Eric with Joan Rivers
Eric W. Schoen: February 22, 1960 – November 9, 2026
Eric Wolf Schoen, a lifelong Yonkers resident whose weekly column “This, Too, Is Yonkers” made him one of the city’s most familiar and beloved voices, died November 9, 2026, of Parkinson’s disease. He was 66.
Eric was born on February 22, 1960, at Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville, the son of Sidney and Rita Schoen. He grew up in Yonkers, and his childhood summers were spent in the Catskills at Brickman’s, always the last two weeks of August. His Yonkers education began at the Temple Emanu-El Nursery School and continued at School 13 — his mother volunteered at the schools — and he graduated from Yonkers High School in 1978, where he served as Student Council President.
For more than a decade, Eric invited the readers of the Yonkers Times and the Rising Media Group newspapers into his thoughts on everything from Presidents to pizza. His column — he wrote more than 500 of them — mixed civic affairs with everyday Yonkers life: the barber shop, the closing of a favorite restaurant, the cost of gas, the fate of the schools. He believed fiercely in the printed local newspaper and in the advertisers who, as he put it, “pay the rent” so the news can reach your doorstep. If you disagreed with him, he printed his email address and asked you to write — “I’m not always right,” he said, “and there are other perspectives that should be shared.”
With Dan Murphy, he also co-hosted the Westchester Rising Radio Show on WVOX 1460 AM, on the air at 10:00 a.m. every other Thursday. Many of his columns were written at his table at Starbucks, espresso in hand, and nothing pleased him more than being stopped on the street by a reader who wanted to talk about that week’s musings.
Before the column, there was a lifetime of public service. Eric earned his BA in Social Sciences from Pace University and his MBA in Finance and Financial Management Services from Pace’s Lubin School of Business, and he later earned his paralegal certification as well. His career with the City of Yonkers began in 1978, when he started as a page at the Yonkers Public Library.
Over 32 years he served as a clerk trainee with the Police Department, Public Information Officer in the City Manager’s office, Director of Federal and State Aid Coordination, Manager of Administration for the Fire Department, Civil Service Administrator, and Manager of Administration for Planning & Development and for Affordable Housing.
In 2000 he became Press Secretary for the Yonkers Public Schools, the voice of the district, until his retirement in 2010. He also gave his time to Yonkers Partners in Education, serving on committees that interviewed high school students for scholarships, and he served as President of the Friends of the Yonkers Public Library — a fitting honor for a man whose working life began as a library page. He was also an officer of Temple Emanu-El in Yonkers and was deeply involved in the Yonkers Jewish community.
Colleagues across City Hall, the Fire Department and the Board of Education remember his civility, his professionalism and the humor he brought to tense moments. Friends remember something simpler: Eric was generous to a fault. If there was a birthday, a holiday, or no occasion at all, Eric arrived with presents — for everyone.
Eric lived to shop, and finding a bargain was a joy in itself — a sale tag could make his whole day. Eric loved the theatre, and he loved Atlantic City. He would stroll the casino hotels taking it all in, a cigar in his mouth that he never actually smoked — he just thought it looked cool. At the slots he was a high roller in his own way: all of twenty dollars, and it had to be Wheel of Fortune.
He was predeceased by his parents, Sidney and Rita Schoen, and by his beloved sister, Carrie Schoen, to whom he was devoted and who passed away six months before him.
Eric leaves behind friends who were family to him: Gabriel Oscasio-Davila, a good and loyal friend; Michael LaMagna, at whose wedding Eric was honored to serve as best man; and John Pascarella, the long-serving co-executive producer of The Maury Show, who oversaw the show’s day-to-day production and always made sure Eric had tickets to the tapings. He is also survived by his cousins Georgette and Stephen, and Sharon, Steven and Daniel, and by Leanna and Dave, the childhood friends he grew up with and stayed close to all his life.
Services will be held on Sunday, November 15, at 11:00 a.m. at Mount Hope Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson.
Eric promised his readers, “I’ll be here as long as you are here.” His city will hold him to the spirit of that promise every time someone picks up the paper.
This, too, is Yonkers.