The Yonkers Health Center, one of the first comprehensive full service municipal clinic and research facilities in the country.
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, December 18th
1930: After the suggestion was made at the Crestwood Citizens Association’s November meeting that Crestwood become an independent village and town, the Association took the first step to secede from Yonkers. President Walter Addicks appointed a committee to study the proposal, selecting former Association president Alfred Entenman to lead the investigation of the “desirability of secession” from Yonkers.
1942: Yonkers gas stations reported a run on their supplies; several stations ran dry before noon and closed. Because the Office of Price Administrations drastically cut the sale of gas to consumers, effective at 12 pm, only certain categories of customers could buy gas.
Tuesday, December 19th
1940: Yonkers Police Chief Kruppenbacher admitted parking violators were not ticketed by the Habirshaw Cable and Wire Corporation plant on Point Street. Although an ordinance prohibited overnight parking, the world situation led officials to ignore it. Since the plant operated three shifts around the clock producing defense orders, its workers were given “special privileges” in recognition of their needed work. The Chief added egregious violations, such as “blocking driveways and fire hydrants” were ticketed.
1949: For the first time in twenty-five years, tea was served at the Medical and Dental Service Auxiliary of the National Hebrew Orphan Home meeting. Why the switch from coffee? Because of its skyrocketing price!
Wednesday, December 20th
1946: The board of the Yonkers Chapter of the American Red Cross passed a resolution to resign “for the good of the service of the American Red Cross.” It happened in an extremely contentious two-hour meeting in its Health Center office, attended by three members of National Red Cross staff. R. Purvis, North Atlantic Regional Manager appointed Maria Ryan, paid Executive Secretary, to conduct the chapter affairs on a temporary basis, until he selected a steering committee to run the branch.
1965: Nine children and three adults were killed in a fire that swept through the Jewish Community Center, the most tragic fire in Yonkers history.
Thursday, December 21st
1901: Yonkers police raided an alleged pool room in the Manhattan Hotel at 7 Warburton Avenue, arresting hotel owner Edward Stack. Eight of the men claimed to be NY Police Officers. Yonkers Police Captain Woodruff assembled a force of thirty men at the station house, marched to the hotel, and then surrounded it. Other YPD officers were making racing bets inside to gather evidence.
1915: Prospects of a “wider social life” in Yonkers… and in the City Jail… opened. A man, who was in jail because of alimony nonpayment, announced plans to start an “Alimony Club,” to include all men imprisoned on the charge. He planned to “petition the court to have a section of the jail “detailed and furnished especially for them.”
Friday, December 22nd
1894: The St. Andrew’s Golf Club of Yonkers-on-the-Hudson, joined with four other golf clubs to form the Amateur Golf Association of the United States. This name soon would be changed to US Golf Association.
1922: Although Yonkers Republican insurgents objected strenuously, going so far as to travel to Washington to lobby against the appointment, President Warren Harding nominated former District Attorney and Yonkers Corporation Counsel Francis Winslow of Alta Avenue to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York.
Saturday, December 23rd
1901: More than 240 prisoners appeared before Judge Kellogg after having been arrested two days earlier in a raid of Manhattan Hotel poolroom on Warburton Avenue. The courtroom was filled with spectators as eight NYC police officers were swept up in the raid. The NYC officers arrested in the sweep, however, did not give their own names; they claimed Yonkers’ residences and lied about their occupations. As soon as these New York policemen were released on bail, they hightailed it to the Bronx border. Several of the court spectators, however, were detectives from NY Police Headquarters. Not only did they recognize several of the men, they notified New York Police Department superiors who the men really were!
1946: North Atlantic Red Cross official Judson Rees hinted a Red Cross Steering Committee would be appointed right after Christmas. Rees was in Yonkers as he had a working knowledge of the Yonkers board, having attended chapter board meetings before the resignations.
Board member Morris Goldner later told The Herald Statesman he had not resigned, saying a board of directors “can’t be discharged by resolution… resignation must come as voluntary.” Both Goldner and George Yanosik had abstained from voting on the resignation resolution at the meeting; Luke Onorato voted No. He added the seven absent board members couldn’t be forced to resign.
Sunday, December 24th:
1946: Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal posthumously awarded Lieutenant Darwin Day, USNR, the Distinguished Flying Cross. Lt. Day, killed in a plane crash the previous July, received the recognition for heroism and extraordinary achievement in aerial flight. While piloting a PBY Blackcat over enemy-held waters of the Southwest Pacific, he rescued ten survivors of the USS Cooper and landed them in friendly territory.
Day grew up on Elliott Avenue, and married to Grace Stevenson, daughter of Rev. Harry Stevenson, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church. His mother Lily Day was a bacteriologist in the Yonkers Bureau of Laboratories.
1959: At the request of President Eisenhower, the American Flag at Philipse Manor Hall was lowered to half-mast in tribute to the passing of America’s last surviving Civil War veteran, Confederate soldier Walter Williams who died at the age of 117. The President asked all flags be lowered to honor all members of the “Blue and Gray” until Williams was buried a few days later.
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 emailinfo@yonkershistoricalsociety.org
