[9] Before the area where Irvington is now located was settled by Europeans, it was inhabited by the Wickquasgeck, a band of the Wappingers, related to the Lenape (Delaware) tribes which dominated lower New York state and New Jersey.

Downing condemned the use of the street grid outside of cities and saw the hilly and heavily wooded site of Dearman as particularly suited to his own theories, which called for curvilinear roads and irregular lots which followed the contours of the land.

With the frequent steamboat, stagecoach, and train transportation available, he felt that Dearman could have been an ideal suburb, instead of "mere rows of houses upon streets crossing each other at right angles and bordered with shade trees".

Wolfert Ecker's house, then owned by Jacob van Tassel, was burned by the British in the Revolutionary War because it had become a notorious hang-out for American patriots.

[17] With the capture of New York City by the British, Irvington and the rest of southern Westchester County became the "Neutral ground", an unofficial 30-mile (48 km) wide zone separating British-occupied territory from that held by the Americans, and the people of the area who remained – many of the Patriot population had fled – traded with both sides to great profit.

However, there was also a great deal of pillaging and plundering, even of Tory households, both by the regular British army and loyalist militias and irregulars, all in the name of hunting down rebels.

[20] By 1853, a ferry ran across the Hudson from Dearman to Piermont on the west bank, the village had a population of around 600, a hotel, six stores, a lumber yard and around 50 houses, and the hamlet of "Abbotsford" – which would later become Ardsley-on-Hudson – was forming along Clinton Avenue.

[10][12][17] In 1854, Dearman and Abbotsford combined, and by popular vote adopted the name "Irvington", to honor the American author Washington Irving,[12] who was still alive at that time and living in nearby "Sunnyside" – which is today preserved as a museum.

Fearing that the violence in the city, which had to be put down by Federal troops, would spread to Westchester, special police were brought in and quartered in a schoolhouse on Sunnyside Lane.

[27] Notwithstanding this commercial activity, for many years, through the 19th and early 20th centuries, Irvington was a relatively small community surrounded by numerous large estates and mansions where millionaires, aristocrats and captains of industry lived – the population was reported as 2,299 in 1890 and 2,013 in 1898.

After World War II, cooperative apartment complexes were built in the village, but despite these changes, Irvington still has many large houses, and is still an overwhelmingly well-heeled community.

[29] Irvington's first murder since 1974 took place on April 25, 2018, when a recently-hired dishwasher stabbed Bonifacio Rodriguez, a prep cook, in the kitchen of the River City Grille at 6 South Broadway.

[30][31] Ramirez pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, a Class A felony, on February 21, 2020, in return for an expected sentence of 17 years to life,[32][33][34] which was made official in September 2020.

The race between Republican incumbent Dennis P. Flood and Democratic challenger Erin Malloy ended up being decided "by lots", as required by New York state law when a village election is tied (847 votes for each candidate).

In 2018 Brooke Lea Foster of The New York Times stated that Irvington was one of several "Rivertowns" in Westchester County, which she described as among the "least suburban of suburbs, each one celebrated by buyers there for its culture and hip factor, as much as the housing stock and sophisticated post-city life.

[3] From 1975 to the present, the Rivertowns Enterprise, a weekly newspaper, has reported on local government, schools, sports, arts and business in Irvington as well as Ardsley, Dobbs Ferry, and Hastings-on-Hudson.

Additionally, the Hudson Independent, a monthly free newspaper begun in 2006,[97] serves Irvington, Sleepy Hollow, and Tarrytown, an area also covered by the River Journal, an online news site, and Rivertowns Patch.

The law will be enforced by an architectural review board which will designate "sites, structures, buildings, markers and objects" that "cannot be duplicated or otherwise replaced" and that are "illustrative of the growth and development of our nation, our state and our Village and that are of particular historic or aesthetic value to Irvington."

The building houses manufacturers, offices, a video production facility, a publisher of art books, interior design firms, a yoga studio, a chapel, photographers, a spa, a florist and event space and at least one restaurant.

