When the Dogwhistle is an Airhorn

My beloved Yonkers was, in a national news story, the subject of a desegregation lawsuit which was resolved in the 1990s. In the interest of full disclosure, I moved to Yonkers right around the time of the desegregation, and lived approximately five blocks north of the recently renovated Arthur J. Doran townhouses, named after a long-serving judge who is a fixture in the neighborhood, the sort of larger-than-life local character that one runs into in the local taverns. For a while, I was carless, so I would take the local bus to work, and I struck up a friendship with a bright, musically talented African-American girl who would take the same bus to the Saunders Trades and Technical High School. This young lady lived in the neighborhood because of the desegregation effort. Despite the fears of a lot of white Yonkers eastsiders, the neighborhood wasn't negatively affected by integration, and the property values most certainly did not plummet. In my estimation, the desegregation (which wasn't necessarily an integration) improved the neighborhood. At the same time, a maturing Irish immigrant community was moving into the area from the Bainbridge Avenue neighborhood in the Bronx and Albanian immigrants were moving up from the Pelham Parkway/Lydig Avenue neighborhood. As things stand, East Yonkers is a vibrant, diverse neighborhood, the sort of neighborhood which is a destination for people from the tristate area and overseas.

Why am I bringing this up? Via Tengrain, we have a racist horror tale told by the Occupant of the White House, the sort of horror tale which is contradicted by my lived experience:

I am happy to inform all of the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2020

There is no non-racist interpretation of this statement. The Suburban Lifestyle Dream the Dotard describes probably only existed in 1950s and 1960s sitcoms, and was notably skewered by Gerry Goffin and Carole King:





Yonkers is that most urban of suburbs, a city of two-hundred thousand residents which is dwarfed by NYC, which abuts Yonkers to the south. My neighborhood is a mix of one family houses, multi-family houses (I live in a three-family house, with an immigrant from Northern Ireland and her children on the floor above me and an African American family, the husband a lawyer and the wife a nurse, on the topmost floor), and largish apartment buildings. Dropped into my neighborhood, you could picture yourself in certain neighborhoods in Queens or Brooklyn. It's the sort of neighborhood where an elderly Irish man goes to the house of the Mexican family next door to watch football, by which I mean fútbol... the sort of neighborhood where the Albanian guy working at the auto repair shop buys his breakfast at a Yemeni delicatessen. It's a Suburban Lifestyle Dream which is diametrically opposed to Trump's racist nightmare... a glorious City of Hills which beats the hell out of a Pleasant Valley.

City of "Why?"

Wow, I put up a lovey-dovey post on the City of Yonkers, and what the hell happens the following day?

Yeah, you got it- a scandal on the front page:

Three Indicted in Yonkers Vote-Selling Scam.

Yonkers was once known as the "City of Gracious Living". Now, Yonkers is known as "The City of Hills, Where Nothing is on the Level" due to it's topography, and reputation for corruption. As a snarky aside, Yonkers was once immortalized in the musical Hello Dolly, more recently, it's been rendered undead in World War Z.

Not being a starry-eyed naif, I have to confess that this scandal does not come as a surprise, but I am disappointed in the role played by hometown girl Sandy Annabi, who I was a fan of, for several reasons (on a serious note, she started out as a good progressive and a tireless advocate for her constituents). Well, the prosecutors claimed she sold her vote on the proposed Ridge Hill development "for baubles and trinkets". Well, all that eyeliner doesn't come cheap.

Sandy, you broke my heart.

Meanwhile, in the City of Y______

Today, our illustrious governor visited the City of Yonkers to announce a $28 million "bailout" of the Yonkers school system, which had been facing the prospect of laying off two hundred teachers and eliminating school sports programs.

As a guy who lives across the street from a school, I am very keen on keeping the children of my city educated and active. The governor couched the bailout in terms of property values:

“This investment in public education is not just an investment in education. It’s in the overall growth of Yonkers and the overall well-being of Yonkers. You want housing values to go up in Yonkers? You want more people moving in? Improve the school system."

