When the Grand Marshals lined up for Eastchester's 250th Anniversary parade on July 11, one name on the list didn't have a person standing next to it. Richard "Dick" Forliano, the town's longtime historian and a board member of the Eastchester Historical Society for decades, had died in 2025. Kathy Gerber marched in his place, representing him rather than replacing him. It was a small detail in a parade built for a big year, and it's the kind of thing you only notice if you were actually standing on the curb.
That parade got the press coverage. Yonkers Times ran the Grand Marshal announcement. Patch built its Fourth of July fireworks guide around it. If you follow Eastchester's news the normal way, you already know a parade happened. What you may not know is that the parade, for all its fireworks and BBQ, wasn't where the town's actual 250-year-old history was getting handled this year. That's happening now, in October, run by different people, with almost none of the same publicity.
One committee produced a very organized summer
The visible half of Eastchester's anniversary year came from the town's own 250th National Anniversary Committee, a partnership between the Town of Eastchester, the Villages of Bronxville and Tuckahoe, the Eastchester Historical Society, and Eastchester's veterans' organizations. Their calendar was tight and well-staged: fireworks at Lake Isle on June 20, a golf outing and dinner at Lake Isle and Mulino's at Lake Isle on June 29, then the main event on July 11, a parade through Eastchester followed by a BBQ at Lake Isle Country Club and a separate fireworks show in Tuckahoe. The committee posts updates at ebt250committee.com, and Lake Isle's own site has carried the flyers and RSVP links all summer.
This is the version of the anniversary most residents experienced, and it's a real one. It's just not the whole one.
The Wednesday nights that paid for it
Running alongside the anniversary programming, Lake Isle's regular summer concert series gave the season its rhythm. Every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. on the Lake Isle Driving Range, a local business or civic group sponsored the night. Sal's Auto Service backed FDR Drive Band on July 1. Friends of the Eastchester Library sponsored Boyz Nite Out on July 8. The Eastchester Tuckahoe Chamber of Commerce put its name on Faded Vinyl on July 15. Supervisor Colavita, the Eastchester Town Board, and Gigante Restaurant sponsored a Friday-night show on July 17. The Hendry Sylvester McNamara School of Irish Dance and the Eastchester Irish American Social Club backed McLean Avenue Band on July 22. Boiano Dental sponsored Tangled Vine on July 29. Berkshire Hathaway's Eastchester office closed the season on August 5 with Bookends Band.
None of that is anniversary programming in the strict sense, but it shows how much of Eastchester's summer, anniversary year or not, runs on the same small set of local sponsors showing up year after year. None of these nights were about 1776. They were about a town enjoying itself, which is a different and equally real thing.
The quieter half of the anniversary
The Eastchester Historical Society has been running its own 250th programming, separate from the town committee's calendar and far less covered. Co-presidents Jack Flannery and Lissa Halen have kept the Society's events low-key and specific: the tribute to Dick Forliano at Mickey Spillane's on White Plains Road, business meetings at the Marble Schoolhouse followed by guest speakers, and a standing offer of a 12x18 illustrated map of fourteen historic sites around town, funded originally by a Community Fund of Bronxville, Eastchester and Tuckahoe grant during the pandemic. The Society describes more events as still to come this year, without a fixed date yet attached.
This is the version of the anniversary that isn't built for a crowd. It's built for people who already care about the difference between a parade and an archive.
The house that actually saw it happen
The most direct link between Eastchester and the events of 1776 sits on White Plains Road in Tuckahoe: the Ward House, home of Eastchester Town Supervisor Stephen Ward. Local history holds that when the Declaration of Independence reached New York, Ward, Captain Samuel Crawford of the Scarsdale Militia, and Judge John Thomas were all marked men for it. Ward fled the house with his wife and children for Fishkill, while Crawford and Thomas both died within the following ten months. The Friends of the Ward House still mark Crawford's memory every March 16 with a wreath-laying at the Crawford Monument on the Ward House grounds, led by Travis Melby of VFW Post 2285.
The Friends of the Ward House also organized their own march in the July 11 parade, a separate registration from the town's official lineup even though it happened on the same street on the same day. It's a small distinction, but it means the group most directly tied to Eastchester's Revolutionary-era history wasn't running the parade. They were marching in someone else's.
Here's how the year actually splits across organizers:
| Organizer | What they ran | When | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Town's 250th Anniversary Committee | Fireworks, golf outing, parade + BBQ | June 20, June 29, July 11 | Lake Isle Country Club, Tuckahoe |
| Eastchester Historical Society | Forliano tribute, speaker series | Ongoing through 2026 | Mickey Spillane's, Marble Schoolhouse |
| Friends of the Ward House | Crawford Day wreath-laying, parade march | March 16, July 11 | Ward House grounds, Tuckahoe |
| Revolutionary Westchester 250 | Revolution on the Sound | October 1 to 23 | Sound Shore towns nearby, including New Rochelle and Mamaroneck |
What's actually left before the year closes
If your only source has been the town's official channel, you've already had your anniversary year, and it ended with the last concert on August 5. But two things are still ahead, and they overlap in a way that makes the first three weeks of October the busiest anniversary stretch of the whole year.
Revolutionary Westchester 250, the county-wide nonprofit behind the broader semiquincentennial effort, is running its Revolution on the Sound programming from October 1 through 23. The series marks the actual 250th anniversary of the skirmishes and spy activity that played out along the Long Island Sound shoreline of Westchester, including author visits from Eric Jay Dolin, who wrote about privateering in the Revolution, and Friedericke Baer, who wrote about the Hessian soldiers who fought in it. There's also a Toast 250 Tavern Night with trivia planned in New Rochelle, and a companion program at Mamaroneck's Harbor Island Park tied to the skirmish at Heathcote Hill.
Layered right on top of that window, the Town of Eastchester's Columbus Day Carnival and Parade runs at Lake Isle Country Club from Friday, October 7 through Monday, October 10, an annual event with no connection to the anniversary theme at all, but landing squarely inside RW250's three-week window.
So the actual sequence, if you want to catch what's left:
- October 1 to 23: Revolution on the Sound programming across Westchester's Sound Shore towns, including New Rochelle and Mamaroneck, a short drive from Eastchester.
- October 7 to 10: Columbus Day Carnival and Parade at Lake Isle Country Club, running the entire four-day weekend.
- No confirmed date yet: additional Eastchester Historical Society programming, which the Society says is still being finalized.
The parade in July gave the year its photo. The next few weeks give it its substance, and they're running in parallel, at two different scales, with almost no shared marketing between them.
If you've lived in Eastchester long enough to remember Dick Forliano's name without needing the parade program to explain it, none of this will surprise you. If you moved here more recently and only caught the fireworks, the town's 250-year story didn't wrap up with the parade. It's still being told, just by different people, in smaller rooms, over the next few weeks.
For residents thinking ahead to how any of this touches the local housing market, or anyone weighing a move into Eastchester, Bronxville, or Tuckahoe, Daniel McKeon has spent two decades working these streets and can walk you through what a specific block or building is actually worth right now. Schedule a consultation when you're ready to talk specifics.
