Kiryas Joel, New York

Palm Tree is a town coterminous with the village of Kiryas Joel in Orange County, New York, United States. New York's first new town in 38 years, it came into being on New Year's Day 2019 as the result of a referendum that came about due to zoning and other conflicts between residents of the village of Kiryas Joel, inhabited by the Satmar Hasidic community, and the municipality to which it belonged, Monroe. The population of Palm Tree was 32,954 at the 2020 census.

The Kiryas Joel murder conspiracy was the planned kidnapping and murder of Joseph Masri, a Hasidic resident of the village of Kiryas Joel, New York in a troubled marriage who had refused to give his wife a get (divorce document). The plot was hatched during the summer of 2016 by Shimen Liebowitz, a divorce mediator from Kiryas Joel, Aharon Goldberg, an Israeli rabbi from Bnei Brak, and Binyamin Gottlieb. A fourth conspirator, operating under the pseudonym Joe Levin, turned out to be an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose agents arrested the suspects in a sting operation before the crime could be committed. The trio were convicted and sentenced in 2017 to prison.

Monroe is a village in Orange County, New York, United States. The population was 9,343 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York–Newark–Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area. The community is not named after President James Monroe, but rather after an early 19th-century New York state senator. The Village of Monroe is in the northwestern part of the Town of Monroe by NY Route 17 (soon to be Interstate 86) and US 6. NY 17M is its main street.

The Village of Monroe Historic District, also known as the Smith's Mill Historic District, is located in Monroe, New York, United States. It is an irregularly shaped 81-acre (33 ha) area containing 36 properties, primarily residential but with some churches and commercial buildings, in the center of the village, just east of its downtown. In 1998 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Most of the district is open space, taken up by a mill pond and park, a cemetery and the former site of a racetrack. Its buildings, mostly from the 19th century but some predating the Revolution, are clustered in a small area Stage Road and represent the early core of Monroe from the days when Smith's Mill, its first business, had dammed the waters of Ramapo Creek. They are also survivors of an 1892 fire that devastated the village. The Greek Revival and Federal architectural styles prevail, with some mid-19th-century Gothic Revival homes included. Among the contributing properties are the oldest Masonic Lodge in New York, and the home of David Smith, the village's first settler.

Monroe is a town in Orange County, New York, United States. The population was 21,387 at the 2020 census, compared to 39,912 at the 2010 census; the significant fall in census population was due to the secession of the town of Palm Tree in 2019. The town is named after President James Monroe.

On April 21, 2015, the remains of a woman found in South Blooming Grove, New York, were identified as those of Ramona Moore. The 21-year-old woman had last been seen on July 31, 2012, re-entering her apartment in a house near Crotona Park in the Bronx, New York City. In 2014, New York City police had charged her building superintendent, Nasean Bonie, with her murder although there was no body.Bonie had been suspected of killing Moore from the beginning of the investigation into her disappearance. Her friends said that Moore had been having a dispute with him over her rent payments. On the night she was last seen, circumstantial evidence suggests he might have been disposing of a body. After a 2013 police search of the basement of Moore's apartment, Bonie filed a lawsuit alleging that the police stole money from him. He has since claimed he was charged with Moore's murder in retaliation. In 2014 Bonie was arrested in Pennsylvania by federal marshals. At the time, he reportedly claimed that the absence of a body precluded any murder charges against him. His trial, which would have been the first murder trial in the history of Bronx County without the decedent's body in evidence, was scheduled to begin in April 2015, days after Moore's body was found. Bonie's trial was postponed while medical examiners determined Moore's cause of death. At the time Moore disappeared, Bonie was facing assault charges for an attack on his wife that left her seriously injured. Shortly after Moore's body was discovered, Bonie was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison for the attack on his wife.The defense has obtained city records showing that Moore was up to date in her rent payments. Prosecutors clarified that the dispute was not about the rent but rather a scheme by Bonie to increase those payments by coercing Moore to file false documentation that would have boosted her Section 8 subsidies. To bolster this theory, in late 2015 they subpoenaed the unedited footage from an interview Bonie gave to a local cable channel that had closely covered the case. The cable channel has vigorously opposed giving up the footage to the police. It is appealing the judge's decision requiring them to let him review footage and release relevant portions to the police. A month-long trial in July 2016 ended with the jury acquitting Bonie of murder charges but convicting him of the lesser included charge of manslaughter.

