[3][4] Taconic is located in Westchester County, approximately fifty miles north of New York City.

It lies across the street from the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a New York State maximum security women's prison.

[6] Compared to most New York State prisons, Taconic and Bedford Hills are relatively accessible by public transportation: Metro North Railroad's Harlem line has station stops about 1.5 miles away, and the Westchester County bus system serves the area.

Its first director was Katherine Bement Davis, a progressive politician, prison reformer, and the first woman to earn a PhD in Economics/Political Science at the University of Chicago.

For the next four decades, the reformatory operated as part of Bedford Hills, still the state's only maximum-security prison for females.