I'd view the funding in terms of providing a future for the city's, the state's the country's children. It's nice to see that one governor (however illiberal many of his policies may be) believes in education- the oaf across the Hudson would rather saddle the kids of his state with debt, rather than inconveniencing the plutocrats with a slight increase in their marginal tax rates.

Yonkers, Beautiful Yonkers

Last Monday, it being my day off, I decided to visit the beautiful Untermyer Gardens in Northwest Yonkers. It's been a while since last I was there. The heart of the park is its classical Persian style walled garden:

The interior garden is a peaceful, gorgeous sanctuary watched over by a pair of sphinxes:

No riddles need be solved by visitors, though I'm pretty well versed in that form of gamesmanship. From behind the sphinxes, one can get a nice glimpse of the perfect layout of the gardens:

The pools are home to goldfish of various sizes, as well as some lovely water lillies:

The setting of the park is as magnificent as the gardens... one has wonderful views of the mighty Hudson:

The view from the bottom of the stairs is only missing a determined local boxer to make it complete:

Since last I was here, a fence has been put up, separating the Croton Aqueduct Trail from the park:

On the way out, I visited the fanciful Temple of Love, which features a gazebo, but not a dread gazebo:

While wandering through the park, I had a conversation with some really nice kids who were enjoying a late summer afternoon... one boy brought up the not-so-good old days of the park. I remember coming to the park when I was in high school, and it was genuinely creepy. The creepy vibe is really captured well in this website... while I don't believe in ghosts, I can vouch for the presence of the outré graffiti scrawled on the walls. Part of me thinks that the creepy vibe of the park at its nadir only enhances its original and current magnificence. It's one of the jewels in the crown of Yonkers, beautiful Yonkers.

Paging Doctor Elvis!

Wow, this post will top off the "Yonkers Trilogy" that has marked this week's posting.

Like many cash-strapped municipalities, the City of Y decided that legalized gambling would be a financial panacea- the self-imposed gullibility tax poses few problems for politicians of the two major parties. The legalization of gambling in the U.S. is a funny beast... in most regions, legalized gambling has been confined to reservations, riverboats, or racetracks. The New York City metro area lacking any extant native groups (the Ramapough Lenape Nation is the closest extant native group, straddling the NY/NJ border about twenty miles from NYC), New York state allowed the historic Yonkers Raceway to install slot machines, and the racetrack transformed into a "racino" in 2006.

Well, the only thing I gamble with is my life, and the prospect of feeding a slot machine (like a Skinner Box rat which almost never gets any goodies) holds no fascination for me. I do go to the place de vez en cuando, though, to see live entertainment.

One "must see" act is Yonkers native Dr. Nazar Sayegh, who is not only a family practitioner, but a hall of fame Elvis interpreter as well. Last night, to commemorate the eve of the King's birthday, Dr Sayegh brought his act to the raceway for two sets of music. I am happy to say that he wore jumpsuits for both sets, and am even happier to say that he sang a rendition of Poke Salad Annie. The good doctor puts on a fun show, and comes across as a genuinely nice fellow. If a sequel to Bubba Ho-Tep is ever green-lighted, the good doctor should certainly get a cameo as a nursing home physician.

Bonus Yonkers trivia: Lady Gaga is now on record telling Jay Leno that the rumor that she was a Yonkers native upset her more than the rumor that she was a hermaphrodite.

What a Difference a Day Makes

Yesterday, the temperature hit 62F (almost 17C)- it was a sunny springlike day, the sort of day on which one could comfortably wear shorts and a T-shirt. Today... not so much. It was a snowy, windy day, with accumulations of eight inches to a foot. Being the sort who thinks discretion is the better part of valor, I left my car safely ensconced in the parking lot at work and took the 5:28AM Metro-North Hudson Line train to the Yonkers train station, where I picked up the Bee-Line 25 bus which dropped me off four blocks away from home. Oddly enough, the Sanitation Department was collecting the garbage on this blizzard-y day, and I got home just in time to put the garbage on the curb to be picked up.

