Tarrytown-The Program that Almost Wasn’t
Hello from YAI
in Tarrytown, NY. I would like to tell you a little bit about our
program. Tarrytown is located 24 miles or 36 minutes from New York City.
YAI has been in our building in Tarrytown since 1990. How we came to this
building is an interesting story.
Tarrytown was
actually made up from two different programs-one in Eastchester and one in
Bedford. These two programs leased space
from their respective school districts and in 1990 these leases were running
out. The school districts were expanding
and they needed the space. The search
began for a new building and with only weeks to spare before the start of the
school year, the building in Tarrytown was found.
This was no
ordinary building though. You see, this
building was owned by none other than the Queen of England. Her Majesty wanted to sell this property to
just one corporation and not have it sub-divided into a building with many
different companies. This was lucky for
us, because our competition for the building was Fuji Film, who only wanted
part of the building and then rent the rest out.
The Queen
dispatched her commercial real estate administrator from none other than India
to mediate the transfer of the property.
As it happens with real estate transactions, there were disagreements
and arguments concerning this point or that point. In one such heated exchange between the
lawyers, the Queen’s representative, topped in a bowler hat and all, calmly
cleared his throat, took out his chained pocket watch and stated that the
lawyers should resolve their difference soon because in five minutes he was
going to leave “and never to return!”.
Well, this spurred the lawyers to work out the deal.
With the deal
finalized, there was only weeks to go before the school year opened and the
building in Tarrytown was not yet ready.
With the likes of Kevin Travers, Paul Smoller and Steve Freeman lending
their hands as construction workers, the building was finally ready….for
Eastchester anyway. Only half of the
building was ready. Days before school was set to begin, the
Eastchester program went to work on a Friday in Eastchester-(Individuals even
came to program), and reported to work in Tarrytown the following Monday. In true YAI fashion, not a day of program was
missed. Five months later the building
was nearly complete and the Bedford program moved in and the rest is history.
Today, the
Tarrytown Program remains the only commercially owned YAI property. It is the largest Day Habilitation providing
program in the agency and serves over 285 Individuals.
