A planned redevelopment of Memorial Plaza could lead to a relocation of Pleasantville’s time capsule.

Jamie Maslyn, the landscape architect working with the Village Board on the redevelopment, said they “need to hear from the community on their desires first, but it would be our recommendation to keep [the time capsule] in place.”

The time capsule is buried near the southern end of the plaza on the narrow strip of grass that runs between the parking lot and the railroad tracks. The inscription says that it was buried on May 29, 1995. The events happening in Pleasantville in 1995 weren’t so different from what is happening in 2017.

So far in 2017, the Village Board has met with planners and discussed changes to the Master Plan and the way Memorial Plaza may look in the future. In 1995, the Village of Pleasantville also adopted an update to the Master Plan.

The main areas of focus in the 1995 Master Plan update included downtown, Marble Avenue, Tompkins Avenue, The Old Village, and the Cottage School. Much like today, parking in Memorial Plaza seemed to be an issue for the planners of the 1995 Master Plan Update, who thought that by expanding the parking lot over the strip of grass and the railroad cut (land cut out to make way for the railroad tracks), they would be able to create more space for parking. However, the plan for parking never was implemented, and the parking lot today looks much like it did in 1995.

Although the time capsule is scheduled to be open in 2095, it may see daylight in the near future during the redevelopment of Memorial Plaza.

“The village is in preliminary planning stages with this project,” said Patti Dwyer, Pleasantville’s Village Administrator. “If there is a need to relocate any of the monuments that are located in the southern end of the plaza, or the buried time capsule, they would be relocated to the new park area at the northern end.”