Community Life at Rochelle Park 
families had settled on the property, of the 
Rochelle Park Association, to take its man¬ 
agement off the insurance company’s hands. 
This association, which is not a corporation, 
holds an annual meeting, and does its current 
work through committees. Each lot, at this 
meeting, has one vote, the insurance company 
casting a ballot of thirty, but rarely interfer¬ 
ing with the local management. 
Upon this voluntary and unpaid adminis¬ 
tration come the duties of maintaining roads, 
lawns and all common property. The reve¬ 
nue consists of about $2500 a year, and is 
contributed by all owners, including the in¬ 
surance company, at the rate of $25 a lot. 
Phis tax is practically the total extra cost pet- 
annum, of living in Rochelle Park. When 
the original members of the association 
formed that body, they agreed that at any 
future sale of their lots, they would incor¬ 
porate this charge as a lien upon the prop¬ 
erty ; if the new owner should fail to make 
payments, the original buyer, under this 
agreement, might be sued for the amount. 
Idle insurance company had made this con¬ 
tribution a condition of its first sale contracts. 
To put the park more completely into the 
hands of those living in it, the company 
handed over to a New York trust company, 
as trustee for the Rochelle Park Association, 
all the land dedicated to the common use, 
roads, walks and grass plots. To guard fur¬ 
ther the privacy of the park, original buyers 
of land touching its outside borders, made 
over to the association a strip averaging two 
feet wide, all around the outer edge of the 
tract, d'his will prevent any lot holder from 
selling to the town authorities of New Ro¬ 
chelle the right to open a street through the 
park. 
The sum of $2500, by rigid economy, 
keeps the park in fair order, though the large 
ratio of land owned in common to the private 
holdings makes the work to be done con¬ 
siderable. Under the verbal pledge to the 
original buyers, the tax cannot be increased. 
The $2500 pays for a superintendent and for 
necessary labor ; it keeps lawns mown and 
roads mended, and until the spring of 1903, 
it also paid the cost of lighting them ; further, 
it could hardly go. So there rose the inev¬ 
itable question of double taxation, of paying 
maintenance fees in the park and also the 
same proportion of town taxes as other 
dwellers in New Rochelle, without receiving 
from the latter community any tangible re¬ 
turn except water supply. The town taxes, 
it was argued, could not be spent in lighting 
private grounds or repairing roads therein. 
The park’s own revenue, which in its essence 
is a tax for the privilege of 
privacy, was barely sufficient 
to meet these needs, but did 
not make possible capital im¬ 
provements. 
After presenting the case to 
the town authorities, however, 
with the added suggestion that 
failure to act would be followed 
by an appeal to the legislature 
at Albany, the Rochelle Park 
Association secured a valuable 
concession. On the basis of 
mere equity, since the Asso¬ 
ciation kept in order about 
two miles of roads within the 
town limits, at its own cost, 
the city administration decided 
early in 1903 to light the park 
roads, free of charge. Con¬ 
nection has also been made 
with the town’s sewage sys¬ 
tem, park land-owners paying 
A CORNER OF MR. BARRETT’S HOUSE 
Showing entrance to cellar gardens and shaded walks 
242 
