By Mary Hoar, President Emerita Yonkers Historical Society, recipient of the 2004 Key to History and President Untermyer Performing Arts Council
Monday, September 12th
September 12, 1927: Judge Charles Boote stunned two Pennsylvania prep school teens nabbed for speeding! Seventeen-year-old Joseph Reeve and Francis Brooke, 15, were driving to Philadelphia in a new eight-cylinder car Brooke won in a raffle. They sped through Yonkers at 47 mph, but were arrested on Central Avenue by Patrolman Joseph Fahy. Reeve Laughed in court when Boote labeled their “adventure” outrageous. He lost his giggle quickly when he was sent back to jail for contempt of court. Brooke was sentenced to ten days in jail, but Boote, learning he was 15, sent him to Children’s Court. When the Judge learned the 15-year-old was driving the new car home with consent of his father, he asked, “Is your father all right? I mean is he sick mentally? Has your father ever suggested buying you an airplane?”
Tuesday, September 13th
September 13, 1927: After property owners objected to diversion of the Nepperhan River running under Main Street and Warburton Avenue to the new flume, Mayor Walsh announced part of the Nepperhan would continue to run in the old river bed. Walter Mitchell, attorney for the Devitt Buildings at 9-11 Warburton, charged Yonkers had no legal authority to change the stream. Recent flooding had caused the Nepperhan to rise to ten feet, twice its normal level. It damaged several buildings and created a new channel flowing through the Strauss building, 3 Warburton.
September 13, 1946: Sylvia Worner wanted to test whether Yonkers’ Tercentennial tagline, the “City of Gracious Living,” was catching on. An employee of Columbia Broadcasting Company, she mailed a letter to her brother while on a business trip to Los Angeles. Addressed to “Ted Worner, City Hall, City of Gracious Living, NY,” her brother, got the letter six days after she mailed it!
Wednesday, September 14th
September 14, 1927: Property owners of buildings in the flood zone near the mouth of the Nepperhan River expressed unhappiness with the Mayor’s plan to split the Nepperhan River, diverting a portion of it into the flume and allowing the remainder to flow over its natural riverbed. R. Williams, a former DPW foreman and spokesman for the Krug Piano Store at 15 Warburton, stated the project was “a joke” if the city had to let “the Nepperhan continue on its present course.” Many believed splitting the river meant the flume was not big enough to handle the river.
September 14, 1927: For the first time in Yonkers history, The Yonkers Statesman was delivered by air! A seaplane brought one thousand copies to Bear Mountain and delivered to attendees of the Yonkers Merchants Association annual outing, the first large distribution by air of any newspaper between New York City and Albany!
Thursday, September 15th
September 15, 1655: The Peach Tree War, Native Americans’ large scale attack on New Netherland settlements along the North River (Hudson), was a victory for the Susquehannocks. The Indians took 150 hostages; most of the remaining settlers along the Hudson fled. At the time, it was believed the Native Americans originally attacked because Cornelis van Tienhoven killed the young Wappinger girl Tachiniki for taking a peach from his tree.
Stuyvesant ended the war by repurchasing land rights from Native Americans.
September 15, 1945: The Public Relations Office of the 70th Infantry Division announced First Sergeant Vincent Gaynor of Prescott Street had received another award. Gaynor held five bronze battle stars, the Presidential Unit citation, cluster and the Croix de Guerre. At the time of the announcement, he had served in the European Theater for thirteen months.
Friday September 16th
September 16, 1921: Judge Charles Boote gave a Nepperhan Avenue man, newly arrived from Jugo-Slavia, a $5 fine and lessons in love, teaching the American version of proper courting. Seems the man saw a woman he admired, and sat on her lap. She immediately pushed him off… and he slapped her! The lothario told the judge all the best people in his home country used this method.
September 16, 1934: Former Seventh Ward AC member Nick Tremark, who played his first pro game the previous month, received permission from Casey Stengel, his Brooklyn Dodgers manager, to play with his former team against the Eighth Warders at Pelton Field. More than 8,000 people jammed the field for “Nick Tremont Day,” and witnessed the Eighth Warders shut out Tremont’s team 3 to 0. The Yonkers HS and Manhattan College baseball star also played on the Cook Post American Legion team that won the 1928 NY State championship.
Saturday, September 17th
September 17, 1945: The Herald Statesman reported Lieutenant Helen “Taffy” Logan of Van Cortlandt Park Avenue would appear with Ronald Reagan in “Perishable: Rush,” a movie short portraying the success of the “air-evac” program and promoting the upcoming Victory Loan drive!
Roosevelt HS grad Logan, an Army flight nurse with the 801st Medical Air Evacuation Squadron based at Guadacanal, flew all over the Pacific evacuating wounded soldiers. On the flight transporting the 100,000th air evacuation patient, Army photographers documented Taffy’s work. Shortly afterwards she received orders to report to Hollywood; the only non-Hollywood member of the cast, she spent 30-days making the film… without Ronald Reagan!
Logan was the only woman entitled to wear the Army Air Medal.
Sunday, September 18th
September 18, 1913: Dr. Sue Radcliffe of Morris street was appointed Medical Inspector of Schools, a new position created by Public Safety Commissioner James Fleming; she was to handle contagious disease epidemics among students.
September 18, 1918: The New York State Woman’s Land Army, an emergency organization supplying female labor to NY State farms, started a membership campaign in Yonkers; Florence Parson was appointed Yonkers chairman.”
Questions or comments? Email YonkersHistory1646@gmail.com. For information on the Yonkers Historical Society, Sherwood House and upcoming events, please visit our website www.yonkershistoricalsociety.org or call 914-961-8940.
