Every once in a while I casually mention a town name in New York...one that I don't think anything of...because I've grown up with it...but once and a while the other person is astounded by it. Their eyes widen and then they say something like "Oh that's so funny" or "I didn't realize that was a real town."  These towns are made famous in books and movies...or at times made infamous. 

So, I thought I'd share a few of those town names in New York that create those double takes from out of towners.

The first one is Amityville.  Yes, not only is Amityville a real town on Long Island, but the Amityville Horror is apparently based on a real life story from this town.  Of course it was adapted a bit.  But, yes, this is a real town.

Then, there's Sleepy Hollow.  This is right in my neck of the woods, so I'm used to the name.  Yes, Washington Irving lived in Westchester County, and 2 towns up is Sleepy Hollow (with its own cementary) and that's where the Legend of Sleepy Hollow was born (along with Rip Van Winkle and a few other places).  Later, they named the town where Washington Irving lived "Irvington."  It's a beautiful and charming town right on the Hudson River.  Beautiful views.  You can view his mansion which is called Sunnyside.  He is, of course, buried in Sleepy Hollow Cementary.

In Westchester, we also have a town called Pleasantville.  The movie Pleasantville is not based on this town...I think they just liked the name, and it's a coincidence that we have a town here called Pleasantville.  It's funny, because I've lived here so long that when I say the name of the town, I don't think of it's meaning.  It rolls off the tongue just like every other town here. 

Now, here's something that's interesting about the town.  Reader's Digest (when it was functioning) was located in my town, right across the street from our high school.  It's really right on the border between Chappaqua (my home town) and Mt Kisco, and they were trying to figure out which post office to use for their address.  Apparently, the town of Chappaqua (which used to be much smaller in population) didn't want the flood of mail, so they wouldn't allow them to use that as their PO.  They were thinking of Mt Kisco, but the other town right next to Chappaqua is Pleasantville, and they liked the sound of that, so Reader's Digest chose that as their post office.

Of course, we also have Yonkers here in Westchester county.  This city is more well known as it's larger and literally next to New York City.  So, Neil Simon's Lost in Yonker's is based on that.  And, of course, yes, I have gotten lost in Yonkers and a long time ago, we got stuck in Yonkers as our car died on the highway on Thanksgiving Day.  (And, in case you didn't know, almost no one works on Thanksgiving so we were stock for 4 hours in the cold...and starving as our mom made sure we didn't eat that much that day since we were supposed to have a large Thanksgiving meal that night.  We never made it to the City that year, but I did enjoy the cheese cake we had baked as that's all that we had - desserts.

Oh, and I almost forgot that we have Bedford and Bedford Hills in Westchester.  If you've ever seen "It's a Wonderful Life," the fictional town of Bedford Falls is named after us.  But, of course the town doesn't really look like the movie version.