About Us

Rye Brook Westmore News

Real estate broker Bernard Abel started the Westmore News on Dec. 24, 1964, not as a lifelong ambition but simply to tell the news as it was. The paper began as the strictly local independent weekly publication it is today.

Abel, a World War II bomber pilot who had flown 27 missions and a Korean War transport pilot, was unhappy with the daily Port Chester newspaper, which he felt distorted the facts.

Westmore News founder Bernard Abel looks at a copy of the first issue in a bound book of newspapers from the publication’s first year.

Abel, who lived in the unincorporated area of the Town of Rye, began with a typewriter, Polaroid camera and great determination. A machine for addressing the paper was housed in the basement of his Edgewood Drive home, as it could not fit in his first tiny office at 16 King St. in downtown Port Chester. The office subsequently moved to 42 South Main St., then back to 16 King, finally settling at its present 38 Broad St. address about 30 years ago.

In launching the paper, Abel first put together an initial issue. With that in hand, he took a month to sell advertising for the second.

Since its second issue came out in January 1965, the Westmore News has been published every week, never missing an issue. The paper has also come out with one extra issue, a four-page special about local abuse of the federally funded anti-poverty program in April 1977.

Because of Abel’s commitment to report events as they really happened, the Westmore News found itself at times taking unpopular positions.

The breakup of a Port Chester arson ring in the 1960s was among the most important stories Abel covered. A series of suspicious fires plagued the village, baffling the police. Eventually stories that appeared in the Westmore News helped solve the case. A $1,000 reward was donated to charity.

In 1981, Abel turned the paper over to his son Richard, who had graduated from Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa., in 1976 and had been working at the Westmore News since 1977.

Publisher Richard Abel surveys copies of the paper after it comes back from the printer.

Richard, who now serves as publisher, was not unfamiliar with the paper. From the age of 12, he helped get the newspaper out by addressing copies with the old Addressograph machine and also stuffed envelopes at billing time. In high school, he took pictures for the paper and attended village board meetings with his father.

While recuperating from an automobile accident in 1978, he began writing accounts receivable and circulation software for the Westmore News with background gained as a math major in college.

Coverage of his product in national trade publications led to requests for Richard’s software from other newspapers and his becoming a consultant. Besides installing the computer programs, he trained personnel and provided support. The Westmore News still uses the software he developed.

New technology

The first computer was installed at the Westmore News in 1978. Since that first computer, the system quickly grew to where every employee on the editorial and production end of the paper worked on a computer, putting together camera-ready copy, which was then brought to press.

Even that has changed, however, and the paper is now sent to the printer via the Internet.

Computers have allowed the paper to be more timely and creative and to publish a magazine, six other newspapers, a newsletter and as well as various other journals and publications.

Photography has gone from Polaroid to 35 mm to digital, allowing a picture to be taken only hours before press time and still make it in the paper.

Constantly changing with the marketplace

Jananne Abel, Richard’s wife since 1979, started working at the Westmore News full-time in 1983, having contributed theater and restaurant reviews for several years before that. In January 1984 she became editor, a position she holds today.

Editor Jananne Abel works on a computer at her desk preparing copy for the week.

The Abels live in Port Chester with their children Rebecca, 22, and Brittany, 14. Rebecca, a Brown University graduate, is presently teaching 6th grade in Los Angeles with the Teach for America program and Brittany attends Port Chester High School. 

Today eight people work for the paper—in editorial, production, advertising, circulation and clerical positions. There are also a handful of freelancers and columnists. The editor is always looking for more contributing writers.

The publication is constantly changing with the marketplace. In December 1987, the Westmore News published the first edition of a quarterly magazine serving Port Chester/Rye Brook called Village Views, an insert received by subscribers and available separately for non-subscribers. In 1994, that magazine was reduced to an annual publication, which comes out at Christmastime. Due to the number of restaurants that have sprung up in Port Chester and Rye Brook, a monthly restaurant guide replaced it.

Several special editions are also published throughout the year for various holidays and occasions.

Because of the growing Spanish-speaking population in Port Chester, a Spanish-language monthly called America Látina was formed 16 years ago.

In order to capture the separate identities of Port Chester and Rye Brook, in 1996 the Westmore News split into two editions, one for each village, not without some resistance. While there is common news in each, including almost a total overlapping of Port Chester school district news since the district encompasses all of Port Chester and a large portion of Rye Brook, front page news generally focuses on the village for which it is intended. In January 2001, the names of the papers were changed to the Port Chester Westmore News and the Rye Brook Westmore News to reflect the names of the villages they cover and diminish the Westmore News moniker. Once representing the local telephone exchange, it no longer is as relevant.

Awards

Over the years the Westmore News has won numerous awards for editorial and photographic excellence from the New York Press Association, an association of weekly newspapers. First place plaques fill the wall as you enter the newspaper’s 38 Broad St. office.