Here is a thing I did not know until this week. The Community Center of Northern Westchester sits at 84 Bedford Road in Katonah. It has been the food and clothing lifeline for that whole end of the county for decades. For most of that run, the land underneath it belonged to New York City.
Not the Town of Bedford. The City. The parcel was part of the Department of Environmental Protection's watershed portfolio, which is the same reason so much land up that way is quietly tied to somebody else's drinking water.
How the Center Got There in the First Place
In 1996 the community restored an abandoned house known as the King House so the Center could move into it. That building was 3,500 square feet. For close to thirty years it held a food pantry, a clothing boutique, classes, case management and health services for neighbors across northern Westchester.
By its own account, the Center outgrew it. Operations were cramped. Clients did not get the privacy they deserved, and the building was not fully ADA compliant.
The Five Year Handoff
You cannot expand a building on land you do not control. So the DEP did something unusual and spent about five years working through the process of conveying the parcel to the Town of Bedford. The Town then worked out a long term lease with the Center, executed in 2023.
DEP Assistant Commissioner David Warne framed it as part of the agency's commitment to the communities that host the water supply system. Bedford Supervisor Ellen Calves called the Center a crown jewel in the community.
That one piece of paperwork is what made everything after it possible.
The Money Came From Down the Street
The Center launched a capital campaign called Community Building with an 8 million dollar goal. It covered renovating the existing house and adding a second building, about 3,500 square feet, with an elevator. It also covered a covered food receiving and storage area, better parking and traffic flow, and stormwater work with native plantings to protect the nearby reservoir.
By June 2024, supporters had put up 7 million dollars in gifts and pledges. That included a 2 million dollar grant from New York State, secured in the state budget by Assembly Members Chris Burdick and Dana Levenberg.
Ground broke on January 16, 2025, with about forty people standing in the back of the property to watch.
What Is Actually In There Now
The Center ran out of a temporary space at 669 Bedford Road in Bedford Hills for over a year while crews worked. It closed for ten days in early August to move. The doors opened again at 84 Bedford Road on Tuesday, August 11.
What is waiting inside is a larger food market that lets families choose their own groceries and a free clothing boutique. The donation room went from 280 square feet to 700. There is a new multi use classroom for the Center's sewing, English, computer and trade skills classes, and an elevator so all three levels work for a stroller, a walker or a wheelchair.
In 2025 alone the Center shared 500,000 pounds of food and served roughly 5,000 people.
If you want to see it, there is a community open house on Monday, September 14, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Thank you to the Community Center of Northern Westchester for publishing the campaign documents and photos that made this piece possible.
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