Westchester County will permanently name a green space at Kensico Dam Plaza after former Congresswoman Nita M. Lowey at a public ceremony on Wednesday, Sept. 9.

County Executive Ken Jenkins is hosting the 11 a.m. dedication at the plaza, located at 1 Bronx River Parkway in Valhalla.

The space will be called the United States Congresswoman Nita M. Lowey Community Green. The Sept. 2 deadline is days away.

Lowey died March 15, 2025, at age 87 at her home in Harrison after a long battle with metastatic breast cancer. She represented most of Westchester County and all of Rockland County in Congress for 32 years, from 1989 to 2021. In 2018, she became the first woman to chair the House Appropriations Committee, the panel that controls federal spending.

In March 2025, after Lowey's death, Jenkins called her someone who "championed integrity, honesty and the values of good government." Rep. George Latimer, who now represents parts of Westchester in Congress, said at the time that Lowey was "the definition of an excellent public servant: smart, warm. Principled and fearless."

Kensico Dam Plaza sits on the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Bronx River Parkway Reservation. The dam, completed in 1917, stands 307 feet high and stretches 1,843 feet across the Kensico Reservoir. The county acquired the surrounding parkland in 1963.

The Lowey dedication falls two days before the county's annual Sept. 11 memorial ceremony at the same plaza on Friday, Sept. 11.

How to attend: RSVP to [email protected] by Wednesday, Sept. 2. The ceremony begins at 11 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 9, at Kensico Dam Plaza, 1 Bronx River Parkway, Valhalla.