By Mary Hoar, 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, May 3rd
May 3, 1945: Dr. Lawrence Ashley, Director of the Yonkers Program of National Defense Vocational Education, announced the program closed because of “abrupt curtailment of funds.” Ashley stated, “ Thus ends a long period of training in which thousands of Yonkers citizens, as well as those of adjoining communities, were trained to participate in war industries production.” He stressed two major results the program brought: bringing a monthly payroll of thousands of dollars to Yonkers, eliminating the need for relief, and gave people a new outlook on life, an outlook that would continue after the war. It more than accomplished its main goal of providing streams of workers to area war industries.
May 3, 1945: Three Yonkers girls took the top honors in the countywide American Legion Auxiliary essay contest. Danita Gill of Gorton High School authored the winning essay, Marion Hinkel of Sacred Heart High School received second prize, and Alicia Nowicki, also from Gorton, wrote the third place essay.
Tuesday, May 4th
May 4, 1916: The Common Council, for the first time in history, approved naming streets after Aldermen. They sanctioned the designation of Miller Street to recognize First Ward Alderman Charles Miller, and Blackford Avenue, designated to honor Seventh Ward Alderman John Blackford.
May 4, 1944: The Swedish liner Gripsholm anchored in the Hudson off Ludlow Street for several weeks. Chartered to sail to Barcelona to pick up seriously sick and wounded prisoners of war and to repatriate Americans who had been living in Germany, it was waiting for the clearance to leave US waters.
May 4, 1954: David Becker was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in Fiction; a Yonkers High School graduate, Becker had the distinction of being one of the first Rotary International’s Good Will Ambassadors, and spent a year in China on behalf of the organization.
Wednesday, May 5th
May 5, 1936: Mrs. Thomas Ewing, Jr., donated one hundred sets of encyclopedias to Yonkers Schools in memory of her husband; before his death, Thomas Ewing, Jr. was President of Alexander Smith and Sons Carpet Company.
May 5, 1936: Olga Petruzzi, representing the Italian-American Civic League, was elected as Recording Secretary of the Council of Yonkers Civic Associations, the first woman elected to be an officer.
May 5, 1956: Four Yonkers teens won four of the six top awards in the junior competition at the International Philatelic Exhibition held at the New York Colliseum. Barry Ettinger took first in Latin America group and Kenneth Florey, first in miscellaneous groupings. Martin Weisel took third in the Europe group and Carole Johnson won third place in the United States group.
Thursday, May 6th
May 6, 1923: Yonkers Police announced they avoided a riot in Getty Square by refusing to allow Captain Tudor Dimitrijevic, a former Captain in the Austrian Army, to speak at a meeting in Radford Hall; the meeting was to be sponsored by twenty Slavonian societies in Yonkers.
May 6, 1934: Edward Hart of Yonkers was one of 40 guests of President Franklin Roosevelt at the White House; the highlighs of the gathering was the announcement of how much money was raised for infantile paralysis patients at the Warm Springs Foundation.
May 6, 1943: Former Councilman Robert Goodwillie, Chairman of the War Price and Rationing Board and Manager of the Yonkers plant of Otis Elevator, was elected “Outstanding Yonkers Man of 1942” by a special committee of judges.
Friday, Thursday, May 7th
May 7, 1919: The three hundred soldiers camped at Van Cortlandt Park were given free privileges to the Yonkers YMCA and its swimming pool to get relief from the May heat wave.
May 7, 1936: WPA zone manager Joseph Ryan announced roughly three hundred men from Yonkers were dropped from WPA rolls; the updated NYS policy was to eliminate all men were physically disabled or unwilling to work.
May 7, 1953: Yonkers Rotarians paid respects to the Otis Elevator Company on its one hundredth birthday, and also saluted its Otis member, George McRae.
Saturday, Friday, May 8th
May 8, 1945: Staff of the Yonkers Public Library took pity on the hungry and homeless strawberry blonde they found crying sadly outside their window. Custodian James Kane took her in, and staff members gave her food and shelter, love and attention. Not able to tell her name, this beauty was dubbed Victory. She remained at the library in the basement rooms, keeping the place free of mice, for she was a ginger cat!
May 8, 1947: DeWitt Mackenzie of Normandy Road, syndicated columnist and dean of the AP foreign correspondents, authored the “The Associated Press News Annual 1946, published by Rinehart and Company. A running account of the events of the world, the book featured both articles and pictures submitted by AP correspondents. Mackenzie joined the AP in 1910, and wrote a foreign affairs column published in many newspapers around the world.
Sunday, May 9th
May 9, 1916: The Aldermanic Committee on Police, Fire and Water approved the elimination of the Lake Avenue high service station of the Water Bureau, and proposed the Lake Avenue Reservoir be made into a public park.
May 9, 1936: Reverend Wilbur Caswell, Rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Yonkers, suggested to the Episcopal Diocese of New York they should allow women to hold the office of Vestrymen.
May 9, 1955: Although he had no idea when they would be delivered, Health Commissioner Ralph Sikes announced he would start administering the Salk vaccine as soon as it was delivered to Yonkers; our city was prepared to start inoculations as soon as possible. More than 8500 schoolchildren, grades one through four in Yonkers public and parochial schools, were to receive the shots.
For more information on the Yonkers Historical Society, Sherwood House and our upcoming events, please visit our website www.yonkershistoricalsociety.org, call 914-961-8940 or email yhsociety@aol.com.