I spent about half an hour shoveling snow before I realized that the storm was picking up, so it would be better to go to sleep for a few hours, by which I mean pass out from exhaustion. By the time I woke up around 2PM, the storm had subsided, and I was greeted by a foot-deep drift in front of my door. Oh, well, there's not much to shovel- a bit of sidewalk and the walkway between my house and the next-door house. It took well under an hour to get it all cleared.

I was able to catch some more hours of sleep before having to wake up in time to catch the old 25 bus to the Yonkers train station- besides myself, there were only two other passengers on the bus, which wends its way from the subway station at 238th St and White Plains Rd in the Bronx to the Yonkers train station. The bus goes to the Cross County Shopping Center, so it usually has a decent crowd of riders, but today most of the stores in the mall were closed. Oddly enough, the bus made good time through the snowy labyrinth of hilly Yonkers streets. The train, on the other hand, was running fifteen minutes late, but it got me to my destination with plenty of time to spare. I walked on the slippery streets to my workplace with no mishaps.

Tonight, the temperature is supposed to bottom out at a chilly 19F (-7C), with wind gusts up to 40MPH. Needless to say, it is going to be a brutal, bone chilling night. One of the managers took Fred and Ginger home with him, so I don't have to worry about them on this cold, cold night. It's a far cry from the balminess of Wednesday, but I'll get through it all with some luck, some pluck, and the six layers of clothing that I packed for the night.

Daylight in Downtown

Today, an errand took me to downtown Yonkers, a place I hadn't been in quite some time. I am happy to say that the daylighting of the Saw Mill River, so named because Adriaen van der Donck (the "jonkheer" for whom Yonkers is named) built a sawmill near the mouth of the river, looks to be a major success. The river was directed through a flume and covered by a parking lot in the 1920s, in an effort to manage sanitation and control flooding (though a lot of anti-flooding engineering projects actually compound flooding problems). The resulting parking lot was an eyesore, and the downtown area became less-than-desirable real estate.

The "daylighted" river forms the centerpiece of the charming new Van Der Donck Park. For a good encapsulation of the transition from grotty parking lot to sweet downtown park, this video shows in three and a half minutes everything you need to know.

Here's the view of the river upstream from the footbridge which spans it:

Here's the view downstream, with the Yonkers Metro North station in the background. The river runs back into a "flume", visible on the right hand side, and flows under the Metro North Hudson line tracks:

It remains to be seen if the "daylighting" of the river will have a lasting economic impact on Yonkers'downtown. I sure hope that it does. Downtown has some lovely attractions, including the Riverfront Library, the pier, and Phillipse Manor Hall. Already, the project has brought new residents to the downtown area.

Silver for Safety

Today, I learned that my beloved Yonkers was named the second safest city in the United States by the WalletHub website, ranking number one in their 'Home and Community Safety' category. According to a WalletHub analyst:


"Yonkers is the second safest city in the U.S. It ranked first in terms of home and community safety. There are a large number of active firefighters per capita, a large share of sheltered homeless and a low number of traffic and pedestrian fatalities per capita,"


This comes as a surprise to me... though I love my beautiful Yonkers, it wasn't so long ago that Yonkers had a hard reputation (CONTENT WARNING BOTH LINKS). I've never had any hassles in the City of Y______, but I figured that even my safe middle/working class neighborhood had occasional bar fights. I guess that it's not as rowdy here as I thought, does this make by 'Big Bad Bald Bastard' persona obsolete?

In Your Face, Rochester!!!

The big hyperlocal story today is the City of Yonkers overtaking Rochester, to become New York State's third largest city.  The margin is razor-thin, with Yonkers' population exceeding that of Rochester by 241 people.  

I love my City of Y______, with its population of 211,569, it would be a major city anywhere else, but it abuts NYC to the south, so it's relegated to 'suburb' status, though it is also one of the many burghs which lays claim to 'sixth borough' status.  Still, our city lays claim to amazing parks, a nice museum with a planetarium, and a nature preserve.  It's a city of neighborhoods, with wealthy areas characterized by single-family homes, heavily urbanized areas with big apartment buildings, and working-to-middle class neighborhoods like my own with a mix of the two.  The downtown is full of mom-and-pop stores, hole-in-the-wall eateries, and a scenic, newly 'daylighted' river walk. It's a diverse city, with almost a third of residents being immigrants.  

