Wikipedia:Peer review/Downtown Ossining Historic District/archive1

Downtown Ossining Historic District

I've listed this article for peer review because I think it could make GA and FA in the future, perhaps after the village concludes its comprehensive plan update. I developed it almost ten years ago, and it's held up well. All I really had to do to prepare it for this was bring the cites up to code and migrate a bunch, plus just a couple of xlinks from the village website.

Thanks, Daniel Case (talk) 16:49, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi Daniel Case, This is an interesting article, but I see some opportunities for improvement. The article could be improved by making the History section more consistent. For example, the section summary reads:

The development of downtown Ossining has several distinct stages: the early preindustrial period when it was primarily a crossroads; the late 19th century when most of the district's buildings were built and rebuilt along Main Street including the four churches; the early 20th century when new construction shifted back to Highland Avenue and gave the district its important public buildings, and the era since then that has been devoted to preserving and redeveloping them.[1]:20–30</ref>

The style of the summary is itself somewhat problematic. I like the approach of the complex, single-sentence summary, but its execution could be improved by removing the unnecessary detail and simplifying the structure of the conjuncts. The form of the sentence is "...several distinct stages: A; B; C; and D."

 Fixed Daniel Case (talk) 06:50, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps A, B, C, and D, should be simplified to make the long sentence read easier. Yet this summary is also inconsistent with the structure of the section. The summary specifies four eras while the body of the section specifies six. I think I can explain this. It appears that the summary statement is supported by the 1988 NHRP documentation, while the body's text is supported mainly by the 1988 NHRP document and foot note 10, with several other sources supporting the last two subsections. This inconsistency is a problem, though, how to resolve it without corrupting the sources or creating a synthesis, I cannot say. This is a question for editors with more experience than I have, with more specific experience and knowledge about policy related to geoplaces and NRHP.

Another question I have about this section is the native history. Sing Sing Kill appears to be named for the Sint Sinck people. Are there any articles to indicate whether there were any native settlements? Maybe these do not exist. I admit that my own cursory searches have come up empty on google and JSTOR. Sincerely, Oldsanfelipe2 (talk) 12:58, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

I have the feeling that if we knew if there had been any Native settlements in the area of what is now downtown Ossining, the sources (i.e. the NRHP nom) would have mentioned this. Daniel Case (talk) 04:11, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

The NHRP nomination is over thirty years old. In my hometown's downtown, there have been three archaeological projects that I know about during the last three decades. It was definitely a long-shot question, though. Oldsanfelipe2 (talk) 11:56, 23 January 2020 (UTC)