[120] In 2011, a second attempt was made, with a Historic District Committee being created and another application being made, this time covering Portions of Main St., W. Main St., River St., Bridge St., N. and S. Astor St., N. and S. Buckhout St., N. and S. Cottenet St., N. and S. Dutcher St., N. and S. Eckar St., N. and S. Ferris St., E. and W. Home Pl., Grinnel St., Aqueduct Ln., N. and S. Dearman St., and Broadway[121][122][123] In September 2013, the proposal was accepted by the state,[124] and in January 2014 by the National Register for Historic Places.

In an October 2010 ranking of the "Best Places to Live", Westchester Magazine listed Irvington as #1 and called it "charming, quiet, green, with a darling Main Street, stunning river views, [and] a burgeoning dining scene... a great mix."

[169] In 2013, the "Sixty One Bistro" opened at 61 Main Street,[170] and in November 2014, "Wolfert's Roost" – named after the original name of Washington Irving's Sunnyside estate – opened at 100 Main Street with an "exuberant" menu, which includes a 38-ounce steak for $129 that "looks like something Fred Flintstone might have slapped on the grill";[171] in October 2016 it was announced that it would be closing as a full-time restaurant in favor of catering and occasional "pop up" restaurants.

[176] In December 2020, Esquire magazine highlighted the "Irvington Delight Market", a bodega on the corner of South Broadway and Main Street, which specializes in homemade Middle Eastern food, as one of "100 Restaurants America Can't Afford to Lose".

[177][178] Notable past residents of Irvington include: John Jacob Astor III, the wealthiest man in America at the time; Amzi Lorenzo Barber, the asphalt king;[180] Albert Bierstadt, a noted landscape painter;[181] Samuel Colman, a landscape painter of the Hudson River School, lived in Irvington in the 1860s[179] and made a number of paintings featuring the countryside around the village.

While there, he had Louis Comfort Tiffany as one of his students;[182] Chauncey M. Depew, president of the New York Central Railroad and a United States senator; Composer George Drumm lived in Irvington's Half Moon apartment complex in his later life;[183] Cyrus W. Field, who laid the first transatlantic telegraph cable, who once owned 800 acres (320 ha) in the area– now known as Ardsley Park – and whose 8,000 square feet (740 m2) house "Inanda" – meaning "pleasant place" in Zulu[184] – he built in 1875 for one of his daughter and her husband went on the market in 2016 for $2.95 million.,[185] later reduced to $2.85 million;[184] Frank Jay Gould, the philanthropist son of Jay Gould;[180] and Frederick W. Guiteau and David Dows, who made their millions in grain commissions and railroads.

[189] Silent film and Broadway theater actor William Black was born in Irvington,[190][191] as was Julianna Rose Mauriello, the star of the children's television series LazyTown.

][citation needed] Oscar-winning cinematographer Wally Pfister, noted for his work on Inception (2010) and Christopher Nolan's Batman films, was raised in Irvington in the 1960s and 70s, and attended the local schools.

[202] Irvington is currently home to a number of notable people,[92][188] including: Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, who bought a 12-acre estate with a 22-room 8-bedroom Georgian mansion on Fargo Lane in September 2019 for $4.5 million – the property has been described as "arguably the best large track of riverfront property available in Westchester";[203][204][205] professional golfer Danny Balin,[206] retired TV weatherman Storm Field; designer Eileen Fisher; Sesame Workshop co-founder Monica Getz;[21][188] jazz musician Bob James;[21] David A. Kaplan, Israeli-American pianist Elisha Abas, journalist and author of The Most Dangerous Branch: Inside the Supreme Court's Assault on the Constitution;[207] Formula 500 race car driver David Lapham,[208] choreographer Peter Martins and former New York City Ballet dancer Darci Kistler;[188][209] Fox News newscaster Jon Scott; and television host Meredith Vieira.

But this I know, that fully a dozen of our most prominent citizens and their magnificent estates were suddenly taken from Irvington territory and the village boundary was moved to the center of Sunnyside Lane.

The part that most saddened our hearts was the fact that Irving's home, "Sunnyside", for whom Irvington was named, no longer rests in the town in which he originally thought he lived."