South Blooming Grove is a village inside the Town of Blooming Grove in Orange County, New York, United States. As of the 2020 census the population was 3,973. It is part of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York–Newark–Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area. Robert Jeroloman was the village's first mayor. James LoFranco was the second mayor. George Kalaj is the current mayor.

Monroe-Woodbury High School is located in Central Valley, New York, part of the town and village of Woodbury in Orange County. It educates all students in grades 9-12 in the Monroe-Woodbury Central School District.

Harriman is a village in Orange County, New York, United States. It is in the southeastern section of the town of Monroe, with a small portion in the town of Woodbury. The population was 2,714 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York–Newark–Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area.

Harriman Station, formerly known as Turner Station until 1910, was the first station on the Erie Railroad Main Line west of Newburgh Junction in Harriman, New York. Built adjacent to Grove Street in Harriman, one of the earlier structures built here in 1838 was a three-story hotel-train station combination. This station caught fire in 1873 and was replaced by a one-story wooden structure. That structure remained in use for decades before it began decaying and was replaced in 1911 with a new station on land donated by the widow of Edward Henry Harriman. A new one-story structure was built on the land. The station was maintained as a one-story depot with an adjacent monument dedicated to the work of Charles Minot. Minot was a director of the Erie Railroad who, in 1851, while his train was stopped at Turner, made the first railroad call by telegraph. The station depot remained in use by the Erie through October 1960, when that was folded into the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad, which itself would fold in April 1976, as it was absorbed into the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail). Conrail maintained passenger services until 1983, when that job was taken over by Metro-North Railroad. On April 18, 1983, the last passenger train left the Harriman station, as Conrail and Metro-North abandoned the tracks in favor of using the Graham Line (a high-speed freight line) for passenger and freight service. At that time, a new park & ride near New York State Route 17 in Harriman opened for the Port Jervis Line, the newly-realigned passenger service along the ex-Graham Line. By the time passenger service transitioned to the Graham Line, the Harriman depot had been neglected for decades. The station depot remained on its concrete platform when the tracks were torn up on the old mainline. In 1996, workers removed the plaque attached to the Minot monument, but it was soon returned. However, the plaque was stolen shortly afterward and has not been recovered. The station depot itself was left in a decrepit condition as a result of the deterioration of its tiled roof. In 2006, the village of Harriman's building inspector ordered Norfolk Southern Railroad (the successor to Conrail and who owned the right-of-way) to either restore the building or demolish it. Norfolk Southern followed through with a demolition permit and in May 2006, the station depot was demolished by a front loader. The station remains were taken to a dump in Hillburn, New York.

Highland Mills is a hamlet and former census-designated place (CDP) in Orange County, New York, United States. The population was 3,468 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area as well as the larger New York–Newark–Bridgeport, NY-NJ-CT-PA Combined Statistical Area. Highland Mills is in the town and village of Woodbury adjacent to the New York State Thruway (Interstate 87). The U.S. Census Bureau ceased counting Highland Mills as a separate designated place when the town of Woodbury incorporated as a village.

The Checkerboard Inn, also known as the Forshee-Jenkins House, is a late 18th-century frame building located on Mansion Ridge Golf Club in Monroe, New York, United States. Originally built as a house, within a decade it went into service as an inn when the Orange Turnpike, an early toll road through the area, opened in 1802. It takes its name from an early owner's reputed decision to paint it in a checkerboard pattern to attract business, although this has not been conclusively established. In the 20th century, it was expanded to serve as a family cottage for the family of a New York silk merchant, Moses Migel. Today, after many other owners and a long period of neglect, it remains standing, vacant, next to the golf course's clubhouse. It is the property of the Town of Monroe, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. The town is hoping to raise the money to restore it and use it as a local history museum.