Danforth Toan

1918 - 2013

Toan, Danforth

Danforth Toan, 94, one of the founding members of the Hickory Hill Cooperative, died in his home Wednesday Jan 16, 2013. Dan was a Tappan resident since 1947 when he and his wife Jane moved into Shanks Village, an army base that had been converted to low income housing for World War II veterans who were attending college under the GI bill. In Shanks, friendships were formed which led to the founding of Hickory Hill Cooperative in 1950. Dan was one of the planners and the architect of both the original homes and later the senior housing complex known as Hickory Hill II.

A well-known architect of college campuses, especially libraries, he designed buildings for Brown University, NYU, Columbia, Hofstra, Adelphi, Sarah Lawrence, Corning Community College, Cornell, Duke, Toronto U. and many others, and taught architecture at Columbia University for 12 years. For many years in the late 60's and 70's, he worked extensively with Grumman Aircraft on their design plans for the first manned space station.

Dan was also passionately active in the historic preservation of Tappan and Rockland County. He volunteered for decades with the Orangetown Planning Board, and was the sometimes controversial Chairman of the Orangetown Historic Areas Board of Review. In 1994 he was at the center of the notorious "Vinyl Wars" when he opposed the use of Vinyl siding on historic homes in Tappan. In later years, Dan worked on Rockland riverfront access and on the "Supermap" of historic homes and roads in Rockland County.