While walking down the streets of Yorktown you see many different aspects of our town. You might see the colonial-style houses lining the streets or the small businesses owned by our hardworking community. There are many things about Yorktown that are appealing to the eye. However, not everyone enjoys living here.
Yorktown is quite a suburban portion of New York that is home to many people and holds great history. If you were to look up Yorktown on Google, some of the first images to pop up would be our town center, our real estate, or our parks, which hold beautiful nature. However, some of these examples of our town’s main characteristics do not interest or excite the people that live here. When interviewing Isabella Bologna, a sophomore at Yorktown High School, she describes Yorktown as “boring” and “not exciting for teens.” Isabella, who has been living in Yorktown for her entire life, finds her hometown “uneventful” and “uninteresting for people her age”. She says that if Yorktown were to add more features for teens, living in Yorktown would be far more appealing to her. However, she does enjoy the fact that living in Yorktown means that she is closer to her family.
Sophomore Corrine Negrelli has a similar opinion about her hometown. Corrine has also lived in Yorktown her entire life and agrees with Isabella that Yorktown is “boring” and that it has “nothing to really do.” She wishes that Yorktown would add more fun stores like Target, or really start to put more effort into re-doing the Jefferson Valley Mall. However, she explains that it’s the people who live here who really make a difference. She has met some of her best friends here in Yorktown and “wouldn’t change that for anything.”
It seems like there is a similar opinion among teens about their town. However, the teachers tend to disagree. When interviewing Mrs. Soohoo, an English teacher at Yorktown High School, she says that she “loves” Yorktown. Even though she never grew up and doesn’t currently live in Yorktown, she still thinks of it as a wonderful place that she loves working in. Unlike the previous students that were interviewed, Mrs. Soohoo always viewed Yorktown as the “cool” place growing up with all of the “best shopping” and the “best food.” She describes Yorktown as having a “great reputation” and is “so happy” that she is currently working here. The only bad thing about Yorktown that she could think of when asked is the traffic and how sometimes it could be difficult to commute to work on a busy morning. At the end of the interview, she was asked if she would move to Yorktown permanently. Without a moment’s hesitation, she responded, “Yes, absolutely.” Overall Mrs. Soohoo adores the town that she works in and has grown a great appreciation for it and all of its quirks.
When growing up in such close proximity to Yorktown, there can always be a sense of rivalry between neighboring towns. This opinion was well reflected when interviewing Daniel Dzubak. As the interview between Danny, as he prefers to be called, went on, he continued to describe how his hometown of Mahopac always had a rivalry with Yorktown. Danny was on Mahopac’s high school basketball team and described the games against Yorktown to be “heated” but “so much fun.” This being said, when Danny moved to Yorktown with his family, he says that he gained a new perspective and outlook on Yorktown. Danny describes finding a new sense of community and friends in Yorktown that he loves and says that he “wouldn’t ever find somewhere else.” Nevertheless, similar to Mrs. Soohoo, he says that he “can’t stand the traffic” that he has to deal with every morning while going to work. Overall he says that he does enjoy living in Yorktown however hopes to move to a place a “little more warm” when he retires.
The town of Yorktown is loved by so many who live here and commute here every day, but there are still people who believe that the town can be fixed in some ways. Whether this be fixing the traffic lights or adding more fun and interesting things for teens to do, there is still so much to be done and so much to explore in the town of Yorktown Heights.
