The Inside Press

Magazines serving the communities of Northern Westchester

Inside Pleasantville

At the Heart of Community

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One thing I’ve heard consistently about Pleasantville lately is how fiercely proud residents are of their town and of Mount Pleasant at large. As I produced this edition over the summer, and learned about Break the Hold, via Sabra Staudenmaier’s cover story for us, it was not hard to see why.

I feel like I’m getting to know a community that yes, celebrates all its gifts and good fortune, but also enthusiastically embraces solutions to challenging problems via its open hearts and extended hands. To me, such sincere involvement feels central to understanding the heart of a caring community. This story pulled my heartstrings right away. We also have a proud history covering mental health issues, and specifically the topics of depression and suicide. The Inside Press was the recipient a few years back of a Media Award from the Mental Health Association of Westchester. We hope to continue to shine a spotlight on mental health in future issues as well.

In additional heart sharing coverage, I am also thrilled to publish Ronni Diamondstein’s story about Pleasantville’s Gordon Parks Foundation; if you’re like me, you might be one of many who has walked by and felt curious about the foundation’s window on Wheeler Avenue. Its mission is to preserve the powerful images of artist and photojournalist Gordon Parks whose work has done so much to help bring attention to racism. It accomplishes that and so much more.

If you need more reasons to love Mount Pleasant, there is no shortage in this edition. We asked a long time savvy area resident and Inside Press contributor Jennifer Sabin Poux to compile ten, and she does a fantastic job of that too.

Two summer interns, Charlotte Harter and Madeline Rosenberg, have also helped turn our attention to community, with stories about how the Pleasantville Chamber of Commerce helps support local commerce, coverage of the town’s dedicated conservation efforts plus a look back at Pleasantville Community Day and the town’s firefighter parade.

We know fitness figures ‘big’ around here too, so please don’t miss the piece about area marathon runners either, which includes a Pleasantville resident!

Finally, we also keep hearing the music. In our debut edition, we offered a preview of the Pleasantville Music Festival (another mega successful day!), and in this issue, we give a nod to the area’s vibrant ‘music scene,’ as writer Miriam Longobardi spotlights a couple Rocker bands led by area moms!   

Enjoy the edition, and we hope to see you again in 2020. Our plans for now are for at least four a year, so stay tuned!  Follow Inside Press Magazines on Facebook or insidepress on Instagram, and soon enough, another surprise pub covering your town will be hiding in your mailbox!   

Enjoy Our Debut Edition

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Grace’s cut and blow dry by Lisa Koebbe Bevan, owner and Master colorist at BELIEVE Beauty Lounge, a full service salon on 95 Manville Road in Pleasantville, believebeautysalon.com Makeup (and photo!) by Kara Delfino, karadelfino.com.

Please know that a lot of heart and soul went into producing this first issue of Inside Pleasantville! If you have lived in the area long enough, many of you may already have seen an Inside Press publication in a neighbor’s home, or perhaps at a real estate office–where the magazines make a giant impression (I’m told!) with area visitors considering a move here.

I’ve been publishing for 16 years after launching the first edition of Inside Chappaqua, The Magazine for New Castle and Beyond in April 2003. Five years ago, following that success, I decided to get two Castle pubs underway and produced our first Inside Armonk. And now here we are delighted to be covering your vibrant Mount Pleasant communities too with this first edition of an Inside Pleasantville!

I’m always grateful to my Inside Press team, including Caroline Rosengarden who lives ‘Inside Pleasantville’ with her beautiful family. She is positively a most enthusiastic proponent for the community.

Also, enjoy the work here by Lisa Samkoff, our consummate professional designer who brings a special flair to every page. Wonderful Stacey Pfeffer edits our Chappaqua and Armonk editions from which you may see some relevant articles appearing here too. First and foremost, as a publisher, I understand no community’s residents live in a bubble, so I do share from other communities, and will continue to as much as I can.

I also so appreciate Ryan Smith and Rick Waters, who designed and maintain our site theinsidepress.com. You can find all the stories here online too, a downloadable edition, along with other ‘in between postings,’ all as much as time and energy permit! Behind the scenes, we have Analia Boltuch, our invaluable account manager, and always a rotating group of talented ‘regular’ freelance writers and photographers. This issue’s cover work plus the photos for the Pleasantville Music Festival, for example, are from Pleasantville’s very own Lynda Shenkman, who shot many of my first Inside editions too.

Ultimately, this pub comes to you after 22 years of happy Westchester living, having raised two terrific children: my daughter, Anna, 26, and son Ari, 22, both living in the city. I also visit my dad a lot in Yonkers. He’s going on 97 and still in good health at a senior residence. Being empty nest, and having this amazing Inside Press team in place, I’m expanding our publishing efforts.

Chappaqua’s also is just a hop, skip and jump to Pleasantville. In fact, when I think of ‘fun times’ in Westchester, Pleasantville elicits those feelings enormously, whether it’s at gorgeous Rockefeller Preserve, or enjoying countless movies at the incomparable Jacob Burns Film Center, or even acting classes I discovered with Rachel Jones at the Howard Meyer Acting Studio/Axial Theater! In the meantime I can live vicariously enjoying others performing in stellar shows such as those at Arc Stages, or setting aside a day to dance or sing along with the mega talented musicians at the Pleasantville Music Festival.

All these places and institutions and more – don’t miss a terrific story on Cycle for Survival! – are covered in this debut edition, which I hope you will treasure and keep as a collector’s item. We will be ‘back again’ with a back to school September/October 2019 edition arriving in your home by late August too. Remember, you can read us online too at theinsidepress.com and follow our assorted musings primarily on Facebook and Instagram.

I am aiming for at least four editions in 2020, so stay tuned for more fun and meaningful coverage in which we will keep on ‘Sharing the Heart of Your Community.” And I’d be remiss if I didn’t also communicate a resounding THANK YOU to all the generous sponsors and contributors who made this edition and future ones possible. ENJOY!


Grace Bennett
Inside Press Publisher & Editor-in-Chief