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Ossining Mayor Hanauer Weds Longtime Partner

OSSINING, N.Y. – Ossining Mayor William Hanauer married his partner of nearly 40 years, Alan Stahl, under a gazebo on the village waterfront today, but said it would be a while before there's a honeymoon.

“Possibly in Paris in December, I have to run for re-election and after that the village board the very next day starts working on the budget, so after the budget is adopted in early December [we’ll go],” said Hanauer, who is serving his third term.

Hanauer and Stahl held their small ceremony at Sparta Park on the Ossining waterfront this afternoon. There were two rows of about 20 chairs for family and friends, but many more filled the lower section of the park by the gazebo to stand and watch the wedding.  Bubbles filled the air throughout as bottles of blow bubbles were handed out to all who attended. The newly married couple wore new, matching rings that they showed off after the ceremony as well. 

“These are a new version of the rings we’ve been wearing for 13 years,” Hanauer said.

The two wore matching orchids on their jacket lapels and walked down the paved hill to the park hand-in-hand as the crowd waited and watched.

“We are here to celebrate by joining them at last in legal marriage,” said the Rev. Lynda Clements, who performed the ceremony. “The essence of this commitment is taking someone in their entirety. You can begin a new chapter in your lives in a way that is secure and meaningful.”

Clements, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Ossining, read through the traditional wedding rhetoric, but, in a twist, she had the crowd acknowledge and give blessing for the marriage by shouting “we do” in unison.

Hanauer and Stahl shared a glass of sweet wine and then crushed a glass that was covered to celebrate the ceremony. Following the presenting of the rings and sharing a kiss and a long embrace, the two sang George Gershwin’s “Of Thee I Sing” to each other and to the crowd.

“I will love you in good times and in bad,” Hanauer said to Stahl during the ceremony.

Hanauer met Stahl, curator of numismatics at Princeton University, in 1974 at JFK International Airport while they were both waiting in line to board a charter flight to Europe. Hanauer, then the director of Cultural Affairs and adjunct lecturer in the Department of Performing and Creative Arts at Staten Island Community College, was waiting to visit friends and relatives and Stahl, who was in graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, was leaving on an archaeological excavation, according to a press release issued by the couple. Hanauer said the two spent time traveling together that summer and have lived together since. The two moved to Ossining in 1996.

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