the B.M.[1], plus the hamlets of Hawthorne, Pocantico Hills, Thornwood and Valhalla) and so prison officials decided to go with the more geographically helpful, and less sarcastic-seeming, name of the village.
And so, at least by 1832 when Alexis de Tocqueville visited—researching for his coming international bestseller, On the Penitentiary System in the United States and Its Application to France—the prison, too, was known as Sing Sing.
At the forefront of international penal science—even after the cat o’ nine tails was outlawed in 1848—the prison quickly outpaced its surrounding municipality for public awareness. But it was not till 1891, when “Old Sparky” came online, that the community decided to concede its name.
The nation’s second electric chair eventually killed 614 people—including Ethel and Ira Rosenberg—by 1963 when New York state performed its last execution (of Eddie Lee Mays), but the village took only ten light-flickering years to change its name, to Ossining (which comes from the Chippeway word for stones, ossineen), in 1901.
And so a status quo was maintained, with Sing Sing the prison and Ossining the Village, till 1970 when the prison tried to step out of its own shadow and changed its name to the Ossining State Correctional Facility. This time the village stood its ground, however and in 1983—presumably after some deliberation—local merchants convinced the prison to revert to Sing Sing.
Meantime the seal issue had begun to fester. The Indian head had been adopted in 1950, a time when depicting native Americans on seals and flags was commonplace.
But it has become steadily less so over the years and today, according to a recent online survey, 70% of Ossining residents are in favor of having it replaced.
The question is now, With what?
Mayor Victoria Gearity, whose term ended at the end of 2020, had attempted to push through a new seal, designed by a local artist and featuring the locally famous double arch bridge—where the stone archway supporting lower Broadway runs beneath the higher stone archway supporting the former Croton aqueduct.
But the lame-duck mayor’s effort (which also features the pedestrian walkway installed during her administration) was smacked down almost immediately. Trustees Fritsche and Quezeda pushed back and the replacement decision was tabled in a 3-2 vote so that the matter could be more thoroughly deliberated.
And deliberate they have. The new mayor, Levin (she who cited the relative permanency of municipal seals), is now presiding over the board’s extensive studies into the matter.
The new double arch design has won another recent poll, but trustee Fritsche now opposes it on grounds that Ossining Town’s seal already features the stacked spans.
The Town of Ossining is the governmental layer above the Village of Ossining—it also over-arches Crotonville, Chilmark, and Scarborough—and Fritsche does not want to risk anybody thinking he might be more affiliated with the larger administrative unit. “We should segregate ourselves from that. I don't want to be like the town, we are the village,” he has said, stopping short of calling for another municipal name change.
Besides the double arch, other imagery under consideration include a hawk, the Hudson River, scenes of the village’s historic downtown, and various graphical interpretations of the letter O.
It all conspires to make our art critic, who has been following the situation intently, very nervous.
Past mayor Levin’s good point about permanency, seals are one of those things that people don’t think about till they invite a lightning strike.
We ask what she means.
Well, you recall what happened with Whitesboro upstate?
We ask for a reminder.
About five years ago one of those snob-fest millennial late-night shows discovered that Whitesboro has a seal depicting a white man prevailing over a native American in a wrestling match. And the show’s audience ate it up like a naughty midnight snack. A rural village called Whitesboro has a white man beating down on a native American. Even though, story goes, the seal was celebrating a respectful wrestling match. To hear town historians tell it, it was much like Matthew McConnaghey’s exploits in western Africa. Entirely legit and not at all made up, culturally inappropriate, or even rude. White man shows up. Somehow ends up in a wrestling match. Wins. Legend ensues. So, yeah, the town got some bad static.
We ask what happened. Did the furor die down after the late-night show was through having its fun? Did the town change its seal?
Yes, the town hooked up with the local Oneidas and had a new seal drawn up, one in which the white man and the Oneida chief were portrayed on more equal footing.
So, other than for however many hundreds of dollars it cost to print the new seal, and however many tons of anti-media sentiment were stuffed into the cannons of Whitesboro-area voters—So glad that a TV program is featuring tales of our small-town stupidity for a national audience of sanctimonious slugs who don’t have to be in bed by 11:30!—it went by just fine. And it just goes to show nobody knows anything. Because the real significance of the offending seal is that it may be evidence of the nation’s first governmental reference to zombies!
We ask her what she possibly means.
Look closely at the white man in the original. He’s not white in the sense we refer to people of northern European descent—he’s white as a lake-soaked corpse. And do you see how he’s wrestling? You know any living persons who fight like that? It’s the classic walking-dead attack pose!
We presume she is kidding but we do not press. Instead, we state our impression that it’s not uncommon for Westchester seals to still feature native American characters.
She reaches into her desk and removes a stack of village seals that she appears to have printed out, one per page, with the office color printer, even though many of the seals are black-and-white.
We have just two have full-body representations—Yorktown and the B.M.’s. I haven’t spoken to any historians about the historical accuracy but apparently the depictions are accurate or at least neutral enough that they have not stirred any controversy. Although Yorktown’s—with the native American holding what appears to be some sort of offering might suggest a degree of servitude. I’d keep an eye on that one.
As far as the B.M.’s goes, I just wonder how a town that was incorporated in 1902 gets off featuring people and scenery from at least two centuries prior.
And you do know what percent of the Manor’s population is native American these days?
We confess we do not and she tells us to look it up.
We ask her what the most common northern Westchester seal-theme is, since it is cleary not native Americans, or double-arch bridges.
Buildings. Good old boring suburban white-sided buildings are our go-to up here in Cheever Land. Like the region’s favorite color was any mystery.
Past those, you have three with predominating maps, although some think New Castle’s beaver is the bigger deal. I heard a wag say a certain resident ex-President is partial to it. But leave it to Westchester town board members to realize a seal can be so much more than something to put on letterhead—you can have it multi-task and supply rudimentary orientation!
