The following was sent to me from a man who was brought up 
in the institution. His rememberences and history is well
worth reading about.


Under "Home for freindless Females or Children", the first name
for this institution.  It is my understanding that this was organized 
under a religious organization at the turn of the last century.  
The building was located at 
936 WOODYCREST Avenue, 
Bronx, NY, 
10452.  
It is currently standing at the foot of WOODYCREST avenue & River Road, 
across from Yankee stadium, and the ramps to the Macombs Dam Bridge....
within short distance to the grand concourse.

I lived there from 1965 until 1975, by which point we had already 
moved from that location.    About 1972, we (the residents) of 
WOODYCREST (the official name of the home having been changed along 
the line and WOODYCREST was simply known as "WOODYCREST". It was 
then changed to WOODYCREST child care)....we were advised that we 
would be moving out of the Bronx and to upstate NY in Rockland County.  
At that time, there was a place in Pomona, called Five Points. this 
place was also known by the name of "Happy Valley", 
located at 110 Pomona Road, Pomona NY, 10970.   
This upstate location was the subject of financial difficulties, and the two 
organizations had merged, and the name was organized as 
"WOODYCREST-Five Points Child Care".  We remained in the Bronx, 
until brand new cottages (13 of them) were completed, and in the 
summer of 1973 or 74, we all boarded busses and left 
936 WOODYCREST avenue for the last time.     

During the time that the merger was made official, numerous cottages 
(old victorian homes that were a combination of old residences of 
the CONKLIN family whose remains are still interred on the property) 
as well as housing that was built for the accomodation of the 
children that were moved from Five points, in NYC, to Pomona at 
the end of the 19th century, due to the epidemics that persisted 
in NYC at that time.

These old victorian homes, were demolished, and new modern homes 
were erected.  not all homes were taken down, some remain to this 
day, as housing for the staff were needed and those homes served in 
that capacity.  A gymnasium was erected, a school, a swimming pool, 
and other amenities were also built.  by the time we arrived at 
110 Pomona road, everything had been done.   Happy Valley, prior 
to our going there, was a "working farm" during its history and 
the children were encouraged to maintain the place by way of taking 
care of the animals and farming.  When we arrived, that was all gone.    
In the Bronx, during the summer when school was out, we would all go 
up to bear mountain, where WOODYCREST owned a campground with 
12 "cabins" on lake cohasset.  every summer we would go up there. 
This continued when we moved to Pomona.

I left WOODYCREST-points child care in Sept. of 1975.   I attended 
Pomona Jr. HS.    After I left, I would still see my social worker 
at the address that you have listed on your website.    
Around 1980, Greer house merged with WOODYCREST, and became "Greer-WOODYCREST" 
at the Pomona road location.  It is my understanding that the 
facility was geared towards housing children with various handicaps.   
this went on until the facility could no longer function and was sold.   
the current occupant of the property itself is the Minisceongo Golf Club,   
all buildings have been removed, except for the administration  building, 
which housed the social services, and other offices, as well as the 
infirmary, the kitchen, staff dining rooms, chapel and laundry facilities.  
this building was known as "Jessup Hall" and I understand that this 
was in honor of Samuel JESSUP.  It was also stated that Abraham Lincoln 
had visited this place.

The other buildings that remain are 3 old houses, the CONKLIN family 
graveyard which dates to the 1700's., and the gymnasium.  

The records of the facilities were last known to be in the NYC office. 
In 1986, I wrote a Mr. Percy Ryberg, who was a social worker at WOODYCREST, 
and he advised me that i would need a court order to have my records opened, 
and have a legitmate excuse for doing so.  

If you have any questions about this email, please feel free to contact 
me. I love history, always have, and even when i lived at WOODYCREST I 
was interested.  the building in the Bronx was sold to a muslim organization, 
and subsequently, it became a hospice for people with Aids.

Sincerely yours,  
David A Henry
former resident of WOODYCREST/Greer WOODYCREST/WOODYCREST five points child care...etc.

After I had written to David, I received the following:)

Thank you for your wonderful response to my Email, and your kind words!
They are much appreciated.  Something that was supposed to be a negative in
my life (being put in WOODYCREST) turned out probably to be the best thing
that ever happened to me.  Suffice it to say I am very well adjusted
considering.  WOODYCREST and Happy Valley was NOT the kind of "Institutional
confinement" that one would conjure up in their minds.  First of all, we
lived in a Mansion in the Bronx.  There is a book (very old) about the old
buildings in NYC.  I was flabbergasted to see that one of the pictures was
of the Bronx building that we lived in.  We had swimming pool, Gymnasium,
Arts and Crafts, etc.  We had the best of everything.  We were taken to
shows at Radio City Music Hall every Christmas, and had outings to such
places as the Botanical Gardens, Apollo Theater, we were given ALLOWANCES
(things only priviledged children received) and were allowed to go out on
our own.  There were no bars on the windows except for the ones that kept
people from falling out of them!   We were allowed to go to outside Schools,
but there were two school rooms within the building associated with the
local school from where a two teachers would come to teach....We were
allowed to go out to the Churches of our OWN choice....I went to the Church
on Amsterdame Avenue in Manhattan, and recall a group of us walking over the
Macombs Dam Bridge and attending Sunday School at a Church on Amsterdam
Avenue in Manhattan.

