Otis Elevator Company, December 2006.
(Historic image here: Yonkers Illustrated.)
YONKERS - GALLERY 2
Otis Elevator Company, December 2006.
(Historic image here: Yonkers
Illustrated.)
In 1954, the Alexander Smith carpet firm deserted Yonkers for a more hospitable (read: more highly profitable) climate in Mississippi. Soon thereafter, the Otis Elevator company used vague threats of similar relocation to extort the most beneficial tax and wage-&-production terms from the city and the company's workers. The city and the Otis employees caved in, but Otis eventually left Yonkers anyway. Today the factory buildings are occupied by Kawasaki, which manufactures subway cars here. However, Yonkers is clearly no longer the factory town it once was. Many of the handsome old buildings survive, offering glimpses of their former incarnations through hints obvious and subtle.
This clothing store adjacent to the Otis
works offered overcoats for the prices between $12.50 and $18 - "none
higher." Although Yonkers is known for the few industries that
once dominated the city and employed thousands of people - the carpet mills, hat
factories, the
elevator factory, and sugar plant - many other small industrial concerns sprang
up around the city, especially near the Hudson River. A few are even still
active today.
Max Braun and Sons, Woodworth Avenue.
Still a going concern, January 2007.
Stevens Paint, with Otis elevator
buildings in distance. Woodworth Avenue, January 2007.
Sign for the demolished Lighthouse Restaurant, Alexander Street. The restaurant
took its name from a nearby pump station's smokestack which was
designed to resemble a lighthouse. February 2007.
The Deane Plaster Company, Ludlow Street.
December 2006.
(Historic image here: Yonkers
Illustrated.)
The National Sugar refinery (presently American Sugar Refining Company)
looms over
Buena Vista Avenue. December 2006. (Historic image here: Yonkers
Illustrated.)
Yonkers Teutonia. 51 Buena Vista Avenue,
December 2006.
Built in
1891, the Teutonia was home to a singing and literary association. The brick building
features Queen Anne-style details such as sunburst motifs that decorate round-arched windows. The top floor contains one large open
assembly hall with a
balcony. The first floor and basement have been partitioned off, perhaps more
recently, when the building housed a light industrial concern. Originally, the
building also housed a committee room, a pool room, bowling alleys and a dining
hall. An adjacent structure to the north was built as an annex to Yonkers
Teutonia.
The building has
not seen active use in at least a decade, maybe two, and certainly not since the
Yonkers Downtown Waterfront Development Corp. bought the building in 1994. DW Capital / Metro
Partners, the firm that in 2006 purchased the nearby Trolley Barn (which they
now call "Metro 92"),
purchased Teutonia Hall in May 2009 from the City of Yonkers for $450,000. The Teutonia is currently slated for demolition. As of
November 2009, Metro Partners plans to build a 25-story condominium tower and to relocate
and rebuild the facade of Yonkers Teutonia to a site slightly south of where
Teutonia Hall now stands.
Gate to a house that is not there
anymore.
Buena Vista Avenue, December 2006.
This page copyright © 2007 by
Robert J. Yasinsac.
Reproduction or copying of text and/or photography in any form without
permission of the author is not permitted.
