On this day in Yonkers history...

Yonkers High School graduate and early pioneer of radio Major Edwin Armstrong

By Mary Hoar, Yonkers City Historian, Yonkers Historical Society President Emerita, recipient of the 2004 Key to History, Yonkers Landmarks Preservation Board Member, and Untermyer Performing Arts Council President

Monday, August 7th

August 7, 1937: Yonkers Police filed a report stating trucks pulling onto New Main Street sidewalks to allow trolleys to pass were destroying them! Sidewalks were cracking and sinking due to the vehicles’ heavy weight, creating dangerous pedestrian pathways.

August 7, 1937: YPD Patrolman John Ryan was shot by a Bronx teen shooting crows at the Grassy Sprain Golf Club! After getting complaints two days earlier, Ryan warned four young men to stop shooting. Getting more golfer complaints, Ryan found the teens had pitched a tent near the twelfth hole. Searching the tent, Ryan uncovered a rifle; sixteen-year-old George Klimkowsky of the Bronx grappled with Ryan to get the gun back. It went off accidentally, and a bullet passed through Ryan’s lower chest. Ryan walked back to his radio car; his partner Edward Christen drove him to St. Joseph’s Hospital. Fortunately, the bullet missed all vital organs.

Tuesday, August 8th

August 8, 1920: The Board of Estimate voted to acquire the property at the junction of South Broadway and Mclean Avenue of $92,5000. It was to be laid out as Lincoln Square with a monument in memory of Abraham Lincoln.

August 8, 1941: Thanks to Chicago’s Auxiliary Bishop Bernard Sheil, British refugee Michael Lund-Yates celebrated Christmas on his seventh birthday! Sheil not only arranged for his good buddy Santa to come down from the North Pole, he convinced Claus to give Michael the red tricycle he couldn’t receive due to the European war. Michael, recuperating from tuberculosis at the House of Rest at Sprain Ridge, viewed the party from the lap of his friend the Bishop. Joining the young refugee were his brother Allen, living with foster parents in Connecticut, and sister Maureen, staying with foster parents in Pittsburgh. The children’s father was a Captain in the Royal Air Force.

Wednesday, August 9th

August 9, 1937: Yonkers High School graduate Major Edwin Armstrong ordered a 600-foot steel tower built on top of the Palisades! To be manufactured by the American Bridge Company in Pittsburgh, it was to be one of the tallest towers ever built in the US. While studying at Yonkers High, Armstrong was an early pioneer of radio.

August 9, 1940: Yonkers School Superintendent William Ankenbrand wrote Edsel Ford, Ford Motor Company President, to request permission to use Ford’s three-story building at 178 South Broadway/373 New Main Street as a technical training center for the National Defense Program, scheduled to open September 1st.

Thursday, August 10th

August 10, 1938: When the weather finally broke after three days of soaking rainstorms delaying the Eastern Lawn Tennis Championship at Westchester County Club, Yonkers resident and Chairman of the Umpires’ Committee of the United States Lawn Association Ben Dwight organized the cleanup crew of ball boys and groundskeepers. The crew used 500 Club towels to mop up the courts so the long delayed first round matches could continue. Ben was not above helping; he was one of the first to take off his coat and work on water by the baseline.

August 10, 1938: Thanks to a transfusion from his mother, Douglas Avenue’s Michael D’Ascoli, with only “one chance in a thousand,” was recovering in St. Joseph’s Hospital! A staphylococcus infection had traveled into his blood stream, and large doses of anti-toxin medication were not working quickly enough; the transfusion turned the tide, according to Doctor Dante Cotullo.

Friday, August 11th

August 11, 1950: A representative of the New York Telephone Company, speaking at a hearing before the Brooklyn Appellate Court, said the company would restore phone service to the Yonkers Daily Times if the paper guaranteed their telephones would not be used to pass on gambling information.

August 11, 1953: People responded overwhelmingly to a Yonkers woman’s need for O-negative blood! Mrs. Kenneth McCormick of Helena Avenue was pregnant with twins, but had a dangerously low blood count. Doctors estimated she needed at least four pints of the rare blood type, unavailable from area blood banks. By the end of the first day, more than 500 people had volunteered to donate blood; people volunteered to donate blood from as far away as New Jersey and Philadelphia!

Saturday, August 12th

August 12, 1919: Members of the United Slovak Societies at Holy Trinity Church, Franklin and Walnut Streets, learned one of the boxes of clothing they regularly sent overseas made its way to Yonkers resident Charles Malone! Malone, in Czechoslovakia, was a former Lieutenant in the French Lafayette Flying Corps.

August 12, 1950: Postmaster William Cronin, Yonkers Chamber of Commerce President, announced the Chamber wanted to erect a marker at the southeast corner of North Broadway and Shonnard Place to mark the first green of the original St. Andrew’s Club Golf course… and to create a Golf Hall of Fame on the site!

Sunday, August 13th

August 13, 1940: The Justice Department issued an order of appearance for Highland Place’s Raissa Browder, wife of US Communist Party Secretary Earl Browder. They wanted to question her about her entry into the US; Immigration officials claimed they had no record of her arriving in the country!

August 13, 1947: Police Chief William Kruppenbacher announced the early morning fire at the Kimball Theater that destroyed 15,000 feet of film was “of suspicious origin!” Firefighters found a film reel had been unwound in the film vault; its end was carried through the theater to the office and lit. The fire traveled the length of the film back to the vault, where it set off the other films.

Questions or comments? Email [email protected]. 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 [email protected]