I remember going back in 1984, to the Bronx, just "to see" what the old
place looked like.  Well, the Muslin organization was only too happy to let
me in and tell them all about the place as I remembered it, including little
"nooks and crannies" that only little children would find, within the
building, under staircases, attics...etc.  I would get goose bumps going all
over there, after so many years, and they were eccstatic to hear what was
where and what each room was used for.

Regarding something else I thought of when I was trying to sleep last night.
In 1966, the summer that I went to WOODYCREST after a few months in a place
in Jamaica, Queens (dont remember the name of it, I think it was called the
"Queensboro Childrens Shelter", is that Summer, when WOODYCREST was bringing
the residents back from our Summer Camp in Bear Mountain, the female
population was eliminated.  That year, or during that time I should say,
there was a problem with preganancies, and being a Christian organization,
this was not acceptable.  So they (WOODYCREST) relocated all of the females
to some other location (where, I do not know) and the Home became strictly
for boys and young men.

Happier moments were yet to come tho, as we moved up to Pomona.  I love that
place, and it was as though I belonged in that atmosphere, rather than my
native previous surrounding City life or Brooklyn and Bronx.  The Mountains,
the Conklin Orchards...running through the old Conklin Graveyard (which is
now known erroneously as the Greer WOODYCREST Burial Ground).....we used to
walk along the RailRoad tracks to Mt. Ivy.  It was very beautiful.    Little
did I know, that in my Genealogical searches for my roots, I discovered my
ancestors to be the Patentees of that area....the Kakiat Patent...I am a
descendant of the Blauvelt, Haring, Tallman, Henion, and other families that
settled the area.    Some of my family came from Hempstead Long Island (they
founded that place in 1642 I believe..the CARMAN family and others) and some
relocated and settled New Hempstead and that Rockland County area.  I
essentially went "back to my roots" when we moved up to Pomona.    When I
lived in Brooklyn, I used to go to the old Dutch Reformed Church on Flatbush
Avenue and Church Avenue.  I would go through the graveyard.   I have, in my
searches, found that my ancestors also settled in that area in the 1600's.
Many of the early Dutch, French and English settlers who eventually
relocated to the areas of the Ramapo Mountains, the Northern New Jersey area
as well as the original settlers of what is now Jersey City, are my
ancestors.

The JESSUP family, I think I recall the name was Samuel Jessup who erected
the Administration Building in Pomona.  In that builidiing, which currently
serves as the Club House for the Minisceongo Golf Club, you will find Ariel
Photographs of the place when it was first renovated in the early 1970's, as
well as one of what it looks like now.  I used to have ariel photographs of
the place when it was actually Happy Valley Farm, prior to demolitioon of
those old Victorian homes that were used as Dormatories.  I have copies of
the ones that are up on the walls now of that building.   There are also
Indian Artifacts, as well as a "plaque" that dedicates to the memory of the
residents of what was "Happy Valley" that was installed by the Happy Valley
Alumni Association, which I have not been in touch with in a long time.

Well, I am blabbering...so I will stop now.  You may feel free to place my
name and Email on your Website and any information that you feel pertinant
to your endeavors to enhance the history or searching of others regarding my
recollections of WOODYCREST and Five Points (Happy Valley).   One last
thing......On Camp Hill Road, in Pomona, was a swinging sign that had been
there for decades...with "SLOW DOWN, CHILDREN AT PLAY" on it.    When I last
visited that area in 1998, the sign was still there on the old fence, in
very bad condition.  I removed it from the fence, it came apart....but I
shipped it to my home in Florida and put it back together.  It now serves as
a sign in my front yard for Advertising my Notorial Services..I rememberd
that sign and wanted to save the only thing that I could from those days
gone by.  Mr. Albert (or Alfred, I was always respectfull and called him Mr.
Mills) Mills, who was the caretaker of Happy Valley, maintained the place
and the sign stood in front of his house on Camp Hill Road on the property.

Thats it..I am tired! 
Thank you, 
David Henry


Thanks to David for this warm, insiteful rememberence of a place and time  many 
of us have never known or experianced.
You can email David at:
dhenry9@tampabay.rr.com

A website has been formed:
www.Woodycrestalumni.com
www.Woodycrestfamily.com
www.woodycrest.info

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