An Ossining Culinary Reflection
Courtesy of the Library of Congress
Westchester County, New York is home to the infamous Sing Sing Prison. The Metro North commuter train carries travelers twenty-five miles north along the Hudson River, from Harlem to the village of Ossining—the village itself was previously called Sing Sing, named after the Sing Sing Indians who inhabited that part of the Hudson Valley—where the storied correctional facility lies. My father, Fred Opie, Jr. (1932–2008), worked for thirty years as a New York State correctional officer at Sing Sing. A native of nearby North Tarrytown (now called Sleepy Hollow), my dad long knew of Ossining’s popular neighborhood bar and grill called Bar Harbor, located just a few blocks away from the commuter rail station. African Americans, who made up the majority of the eatery’s diners, could throw a stone southward and hit the barbed wire fence of Sing Sing.
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