Philothropist Eva Smith Cochran, daughter of carpet magnate Alexander Smith.
By Mary Hoar, City of Yonkers Historian, President Emerita Yonkers Historical Society, recipient of the 2004 Key to History, Member of the Yonkers Landmarks Preservation Board, and President Untermyer Performing Arts Council
Monday, April 22nd
April 22, 1943: Alexander Smith and Sons Carpet Company announced its company and workers financed the bomber “Yonkers Magic Carpet” by purchasing war bonds valued at $300,000! To spur the effort, the company donated $2 for every dollar its employees contributed to the war effort.
April 22, 1953: Otis Elevator President Leroy Petersen demonstrated use of an 1861 Otis elevator for company stockholders! Found in New Orleans, it was brought to the Yonkers plant and displayed for the company’s 100th anniversary celebration. Company stockholders’ toured Otis’ Yonkers works, the city where it all began!
April 22, 1953: Governor Thomas Dewey vetoed a bill sponsored by Yonkers representatives Senator Bill Condon and Assemblyman Malcom Wilson; the bill, approved by our Common Council, would increase notice of a public hearing for zoning change applications from five days to ten days.
Tuesday, April 23rd
April 23, 1953: A driverless car suddenly went on an early morning joyride! YPD believed the car, parked on William Street, had been hit by another car, sending it down 30 steps of the William Street stairway. It was stopped by a large steel pipe railing where the stairway turned. Car owner James Moynihan said the car was “parked properly,” a statement the police found credible as there was a dry spot where his car was parked during an overnight rainstorm.
April 23, 1953: Airman Gerald Jones of Waverly Street was member of a B-26 Invader crew who received the 17th Bomb Wing “Mission of the Week Award;” on a night mission over North Korea, this Invader crew took out 21 Communist supply trucks on the main road between Yangdok and Wonsan.
Wednesday, April 24th
April 24, 1942: The Court of Appeals reversed the conviction of Patrick Fitzgerald, former Deputy Sheriff and Ninth Ward Republican Leader. Fitzgerald previously was convicted of “aiding and acting in concert with” former Mayor John Condon, for “asking and agreeing to receive a bribe” to have a pinball ordinance adopted by the Common Council. The seven jurists in Albany unanimously found “no evidence, direct or circumstantial, from which it might be found that the crime charged in the indictment was committed.”
April 24, 1943: After approval by the Washington Federal Works Agency, Yonkers received a Lanham Act allotment of almost $40,000 to open three centers to care for children of women war workers. The centers opened at Mulford Gardens, Schools Three and Twenty-Three.
Thursday, April 25th
April 25, 1865: Draped in the black crepe of mourning, Lincoln’s Funeral train passed slowly through Yonkers, while Yonkers citizens silently stood at attention by the arch.
April 25, 1888: Six men were buried alive while digging a trench for the Warburton Avenue sewer running from Glenwood Avenue to north of former Alderman William Ketcham’s property (adjoining the Trevor property on the north). The area water main was four feet west of it, laying on a sandy foundation. Investigators believed the heavy blasting caused the sand to cave into the sewer trench, leaving the pipe unsupported. The weight of the pipe broke a joint, and water poured into the trench. Their fellow workers frantically tried to free the men; Patrick Flynn and John Keating’s heads remained above ground, so were rescued. Four men died: Malachy Flynn, Michael Vail,Patrick Kennedy and Reuben Oscar.
April 25, 1935: Laura Elting of Glenwood Avenue was chosen to serve as the first woman deacon in the history of the First Presbyterian Church.
Friday, April 26th
April 26, 1921: Riverdale Avenue sculptor Isador Konti began work on the memorial to be erected to the memory of 174 Yonkers men who lost their lives in the service of the United States fighting forces during the World War.
April 26, 1934: One of the first people arrested during YPD Chief Edward Quirk’s drive “against outlaw liquor” was a Yonkers woman! Detectives Patrick Christopher and Thomas Flynn raided Alice Cobsky’s Nepperhan Avenue store and found 25 pints of homemade whiskey. She said she sold it for 50 cents a pint, but only to friends.
April 26, 1946: Captain Lawrence Ritter, Yonkers native, Roosevelt athlete, Roosevelt grad, and World War II fighter pilot, crashed in a snowstorm in northwestern Pennsylvania. It took more than seven months before the crash site was found, although the Army conducted multiple searches. He had been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal with multiple oak leaf clusters for his war service.
Saturday, April 27th
April 27, 1861: The first company of Yonkers Civil War volunteers marched down Main Street to the railroad station to leave for battle through a huge number of Yonkers well-wishers.
April 27, 1923: Mayor Taussig received a certified copy of the bill to raise doormen, janitors and hostlers in our Bureau of Police to the rank of third-grade policemen, a bill passed in both houses of the State Legislature. The mayor submitted it to the Common Council for a public hearing before sending it back to the Governor for his signature.
Sunday, April 28th
April 28, 1908: After receiving word Governor Hughes signed the Yonkers Manor Hall bill to preserve the structure as NY State property, it was announced Eva Smith Cochran donated $50,000 for the purchase of the property, plus an additional $5,000 for any needed repairs when the City of Yonkers finally vacated the property. The Manor Hall was used for thirty-six years as a municipal building; the last departments moved to City Hall mid 1911.
April 28, 1917: Scouts from Troops 2, 4, 10 and 212 opened a one-acre plot of land in North Yonkers to grow food, part of the Scouts’ program to relieve the high cost of food due to war.
April 28, 1918: “Wake Up Day in Yonkers” stimulated recruiting for the Army, Navy, and industrial, agricultural and relief preparedness workers.
Questions or comments on this column? Email YonkersHistory1646@gmail.com.
For information on the Yonkers Historical Society, Sherwood House and upcoming events, please visit our website www.yonkershistoricalsociety.org, call 914-961-8940 or email info@yonkershistoricalsociety.org.