 Not everybody has a love for Yonkers that I do:

 

But some people get it:

 

Personally,I'm bonkers for Yonkers, and I'm glad that the city is moving onward and upward... that's the New York way.

Finding Solace in Art, Finding Solace in Yonkers

This has been a pretty bad week here in the NY Metro Area- three days of terrorism targeting New Yorkers, both in the City and here in Westchester County. I decided today to take a mental health break before heading to work, so I headed over to Yonkers' own Hudson River Museum to take in Maya Lin's A River Is a Drawing exhibit. This exhibit, which runs until January 20, 2019, is Ms Lin's love letter to the Hudson River and the planet- it showcases her dedication to environmentalism as well as her artistic brilliance. A River Is a Drawing has 'taken over' the museum- visitors are first greeted in the lobby by Pin River—Hudson Watershed, which uses over 20,000 pins to map out the Hudson River Watershed:

From the lobby, I proceeded to the courtyard, which featured two installations- the first being Reed River. a bamboo and bluegrass representation of the main course of the mighty Hudson, with the gorgeous gilded age Glenview mansion providing a lovely backdrop:

Next up was Concrete River, in which Ms Lin played on the dual meanings of the word 'overlook'- she painted the normally overlooked cracks in the concrete pavers near the scenic overlook giving a vantage of the river:

In the main floor galleries, Ms Lin acted as curator, displaying favorite paintings from the Hudson River School that reflected themes of industrialization and environmental challenges.

In the stairwell going down to the next level of the museum, there was The Hudson Bight, a wonderful topographic depiction of the Hudson Canyon, the seafloor at the mouth of the river which was gouged out by glacial forces during the last Ice Age:

In the lower level, there was a sculpture based on the proposed geography of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, which gouged out the Great Lakes, the Finger Lakes, and Lakes George and Champlain:

Another beautiful depiction of the river and its outflow into the Hudson Bight and Long Island Sound was rendered in recycled silver:

A combined map and timeline featured a depiction of the watershed surrounded by quotes about the river in historical order:

My particular favorite quote was Washington Irving's lament about the construction of the Hudson Railroad line, which ran past his home, Sunnyside, and caused a cove in front of his house to silt up and become a marsh: "If the Garden of Eden were now on earth, someone would try to put a railroad through it."

Perhaps the most dramatic piece in the exhibit was Folding the River, a depiction of the Hudson watershed made from recycled green glass marbles which sprawled across the floor, up one wall, across the ceiling and down another wall. I tried to take a panoramic photo of the piece, but pretty much botched it:

The location of the Hudson River Museum corresponds with the area where the floor and wall meet.

There was a sobering depiction of what New York City would look like by 2100 if there is a four degree Celsius rise in temperature:

-

Maybe this wasn't the sort of art to take solace in, gorgeous as it was. The exhibit ended with a challenge, a link to Ms Lin's What Is Missing? project, which is a memorial to the species killed off in the current Sixth Mass Extinction. Along with this call to action was an invitation for exhibit attendees to write down their own experiences with the Hudson and to post them on the wall.

The exhibit was marvelous, and the idea that such a titan of the American arts as Maya Lin would display such an elaborate exhibit in my beloved Yonkers was warming to my heart. If you are in the NYC metro area, consider a trip to the Hudson River Museum. Admission to the museum is a mere seven dollars, and the museum is easily accessible by Metro North- the ride from Grand Central to the Glenwood station on the Hudson Line is breathtaking. Come to Yonkers, especially if you've been having a bad week.

Irish Solidarity with Ukraine, Yonkers Style

Yesterday, the Feast of St Patrick was a raw, rainy day, not ideal for walking a parade route.  Tomorrow, the day of the Yonkers St Paddy's Day parade, the weather forecast calls for rain.  Some luck of the Irish, huh?  As luck would have it, today has been a glorious, sunny day, with temps currently at 69F (21C).  

