Ossining, New York, United States

🇺🇸 Ossining is a town located along the Hudson River in Westchester County, New York, United States. It contains two villages, the Village of Ossining and part of Briarcliff Manor, the rest of which is located in the Town of Mount Pleasant. Ossining is the location of Sing Sing maximum-security prison.

Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 15.6 square miles (40.4 km²), of which 11.7 square miles (30.3 km²) is land and 3.9 square miles (10.1 km²) (25.06%) is water.

Ossining is bounded on the west by the Hudson River and on the north by the Croton River.

History Frederick Philipse bought the area which presently constitutes the Town of Ossining from the Sint Sinck Indians in 1685. The Sint Sinck were members of the Matinecock (Algonquin) tribe, who originally resided in the area of Cow Neck Peninsula on Long Island, New York. His Manor extended from Spuyten Duyvil Creek on the border between present-day Manhattan and the Bronx to the Croton River. The last Lord of the Manor, Frederick Philipse III, was a Loyalist in the American Revolutionary War who fled to England. The State of New York confiscated the manor in 1779.

In 1813, the village of Sing Sing was incorporated. Sing Sing Prison, now known as Sing Sing Correctional Facility, which is a maximum-security prison, opened in 1826. The prison was opened to replace the Newgate Prison that was located in New York City. In 1845, the New York State Legislature created a new town out of the northern part of what had been the Town of Mount Pleasant. A local Indian authority suggested the town be named Ossinsing, a different form of the name Sing Sing. One year later the last "s" was removed for ease in pronunciation. In 1901, to prevent confusion of goods made in the village with Sing Sing prison-made items, local officials had the village name changed to Ossining as well.

In 1902 an area east of the village of Ossining, then known as Whitson's Corners, was incorporated as the village of Briarcliff Manor.

The Jug Tavern and Scarborough Historic District are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Government The Town of Ossining is governed by a town supervisor and a four-member town board. It comprises two incorporated villages, Village of Ossining and Village of Briarcliff Manor, each of which has a mayor and a village board. Each village maintains its own police department and village justice court. In addition to the two incorporated villages, there is an unincorporated section of the town that is not part of either village. The unincorporated section of the town has its own highway department. Fire, EMS and water services are provided by either the Village of Ossining or the Village of Briarcliff Manor. Law enforcement services for the unincorporated section of the town are provided through an inter-municipal agreement with the Village of Ossining Police Department (the town's police department was disbanded in 2011).

Education Ossining Union Free School District operates public schools, including Ossining High School.

The Ossining Public Library, originally chartered in 1893 as the Sing Sing Public Library, serves the residents of the Village and Town of Ossining, and of the Ossining School District. The current library collections include 110,000 books, 25,000 non-print items, and 300 newspaper and magazine titles. As a charter member of the 38-member Westchester Library System, the Ossining Public Library offers its patrons access to the more than one million holdings of the other county libraries. A $15.8-million building program was started in 2005 to replace the 1960s-era facility with a new 48,000-square-foot (4,500 m²) building. The new Ossining Public Library opened in March 2007 and added many new or enhanced services, including over 50 public Internet terminals, a 250-seat theater, an art gallery, and the county's first radio frequency (RFID) circulation system.