By Mary Hoar
Those of you who have followed my column “On This Day in Yonkers History,” since the beginning were not surprised by the CBS Morning News feature, “Short Pants: The Long and the Short of It.” You knew Yonkers banned shorts in the 1930s.
I first wrote about Alderman Slater’s fight to keep women covered April 2015; the column mentioned the anniversary of the argument about the 1936 anti-shorts’ ordinance in front of the State Court of Appeals; the court threw out that first law.
This fascinating CBS TV segment focused on the terrible 1936 heat wave; its hot temperature records still stand today, according to reporter Mo Rocca. Thousands died from the oppressive heat; others died from food poisoning. Homes were not air conditioned, and iceboxes were less effective at keeping food fresh and healthy. Many homes did not have refrigerators.
Yonkers’ first concern about Tibbetts was not clothing but parking congestion on the side streets near the park.
Streetwear, however, wasn’t the spur for the first discussions about shorts! July 1934, shorts as tennis wear exploded into a vigorous debate. After much discussion, Westchester clubs and municipalities developed stringent guides to what was proper… and improper… to wear on our tennis courts. The tennis togs debate finally was settled when the highly respected Reverend Otho Bartholow, Mount Vernon’s First Methodist Episcopal Church pastor, stated tennis shorts were “all right.”
Many months later during the midst of Slater’s campaign against shorts, The Herald Statemanquoted the good reverend’s remark… and asked the question about wearing shorts: “And if tennis, why not hiking?”
William Slater, Alderman (Councilman) for the Tibbett’s Park area began his intense fight for modesty in 1935 before the killer heat; he told the Council his constituents were offended by women—and girls— “so scantily clad that they would make the Angel Gabriel blush.”[1] Which girls was he speaking about? Picnickers from the Bronx, women who walked here on New York City’s Aqueduct Trail. The trail leads to McLean Avenue not too far from Tibbetts; once they reached McLean, people walked the few blocks down Tibbetts Road, Midland or Sedgwick Avenues, straight into the park!
He claimed to be horrified… his war focused on women he called “semi-nudists,” women walking through Yonkers residential neighborhoods wearing shorts! He photographed women to prove their “indecency,” while ordering officers to issue summonses “because their garb was too scanty.”[2]
Five girls received summons. Slater’s drive required them to appear in Yonkers City Court. City Judge Martin Fay lectured the women, telling them when they came to Yonkers, they had “to wear what people in Yonkers wear if you want to walk through our streets.” [3] Slater declined to press charges against them; there was no prosecution because there were “thousands of others equally guilty;”[4]appearing in court was enough of a lesson.
At the June 18th, 1935, Council meeting, Slater had a difficult time convincing the Council to support his attempts to control how people dressed going to Tibbetts. He introduced three resolutions. The first asked the Corporation Counsel to determine if action could be taken to force the County to control the “Aqueduct nuisance.” The resolution read in part: the “…dress and conduct of many of those visiting the park is objectionable to the residents of Lincoln Park. Yonkers pays approximately 20 per cent of the county operating expenses but faces assessed value losses amounting to thousands of dollars. Yonkers must maintain additional police to enforce traffic and provide police protection against trespass and vandalism.” [5]
Instead of the immediate action Slater wanted, the Council sent the resolution to the Committee of the Whole by a vote of 11 to 1; his resolution was in limbo until the Aldermen decided to investigate.
His second resolution directed Yonkers administration to request the County Park Commission issue and enforce rules for dress and attire for Tibbetts visitors. This also was sent to the Committee of a Whole by a vote of 9 to 3. The third resolution was a draft of a law restricting people from walking on any Yonkers streets in “scanty costumes that offend the sense of propriety of the average normal person.”[6] This went to the Committee of the Whole by a vote of eight to four.
By July 1st, however, Slater had convinced the Council to unanimously pass a law without discussion, a law carefully crafted by Corporation Counsel Leonard McAneny to make it palatable. It became illegal for anyone 16 or older to wear “bathing costumes or any other than customary street attire upon any public street or thoroughfare in the City of Yonkers[7].” Section 2 made clear this would not apply to people playing sports, or “indulging in athletic contests” if “permission was granted by proper officials…”[8] Section 3 stated any violation would be a misdemeanor with a $150 fine—or prison for up to 30 days. It went into effect immediately.
While addressing the Ninth Ward Republican Club, former Deputy DPW Commissioner John Coyne stated Slater’s mission was a bluff, a grandstand play for votes, to get his name in the paper, since it happened shortly before an election. Coyne pointed out the same conditions had existed 3 years earlier when Slater was elected, yet he never said a word.
Police assigned to check out the hikers reported everyone they saw met Yonkers’ standards.