Running errands locally, I noticed that a lot of folks were out and about, enjoying this beautiful weather.  Some of the local businesses, notably bars such as Kean's and Moriarty's, were flying the Ukrainian flag as well as the ubiquitous Old Glory and the Irish Tricolor.  I'm proud of the Irish response to the Ukrainian crisis, including aid to Ukrainian refugees and a convoy transporting aid to Ukraine.  I'm proud of my paternal grandmother's people, and I sense a kinship with the Ukrainians, who are so like the Irish martyrs eulogized in The Foggy Dew:

While the world did gaze with deep amaze
At those fearless men but few
Who bore the fight that freedom's light
Might shine through the foggy dew.

 

The Irish government released a video to show solidarity with Ukraine.  I note here that one does not simply play Fields of Athenry for just anybody:

 

There's a certain kindred feeling between two nations which have long had larger, aggressive, imperialist neighbors which have waged genocidal conflicts using famine as a weapon.  Here, on this gorgeous day in my beautiful Yonkers, there's a certain feeling of unreality about the whole tragedy.

Politics Is a Spectator Sport

I live in the City of Yonkers, specifically in the Tavern District of Yonkers. Yonkers is the birthplace of James Comey, who is going to be testifying before congress this morning. Apparently, certain bars around the country will be opening early to show Comey's testimony. I doubt that any of the local bars will be opening early to show Comey on the stand, even though he is a native son... it's not like his testimony is that important to the people in my neighborhood, it's not like a Premier League match... though there is some appeal to watching an Orange Man being discomfited.

Labor of Love

I’m back from Down East. My cousin’s wedding was a smash success. The food was delectable, including the best lobster you could ever want, salumi and imported cheeses from the storied Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, and a taco station anchored by a whole roast pig. Val looked absolutely luminous, one of the bartenders took a look at her and told me, “I want that gown for my own wedding.” One of my eleven year old cousins was tasked with helping her older cousin with the veil and train. When he walked Val up the aisle, my uncle Tom wore a top hat- he’s the only man I know who could pull that off, being one handsome, dapper man.

Cousin Val just earned her doctorate in pharmacology and her husband is a rocket scientist- could there be a more perfect union? His family is from Texas, and his sister, her husband, and their kids drove up in a minivan with “MAINE OR BUST” stenciled on the rear window- need I say that I took to them instantly? For the wedding, the boys wore bolo ties and big belt buckles- the youngest, carrying the rings, wore a scaled down ten gallon hat.

Among the highlights of the party were my Aunt Barbara and two of her grandchildren- she had given them a crash course in dancing the lindy the night before the wedding, and those girls did their grandmother proud. I had a blast cutting a rug with my little cousins.

One of the funniest things about the wedding was my encounter with the boyfriend of my cousin Val’s cousin on her mother’s side. Our conversation ran like this:

“I’m from Yonkers.”
“Where, I’m from Yonkers too, by McLean and Kimball.”
“I’m from the Midland Ave area, by the tailor shop.”
“The owner is a family friend, I went to school with his son.”
“He does all my alterations, he did this suit. I also have his record.”
“I have his record too, he’s the best!”

I’m planning on getting a whole crew of cousins and my cosin’s cousin and her boyfriend to hang out at the upcoming street festival.

The day after the wedding, I had to help my Uncle Richard and my cousin Matt close up the camp for the season- with school and work schedules, the cabin won’t see any use until the Spring. Shutters were put up, propane lines shut, the septic system was to be flushed and winterized with antifreeze (the toilet is a recent addition, but being a traditionalist, I used the outhouse, which involves much less work). I also don’t use the shower that was installed, there’s something hilarious to me about jumping into the lake with a bar of Ivory soap (it floats) and taking a lake bath before putting on a suit (unprecedented for me in Maine).

