The best lady tap dancer in the world, Eleanor Powell, from Yonkers
By Mary Hoar, City of Yonkers Historian, President Emeritus Yonkers Historical Society, recipient of the 2004 Key to History, Yonkers Landmarks Preservation Board Member, Revolutionary Yonkers 250 Chair and President Untermyer Performing Arts Council
Monday, February 24th
February 24, 1947: Photographer’s Mate First Class Leonard Rizzolla, Borcher Avenue, was on the first helicopter flight over the South Pole and took the official Navy photographs! Rizzolla is credited with an earlier first on the Admiral Byrd South Pole expedition, making the first helicopter landing on the frozen Bay of Whales.
Rizzolla was on Byrd’s flagship, the USS Mount Olympus; it was ordered not to break the ice for fear it would damage the ship. Instead, an inspecting party, including Rizzolla, flew over the bay, landing to test ice thickness. The Navy reported the “wind and blowing snow made visibility difficult.” He also was cameraman on the flight conducting the first aerial magnetic survey of the Southern Hemisphere just a few days earlier.
February 24, 1954: Otis Elevator asked Yonkers to close parts of Atherton, Bashford, Locust Streets and Wells Avenue; it would give Yonkers fire and police vehicles 24-hour-a-day emergency access on these streets. Before this could be done, the Common Council had to have to hold public hearings.
After asking for this concession, Otis stated Yonkers levied “unwarrantably high tax assessments” on its Yonkers works; it wanted a reduction.
Tuesday February 25th
February 25, 1918: Dr. Elmer Sheets, Chairman of the Committee on Vacant Lots and Lands, met with Yonkers householders to discuss plans for war gardens. Sheets announced more than 2,000 war gardens were cultivated in Yonkers in 1917.
February 25, 1947: City Manager Montgomery signed papers brought by Federal Public Housing Administration Project Engineer George Bailey to give Yonkers control of the Henning Park Veterans’ Housing Project.
Wednesday, February 26th
February 26, 1942: Brigadier General Frank Brady, US Army Air Corps, son of the late Police Captain Hugh Brady, became the first Yonkers officer decorated for bravery in World War II. He was awarded a medal for heroism in Java. He was a sports star and President of his Yonkers High School Class of 1916; he also was president of his Freshman and Sophomore Class at Columbia, until he left to serve in World War I.
February 26, 1947: Dr. Julius Yourman, NYS Veterans’ Affairs Director, spoke on the changing world at Halsted School’s graduation ceremony for 64 WWII veterans. Yourman stated divorces had increased since the war’s end because “the father or husband had been the dictator, but now the home was democratic and the woman an equal partner. Men don’t have the authority of control.” He went on to say divorce happened because men and women did not know their roles.
Thursday, February 27th
February 27, 1880: The Yonkers Club, led by William Kellock, won the finals of the Grand National Rink Curling Competition to take home the Gordon Championship Medal at the New York Skating Rink.
February 27, 1935: Alderman Sylvester Barker introduced a local law in the Common Council requiring a two-year residence of all Civil Service employees appointed by Civil Service.
February 27, 1936: Eleanor Powell of Pennsylvania Avenue was labeled as the “best and prettiest lady tap dancer in the world” in the latest issue of Mademoiselle magazine for women.
Friday, February 28th
February 28, 1923: Mary Noonan, caretaker of the Yonkers City Pier, rescued an eight-year-old floating on Hudson River ice! The boy fell in the Hudson while testing ice strength and climbed onto a nearby ice floe. Making her rounds at the pier, Mrs. Noonan heard his cries, quickly unwound her neck scarf and threw him its end. With great difficulty, she managed to pull him close enough to the dock to help him to safety.
February 28, 1952: Yonkers began demolition of the former Eschmann mansion on Warburton Avenue to build an extension to School 25. Used many years as a Board of Ed supply warehouse, the residence was built in the early twentieth century for F. W. Eschmann, President of Arlington Chemical Company, who lived there for twelve years.
The estate’s stable and garage housed Engine 8 of the Yonkers Fire Department; the city owned the Eschmann dock on the Hudson.
Saturday, March 1st
March 1, 1936: The School Sixteen PTA Burlesque “Dream of a Clown” was performed by some of Yonkers most prominent residents. The all-male cast featured 70 well-known Yonkers residents capering in ballet and evening skirts. Mayor Joseph Loehr played a bridegroom who promised to take his blushing bride, County Registrar Will Condon, “in awful padlock” in the “perforated bonds of matrimony.” Former Public Safety Commissioner Walter Mitchell was so fetching, he won the title of “Miss Yonkers!”
March 1, 1945: Yonkers High and NYU graduate Lieutenant August Rabe flying a P-51 Mustang, while returning from escorting Liberators over Central Germany, joined his squadron strafing a German ammunitions train, thirteen locomotives, and eleven motor trucks. One train, its boxcar filled with explosives, disintegrated and blew up train tracks, leaving craters where it once stood. The blast was so intense, debris blew up to the attacking fighters. Pilots reported “our mustangs flipped like flapjacks.”
From Hillside Avenue, Rabe originally was with the Royal Canadian Air Force and transferred to the Army Air Forces after D-Day.
Sunday, March 2nd
March 2, 1915: Officers of the Third Precinct moved into their new commodious Station House on Radford Street. The well-lighted and ventilated rooms had everything necessary for up-to-date police work. One favorite feature was a second-floor assembly room where the men could socialize.
March 2, 1928: Governor Alfred E. Smith expressed his belief Westchester Country would eventually become a city. He planned to resume his fight with the Republican Legislature to create a special commission to study possible consolidation of small New York State counties.
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.
