The Warburton Theater, 45 Warburton Avenue
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 April 28th
April 28, 1925: Patrolman Thomas Brooks, first African American appointed to the Yonkers Police Department, was honored at a testimonial dinner at the Armory. Mayor Ulrich Wiesendanger and Public Safety Commissioner Alfred Iles were the principal speakers; Iles appointed Brooks to the force.
April 28, 1934: City attorneys rushed to get a last minute stay to prevent Francis Duffy, attorney for George T. Kelly, from attaching Yonkers’ fleet of 100 cars and trucks to satisfy his $15,000 judgment against Yonkers for damage caused by dumping trash on his land.
Yonkers claimed there was a judgment against Kelly for $9,915.67, claiming he had not satisfactorily fulfilled an old contract. Judge Bleakley signed the stay of execution 9 pm at his home and set the hearing a few days later.
Tuesday, April 29th
April 29, 1933: Henry Kaltenbach, President of the Board of Managers of Yonkers General Hospital, presented the Ben Morgan apparatus to the hospital. This apparatus was the most modern anesthetic equipment and could be used to administrator both gas or ether, permitting almost immediate recovery of consciousness after the mask was removed.
April 29, 1942. Yonkers National Defense Vocational Training at courses opened to women!
Because of the dwindling number of men available to work at “attack plants,” Defense Training Coordinator Dr. Lawrence Ashley announced the School for Aeronautical Manufacturing in the former School Ten would open to women. Three hundred women registered the first day. Twelve interviewers spoke to each enrollee during registration for the course. Women were assured of defense industry jobs at Eastern Aircraft in Tarrytown, where the expected workforce of 4,000 would be 80% female. Women also would do defense work at other area companies such as Alexander Smith Carpet, Habirshaw Cable and Wire, Otis Elevator and Anaconda Wire and Cable Companies.
Wednesday, April 30th
April 30, 1915: French government agents announced horses held at the Empire City Race Track and shipped from Ludlow Dock were part of a contract for 40,000 horses purchased throughout the United States. Cunard and Prince chartered steamships transported horses from the South Yonkers dock to European war areas.
April 30, 1931: New York Engineering Company officials announced they were delaying “Visitors Day” on Sir Hubert Wilkens’ Nautilus submarine; the sub needed other work in addition to the manufacture and installation of the vessel’s ice cutters. Not only was departure from Yonkers delayed, its Arctic expedition was postponed indefinitely. The Nautilus was moored at the Yonkers’ Mahlstedt Lumber Company dock almost a month.
Thursday, May 1st
May 1, 1924: The Warburton Theater held Military Night; Manor Hall players entertained Company G, Tenth Regiment, N.G.N.Y., Fourth Separate Company. Mayor Lennon made a short speech, as did Colonel John Shotts and Florence Rittenhouse.
May 1, 1935: Westchester County Health Department shut down the investigation of the poison custard and announced it would turn everything over to Federal agencies to pursue prosecution. Test results showed dangerously high bacteria level in the frozen canned eggs used by Cushman’s Sons White Plains bakery to make 4,000 pastries the previous week. These contaminants sickened more than 1,200 people in the New York area, with seven-hundred-seventy-six victims in Westchester.
May 1, 1939: The Central Avenue Police Station sent officers to check out the Hillview Reservoir after its superintendent complained about the many cars parked along its eastern side.
Officers immediately investigated… and found people watching the lights of the World’s Fair! The Long Island Sound and Long Island were clearly visible from that spot by the reservoir.
Friday, May 2nd
May 2, 1889: A dynamite factory near Shaft 16 of the new Croton Aqueduct exploded, uprooting trees and destroying four buildings on Sprain Road
May 2, 1918: Colonial Heights’ Rexford Shilliday lost his life in an aerial accident over France. Rex attended Yonkers High and Columbia University; he went to France to drive ambulances May 1917, and was transferred to the Fourth Provisional Aerial Squadron of the US Aviation Corps eight months Later.
May 2, 1936: Joseph Cumming of James Street, attending the NY State Normal School at Cortlandt, received notification he had been selected to be one of 27 students to attend the Olympics in Berlin. The special invitation came from the German Olympic Committee.
Saturday, May 3rd
May 3, 1931: Sir Hubert Wilkins, owner of the Nautilus, was notified by the Norwegian government it might ban his planned trip to the North Pole since it was “an unnecessary risk to human life.” At the time Wilkins was informed, the Nautilus was making practice dives in the Hudson, off the coast of Yonkers.
May 3, 1932: After being closed by Yonkers Police or three nights, the New York Supreme Court decided the Columbus Hall Marathon Dance was an “exhibition, and not just a dance;” this restrained YPD from closing it. Promoter Edwin Coronati immediately reopened the event and had the police watching it closely.
Sunday, May 4th
May 4, 1919: The Victory Liberty Loan Campaign exhibited a German submarine captured by Americans, along with several highly decorated helmets made especially by the enemy for their anticipated “victorious march into Paris.”
May 4, 1942: Seventy women began training in the Aviation Defense School housed in the old School Ten; the ten-week intensive course would qualify them for vital war industry skilled labor jobs.
Most women signed up for the day 7:30 am to 4 pm shift, but others wanted the 4:00-11:30 pm or the 11:30 pm to 7 am section. Assistant Principal Earl Carroll said the women were “keenly interested” and fully aware course work was “not a child’s play or game but a serious thing.”
The course was an eight-hour-a-day, five-days-a- week commitment. And yes, there was homework!
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.
