The New York Planning Federation has honored the village of Ossining with an award for its Sing Sing Kill Greenway. Mayor Victoria Gearity accepted the Heissenbuttel Award at
the federation”™s meeting in Saratoga Springs on March 27. The award recognizes Henry Heissenbuttel who served as director of the Dutchess County Planning Department from 1961 to his death in 1978
Gearity told the awards luncheon, “This greenway is the most glorious use of a municipal sewer fund ever. Who would have thought that a sanitary sewer project could become a public walkway meandering through the gorge of a major Hudson River tributary, right in the heart of downtown Ossining?”
Also attending the event were personnel from Kellard Sessions, the engineering and planning firm that partnered with the village on the project, planner Jan Johannessen and civil engineers Joseph Cermele and Brian Hildenbrand.
The greenway provides access inside the ravine carved by the Kill Brook, which flows from Ossining”™s hills to the Hudson River. It started out as a walkway for workers on a sanitary sewer project. Now, it has become an ADA-compliant walk that has railings on both sides for safety.
