Ann Hochman and Florence Rosenthal being challenged by Alderman William Slater and patrolman Harry Uhrich attempting to enter Aqueduct Road in Yonkers while wearing shorts. This photo was taken June 2, 1936, before Yonkers Aldermen adopted the Slater resolution
By Mary Hoar, City of Yonkers Municipal Historian, 1977 recipient of the Key to the City of Yonkers, President Emeritus Yonkers Historical Society, recipient of the 2004 Key to History, Yonkers Landmarks Preservation Board Member, Founder of Revolutionary Yonkers 250 and President Untermyer Performing Arts Council
Monday, June 8th
June 8, 1943: Councilman Edith Welty stated raising the rents of Mulford Gardens tenants whose earnings exceeded the maximum allowed incomes violated the law! Welty stated, “…as soon as tenants in a housing project made more money, they had to move out” and replaced by other low income tenants. Matthew Kelly, Secretary-Director of our Municipal Housing Authority, claimed no names were on the waiting list.
June 8, 1943: For the first time in many years, a Carpet Shop employee died from Anthrax! Fifty-one year old Anthony Pietrzak of Ash Street passed away after a one-day illness; the Yonkers Health Department announced Pietrzak contracted the disease on his chin. Four other cases, also contracted at Alexander Smith factory from the wool used to make rugs, were not fatal.
June 8, 2001: Yonkers native Lieutenant General William Lennox, Jr., assumed duties as the 56th Superintendent of the United States Military Academy, West Point. Lennox attended Yonkers parochial schools until he attended the US Military Academy.
Tuesday, June 9th
June 9, 1932: Park Hill residents put the City of Yonkers on notice the Park Hill Residents Association would sue to lower property assessments if the city shut down the Park Hill elevator!
June 9, 1943: The month long search for seventeen year old Yonkers resident Lillian Hynes ended when YPD Detectives Frank Ciliberti and Edward McEnery recognized her on the streets of Manhattan! Ciliberti received a tip one of Lillian’s close friends had quit her job the same time Hynes disappeared, a friend who lived in a furnished room on Manhattan’s West 47th Street. That area became their investigative focus… the hunch paid off!
Hynes wouldn’t give police an explanation for her disappearance.
Wednesday, June 10th
June 10, 1919: Tidewater Oil Company announced its plans to build a storage tank on Ludlow Wharf.
June 10, 1945: Yonkers Red Cross Chair Marian Jacobs reported local hospitals realized “military needs came first even though civilian nurses and hospitals were greatly overworked.”
Our Red Cross facilitated 92 Yonkers nurses entering military service; they “willingly responded to the military requests.”
Once military’s needs for nurses were met, our chapter turned its efforts to staffing local hospitals. Jacobs put out a call as “hospitals were in desperate need of nurses… every nurse who can give even a little time” was asked to contact the Red Cross.
Thursday, June 11th
June 11, 1907: The German Odd Fellows paid $41,000 for the Tuckahoe Road farm of Yonkers’ first Mayor James Courter; he died a few months earlier. They planned to create a residence for their aged members.
June 11, 1936: Yonkers’ campaign against shorts became serious; police officers posted signs around the Ninth Ward warning visitors to obey “General City ordinance No. 7 1935.” It made it illegal for anyone over 16 to appear in public “in scanty attire” or face a $150 fine, three days in jail, or both.
Friday, June 12th
June 12, 1693: The Royal Charter creating the Manor of Philipsborough (Philipseburg) was granted to Frederick Philipse by King William III and Queen Mary II.
Philipse became the first Lord of the Manor!
June 12, 1940: Because of an inability to find additional room, a two-shift schedule at Saunders Trades School became imminent. Yonkers Advisory Board for Vocational and Extension Education recommended shifts as the last resort.
The Board of Ed hoped WPA labor would revamp the Elks Building for the Administrative offices occupying School Ten.
Saunders either could tell new students they couldn’t come because there was no room, or the school would open from 8 am to 5:45 pm with two shifts.
Saturday, June 13th
June 13, 1935: Ninth Ward Alderman William Slater announced he would take movies of “scantily attired Sunday paraders” along the Aqueduct to rid his district of these strollers from outside Yonkers.
June 13, 1943: Maria Ewing, Ohio Senator Thomas Ewing’s granddaughter, presented a replica of a bust of the late Mr. Ewing to Ohio University; the original created by French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdin still graced the son’s Palisade Avenue home.
Ewing had worked in salt mines to pay his college tuition. Not just the first graduate of Ohio University, he was the first person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree in the Northwest Territory. The college’s Ewing Hall was named after him.
He was the fourteenth Secretary of the Treasury and the first Secretary of the Interior. Ewing took in a boy who later became Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman!
June 13, 1945: After the 1944 edition was canceled because of the paper shortage, the 1945 Saunders yearbook “Technicraft” was the largest ever because it included the Class of 1944 who sacrificed their yearbook for the war effort. Dedicated to Machine Shop Teacher John Hodgart, it also was a memorial to late Saunders PE teacher Captain Gustave Laffel, the first Yonkers teacher killed in action.
Sunday, June 14th
June 14, 1917: Sherwood Park Public School boys vowed to donate proceeds of their work to the Yonkers Chapter of the Red Cross; Manual Training Teacher Mr. Cheney presented their first installment of $29 to the Yonkers Red Cross representative.
June 14, 1920: South Yonkers Development Company broke ground for a row of one-family homes on Van Cortlandt Park Avenue opposite Loudoun Street. Albert Lockwood headed the company.
June 14, 1942: Although the defense training schools had eight new lathes and many other pieces of equipment, no one could use them. Why? The Board of Education didn’t have the money to install them!
Email any questions about this column to yonkershistory1646@gmail.com.
For information on the Yonkers Historical Society, the Sherwood House Museum on Tuckahoe Road or upcoming events, please visit their website www.yonkershistoricalsociety.org, call 914-961-8940 or email info@yonkershistoricalsociety.org.
