Mary Hoar, President Emerita Yonkers Historical Society, recipient of the 2004 Key to History, member, Yonkers Landmarks Preservation Board
Monday, February 8th
February 8, 1910: Walter Donlevy, employed on the construction of the new Woodworth Avenue Otis building, saved the life of coworker John Rabbitt. Rabbitt, doing iron work on the fourth story, he lost his balance and fell. Donlevy, seated on the second floor crossbeam, heard him scream and managed to grab him with his left arm as Mr. Rabbitt fell downwards. Clinging with his right hand and legs to the beam, Donlevy held on as long as possible, until the finger nails on his right hand were torn out and Rabbitt slipped from his grip.
Both men were transported to Saint Joseph’s Hospital, where Dr. Mac Frehman examined the two men. Rabbitt’s leg was broken and Donlevy suffered internal injuries from the strain of holding the other man in the air. Frehman stated Rabbitt would’ve been killed if Donlevy had not caught him and broken the force of the fall.
Tuesday, February 9th
February 9, 1893: The Regents of the State of New York chartered the Yonkers Public Library. The first trustees were Dr. Edgar Hermance; attorney John Brennan, first President of the Library Board; Columbia University Professor A. V. Williams Jackson; Attorney James Irving Burns, Alderman, Assemblyman and Senator; and Superintendent of Yonkers Schools Charles E. Gorton.
February 9, 1982: The Yonkers City Council unanimously voted to give the Lincoln Letter to New York State as a restricted gift. The Lincoln Letter was written in 1864 to thank the village of Yonkers for their Sanitary Fair; money would be raised to care for the soldiers wounded during the Civil War. Copies of the letter were sold, and the original was raffled. The winner of the letter generously gave it to “the people of Yonkers.” More than $16,000 was raised at the fair.
Wednesday, February 10th
February 10, 1935: Off duty Yonkers Police Department Patrolman Alexander Reid made a a flying tackle to catch a fleeing pickpocket as he ran out
of the Strand Theater.
February 10, 1950: In one of the first paraplegic basketball games held in Westchester, the Flying Wheels from Van Nuys, California, defeated the Bronx Rollers from the Kingsbridge Veterans’ Hospital by three points. Held at the Yonkers State Armory, the final score of the match was 25-22.
Thursday, February 11th:
February 11, 1922: Public Safety Commissioner Thomas Tobin announced he was considering buying Lewis Hughes Police Grenades to help subdue “obstreperous prisoners.” When broken, the grenades gave off teargas designed to make it the prisoners “helpless.”
February 11, 1944: Joseph Ringwalt, Chairman of Yonkers War Salvage Committee, released the annual report of our city’s efforts in 1943. Citizens of all ages went over and above by collecting 13,000 tons of scrap metal, more than three times the city’s quota assigned by the War Production Board. We also collected 60 tons of waste fats, 7000 tons of waste paper, and 13,000 tons of textiles.
Friday, February 12th
February 12, 1893: Justice Dykman dissolved the injunction restraining the Yonkers Board of Health from pulling down the Yonkers portion of the dam on the Bronx River between Bronxville and Yonkers.
February 12, 1944: While on a break from his duties with the Allied Military Government, Captain Vincent Catozellia of Gramercy Avenue took a walk around war torn Naples. He was shocked to run into hometown buddy William Jackson, USA, of Briggs Avenue; the friends were Morea shocked to learn they were assigned two blocks away from each other!
February 12, 1982: Mayor Angelo Martinelli formally presented Yonkers’ Lincoln Letter to Mary Dugal, Phillips Manor Hall Site Manager, and New York State as a “restricted gift.” The Lincoln Letter stated, “The President of the United States and Heads of Departments tender their best wishes and kind regards to the ladies who are managers of the Fair to be held at Yonkers for the benefit of the sick and wounded soldiers.” The letter was signed by President Lincoln and cabinet members Seward, Chase, Stanton and Welles.
Saturday, February 13th
February 13, 1916: Yonkers resident Alan Benson, national leader of the Socialist Party and Socialist Candidate for the US Presidency, stated at a rally in Newark, “We have nothing to fear… We will never be invaded by Japan for their Navy is so much smaller than ours.”
February 13, 1921: Workers building the new golf course on Tuckahoe Road near Ggrassy Sprain Road uncovered what they believed to be an Indian burial ground. Detective Sergeant George Ford announced a skull and an almost complete skeleton were discovered. And no, it was not the one that ended up at Sherwood House!
February 13, 1941: The Labor School of La Rabida Council, Knights of Columbus, opened their free school for men and women of all races, creeds and colors. The Council’s hope was for all workers, union and nonunion, to take it vantage of the courses they offered.
Sunday, February 14th
February 14, 1927: Detective William Comey arrested a man for unlawful entry after he was found asleep in a Fairview Street bathtub. Comey had arrested the same man a few days earlier for burglarizing the Homeopathic Hospital Nurses’ Home!
February 14, 1931: Brilliant Czechoslovakia and tennis star Karrel Kozeluh arrived in Yonkers to spend a week with the Ostrul family on Warburton Avenue. While staying in Yonkers, he played a match against Bill Tilden in Madison Square Garden, and then left on a tour of the US. An all around athlete, Kozeluh also played outstanding association football and ice hockey.
February 14, 1944: Briggs Avenue’s Captain Charles Jackson MD decided to take a break from working in a military hospital in Australia, and headed to the beach. While he was splashing in the surf, he ran into Yonkers friend Lieutenant Joseph Catozellia of Gramercy Avenue; the lieutenant, with the Army Air Corps, had just arrived from an island in the South Pacific. And yes… they were brothers of the two men who met up two days earlier in Naples!
For more information on the Yonkers Historical Society, Sherwood House or our upcoming events, please visit our website www.yonkershistoricalsociety.org, call 914–961–8940 or email yhsociety@aol.com.
