Police in Westchester are urging people to avoid traveling beginning early this afternoon in anticipation of President Biden coming to Irvington to attend a fundraising event. The president is due to arrive at Westchester County Airport at about 5 p.m. this afternoon on board Marine One, a presidential helicopter operated by the Marine Corps. He will have flown to John F. Kennedy International Airport on the airplane Air Force One after a visit to Syracuse, New York. In Syracuse, Biden is due to meet with Gov. Hochul and Sen. Chuck Schumer and announce a government investment of $6.1 billion in semiconductor manufacturing plants to be built by Micron in Clay, New York, near Syracuse, and Boise, Idaho. The plants are expected to cost $125 billion and create tens of thousands of jobs.
In the New York project, there will be four manufacturing facilities, each having 600,000 square feet of cleanrooms, totaling 2.4 million square feet of cleanroom space across the four facilities. This is the largest amount of cleanroom space ever announced in the U. S. and the size of nearly 40 football fields.
After the fundraising event in Irvington, Biden will return to Westchester County Airport by motorcade and board Marine One for a flight to a heliport in lower Manhattan. He will overnight in New York City.
It is widely anticipated that Biden will visit the Irvington home of actor Michael Douglas and his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones for the fundraising event. Douglas and Zeta-Jones are among the hosts of the event. Others include Rodge and Barbara Cohen, Bob Goodman and Jayne Lipman, Eileen Fisher, and John Shapiro and Shonni Silverberg. Contributions to serve as a host of the event are set at $100,000 with a general admission ticket priced at $3,300. The proceeds will benefit the Biden Victory Fund.
In anticipation of the president’s visit to Irvington, the schools in that town and nearby communities including Dobbs Ferry, Tarrytown, Ardsley and Hastings-on-Hudson will close early. Police did not release a list of all the roads that will be closed because of security considerations. However, Westchester County reported that Broadway (Rte. 9) will be closed from White Plains Rd. (Rte. 119) in Tarrytown to the Village of Irvington. The road closure is expected to be from approximately 4 to 7 p.m. The county said that during the road closure buses on Bee-Line Bus Routes 1-T and 1-W will be making detours.
William S. McKenzie, the Hastings superintendent of schools, said, “We have been advised by Westchester County and local police departments to expect road closures, difficult travel and possible gridlock from mid-afternoon through the evening. While there will not be road closures within Hastings, all access highways and parkways will be affected, likely making travel in and out of the Village problematic. In coordination with our neighboring school districts, we will be instituting an Early Release.”
