Portraits of the Women of Scarsdale

To mark their transition from SHS Seniors to college freshmen, Jennifer Eisler and Caroline Rodman have created a meaningful final project for their senior options. Jennifer and Caroline met with a diverse array of women who live and work in the community and interviewed them to learn about their experiences in Scarsdale. They photographed each woman in her element to represent a variety of female lifestyles in Scarsdale's close-knit neighborhood. Their senior options project has proved unique and valuable because it taught them how to ask people the right questions and how to make them feel comfortable in an interview. For Jennifer and Caroline, "It has been a pleasure to meet so many wonderful women of Scarsdale before we leave the community we love."

Here is part 1 of the Women of Scarsdale Senior Options Project. Part 2 will be posted next week. 

The Wonderful Women of Scarsdale
What does it feel like to be a woman in Scarsdale?

Joanne Fiedler, owner of Jewels By Joanne

How does it feel to be a working woman in Scarsdale?

"It feels very good, very satisfying. Great clientele and I love working so close to home. It allows me to be both a mother and a professional businesswoman. I have been working here for 13 years. My mother-in-law was a jeweler in the Scarsdale village for close to 30 years. She taught me the business but then she passed away. I decided that it was my passion to buy and sell jewelry.

Cantor Jill Abramson, Westchester Reform Temple

"I love being a part of a close knit community where I get to wear multiple hats. One as a professional workingwoman and also as a mom and a member of a dynamic community. I feel very proud to be part of a profession where women have only been being ordained as cantors since the early 70s, so I still feel very proud to be a pioneer. I find that I am met really unanimously with people who are excited and supportive of my work as a woman. I feel honored to be modeling it for generations to come of both young girls and young boys."

 
Iris Cohen, owner of Be True Yoga

My inspiration for opening the [yoga] studio was really to get to know my community better because my children go to Solomon Schechter. It was a little bit more challenging to meet people in the community, so I wanted a place that would bring people together, men and women, and on that scale it has really been a great joy. I've met a lot of people and I will say that yoga is a little self-selecting in some ways because you get people who are interested in their own healing and they're pretty aware. So I've met some amazing people that I wouldn't have met otherwise.

 
Victoria, Tsevis Furs of Scarsdale

"I've been here since I was 14. My parents moved here with my sisters and we love it. I have a bunch of sisters that live here also and my family is here. I have a little 11-year-old boy. I've worked here for about 20 years on and off I took breaks in between. Being a woman in Scarsdale...yeah I don't have the attitude but I'm still you know...(laughs)."

 
Amy Paulin, New York State Assemblywoman

I've lived in Scarsdale for 33 years so it's home and everyone in the community feels like home to me. It's extraordinarily easy to represent Scarsdale because I understand what the community's needs and concerns are, and of course many of the people are my friends. My kids grew up here so I know a lot of the families. Everyone feels really comfortable reaching out to me and telling me what they think so it's a very easy relationship."

 
Kaylee Waterhouse, Scarsdale Freshmen Baseball Team Player

"I've been playing with these guys all my life. They are really close and so much fun to be with. It's a lot of fun being on the team and being accepted as a girl...it's awesome. I've always played baseball. The boys tease me a little bit, but in a good way. True friendship."

Carol Kushnick, playing bridge with friends

"It's a great community and I love raising my kids here. I feel like everyone is warm, friendly, and the women here are motivated to make themselves better and their kids."

Malvina Guretsky, founder of MAG Tricotes

"It feels like I'm immediately part of the community. It's a very close-knit community, which is both good and bad. The good thing is you feel like it's home, but the bad thing is everybody knows everything. Everyone knows each other's business, etcetera. But I like it...I've only been here for about 10 months and I'm very pleasantly surprised that I have a lot of clients and they're very loyal to me. They're very appreciative, and they send me pictures of themselves in my dresses. Again, it feels like family."

Joanne Wallenstein, founder of Scarsdale10583

"I feel like I'm at the center of the community and I feel so lucky to live here and to have the opportunity to manage Scarsdale10583. For the website I draw on many of my friends for information and people I worked with on a lot of village committees. Many of them are women, so perhaps yes, being a woman might be an advantage in the position I'm in now. This is the most involved, interactive community, and people are very passionate about what they do."

 Lena, Peter's Tailoring

"My name is Lena, and this is Nancy and Mima. The people here are very generous and kind and we love to deal with people in Scarsdale, they are very nice people. We have had no problems in 23 years!"

Mayor Levitt Flisser

"Scarsdale is a very unusual community because of the educational level of the residences. The residents are able to comprehend the complex problems and issues that they are interested in and so if we have to make a compromise they can understand that and absorb it. Although we can't do everything the way that everyone wants, we put a lot of time and effort into making the decisions that we have to make...It's quite a positive experience."

Do you think your job would have been any different if you were a male?

"Yes I think that in general working as a female is different than as a male. It's not what you do, but what is done for you. This is true in my real job, which is a pediatrician; I'm a doctor, and all the other positions I have always been in. Women do not get the same support with various procedures. Men definitely get more support from people in the work place than women do. Also, there are higher standards for their achievement where as men can get away with more than women can, but all that being said, it is easy for us to do that so it's alright!"