We note that Lewisboro, like New Castle with its beaver, features a buck, and ask how common wildlife is as a motif.
Oh, about what you’d expect. You’ll see the odd eagle and deer here and there. Although mostly in supporting roles. Really, Pleasantville, which decided it didn’t have to put a circle around its seal—I guess they’re confident the days of wax stamps are not coming back—is the only one with nature in the foreground. A medieval woodblock of an oak tree. Which, you know—sure, why not? Ye Olde P’ville.
At least it’s more tasteful than Mount Kisco’s bizarre adoption of European heraldic devices. Rampant stags? A knight’s heaume? A ‘scutcheon emblazoned with falcons and azure-and-gold fesses? I mean, what the literal f*ck?
And speaking of real estate agent fever-dreams, there’s Mount Pleasant. I suppose out near Nanny Hagen there’s a hill that crests 600 feet but that picture of Pike’s Peak on theirs is just too much. And unlike the stupid European heraldry where maybe you could convince an out-of-town prospect of the existence of a Lord and Lady Kisco, there’s no disguising a missing snow-capped mountain. Though, who knows, maybe Mount Pleasant realtors only show homes on completely overcast days.
We endeavor to bring the conversation back to Ossining’s big decision and ask if she has any favorite town seals that might offer direction to the board.
I’m glad you ask. There is one that is hands-down my favorite. Buchanan. Feast your eyes on this beaut—
I hope they don’t change it now that Indian Point has been closed. Though heaven knows there will be loads of unstable isotopes there for centuries to come. But doesn’t it just make you smile? The hammer, the chisel, the atom.
We ask what the smudgy thing at the bottom is.
I’ve always assumed it’s a section of classic Westchester stone wall. Or possibly the remains of a cooling tower.
It seems a little idiosyncratic to us and we ask her specifically how Buchanan’s artistic lodestar might help guide Mayor Levin and the board.
Well, they could replace the atom with a leg chain. Or do a switch-gripping hand and a big chair.
We ask if there any other seals she favors.
Peekskill’s is relatively easy on the eyes.
Though what the hell Peekskill has to do with tea and ploughshares is a mystery. Can you imagine somebody trying to plough a field in that town? The place is a giant ravine. But it’s a lovely design and maybe the tea-and-stove motif helps with commerce. The Bean Runner is a terrific coffeeshop and I suppose they must sell tea, too. Maybe Ossining could do, I don’t know, a pickax and a farmer hat? Since they have a great market on Saturdays. Have you been?
We ask if there are seals from the other end of the spectrum—cautionary examples.
There are two things that are deadly in the world of village branding—Commerciality and Committee. Fortunately, as far as the first goes, this is northern Westchester, not Suffolk or Bergen or one of those strip-mall wastelands. We know that to appeal to tasteful, wealthy homebuyers, we must not cater to the high-fructose-corn-syrup crowd. And so only Sleepy Hollow—with its pumpkin-holding headless horseman—has ever strayed into Walt Disney territory. They’ve for years been trying to make a run at Van Cortlandt Manor’s Great Pumpkin Blaze business. Careful what you wish for would be my advice.
The other deadly C, Committee, is the far bigger bogeyman. As those of us who have attended village hall meetings know, some boards are more process afflicted and trepidatious than others. Like a child of insecure Westchester elites, consensus isn’t so much nourished as it is prodded, poked, evaluated, and sent to an endless string of consultants and subject experts. Given what we’re hearing about Ossining’s board, it’s just next to ulraviolet on the process spectrum.
It’s nothing new, of course. North Castle’s social-studies fiesta of a seal is a good example. One board member insisted they honor the revolutionary war, one was a gardening nut and wanted to emphasize agriculture, one wanted to celebrate the area’s contributions to custom-fit shoes, and then there was the obligatory cartophile. So you end up with a haysheaf, a cannon, a cobbler’s kit and a map. But back then, at least, there were no graphic designers to really murk things up. You had to stick with the few templates you had. Two figures on either side of an object-crammed tableau, or—as here—a shield with four panels, each of which can contain its own badly-chosen pile of images. You’d get laughed off the Catalaunian Plains with such an arms-coat but—for Late Capitalist municipal operations, it’s no sore thumb.
We ask if having a graphic designer would really be such a bad thing.
Do you recall what happened when vinyl siding was put in the hands of suburban home contractors? Or polyester in the hands of its high school students? Sometimes technological advances are the tools of progress. Sometimes they only enable the progress of fools.
We ask what she means.
Have you never seen Croton-on-Hudson’s?
In an instant we realize where she has been heading. We mentioned to her earlier how one of the replacement options Ossining’s board has been considering is a big O with added design elements.
Give me a train!
And an eagle!
And a fish!
And a violin!
And an oak leaf!
And some sort of politically correct nod to the Native Americans the original whites drove off the land!
And a big C for Croton!
And what do we get!?
She passes us her printout of the seal.
Why they didn’t save themselves some time and just take a screen grab from the John Carpenter film is anybody’s guess.
I’m going to The Tapsmith.
We observe that it is 3:30 in the afternoon.
You made me put my eyes on the Creature from Croton. And now I’m contemplating a competing Ossining monstrosity. I will report this hostile work environment to the Guild unless I’m allowed to go drown these thoughts right now.
She did not show up at her desk till shortly before eleven this morning but we choose not mention this as she gathers and puts away her seal collection, waving us away as we try to hand her back the Croton Chimera.
You have the Ossining board’s mailing address, I take it?
She pushes past us on her way to the lobby, and the Best-in-Westchester pub beyond.
[1] Briarcliff Manor
best newsletter ever, anywhere! thanks.