On the way down, I had my Uncle Richard riding shotgun, and had two generators and his stuff in the car as well. It was a less frenetic drive than my solo drive up, and the company was welcome. He’s the keeper of a lot of the equipment for camp, so we had to unload the generators at his place- when I finally got home to Yonkers, I was wiped. I called mom to tell her I was safe and sound, and to give her a précis or the weekend, then promptly passed out after brushing my teeth.

It was a busy weekend, a weekend devoted to love. Congrats to my cousin and my new cousin- centi baci!

Peril from Yonkers, or Deathraceway 2020

I don't usually link to the New York Post, because it's a Rupert Murdoch rag, but I haven't seen this local interest story elsewhere... a COVID-19 outbreak in New Jersey has been traced to Yonkers Raceway, which is about a third of a mile from Casa di Bastard. Oh, poking around the t00bz, I found coverage of this story on a New Jersey news website... one of the trainers at Yonkers Raceway became Jersey's first recorded death from COVID-19. I hope this doesn't harm our standing in the 'safe cities' report. I don't want to see my beloved City of Hills (Where Nothing is on the Level) become known as the City of Peril.

In hyperlocal news, I spoke with my next door neighbor while I was putting the recycling out, and he told me that his brother was sick with COVID-19, but was well on the way to recovery. Since his case wasn't life-threatening, there really wasn't any treatment, it was just a matter of letting his immune system cope with the virus. He himself is essential personnel at work, being on the maintenance crew of a hospital, but it's masks and gloves at all time for him. My upstairs neighbors are doing well, throwing an impromptu one-on-one half-court basketball tourney, with the kids trying to best mom, with little success. I think the tables will be turned by summer's end, when they end up with a height advantage.

The neighborhood abides, with local merchants collecting donations for out of work bar and restaurant staff. I imagine that, when this thing finally runs its course and the stay-at-home order is lifted, there will be a bacchanal that makes the Solemn Feast of St Patrick look like an ice cream social. Goodness knows everybody is a little stir crazy.

Secondary title cribbed from this classic bit of B-Movie sleaze

Can't Get There From Here... Not by Transit

Last night, I had planned on taking public transportation to work this afternoon, but while listening to the local all-news radio station, I learned that the county bus system had cancelled service for the day, due to the weather.  Typically, I would take the 25 bus to the Yonkers train station, and take the Metro-North Hudson Line train to the vicinity of my workplace.  I found myself in a 'can't get there from here' situation, and was trying to figure out the best way to go south to go north, using the NYC Subway.  This would have entailed walking to the Woodlawn terminus of the 4 Train, then transferring to the downtown Number 2 train at 149th St, and taking the 2 to 96th St, where I could transfer to the uptown 1 train, taking it to Marble Hill, where I could catch the Metro North train, several stops south of my beloved Yonkers.

Doing the math, and noting that the temperatures were in the teens, making both walking and waiting on various platforms unpleasant at best, and fraught at worst.  I decided to brave the roads.  While small, my car is a little workhorse- it has front-wheel drive and a manual transmission, so it handles pretty well in the snow.  

The worst part of the drive was the hilly street on which I park- it hadn't been plowed, but there had been a significant amount of traffic, judging by the wheel ruts in the snow.  With low gear, and facing downward, I was able to maneuver out of my parking spot and into the wheel ruts, then drove to the bottom of the hill to the fairly well-trafficked road, timing it perfectly to make the traffic light.  I really try to avoid having to stop, and more crucially, start, when driving in the snow.  From there, I made it to the main commercial drag, where the roadway had been plowed relatively well.  I drove to the Thruway service road, and once I merged onto the Thruway, it was smooth riding.  Exiting from the Thruway, I stuck to major roads.  There had been lower snowfall in these northern parts than in my beloved Yonkers.  When I arrived on the job, the lot had been plowed, and a local DPW plow/salt truck was parked in the lot as the driver took a break. This was a most welcome sight.

I'm working a double overnight, because my coworker covered the graveyard shift I typically work.  Besides, who the hell wants to be on the road at midnight after a heavy snowfall and subsequent deep freeze?  Better to let the plows and salters work unimpeded throughout the night.  Right now, I am contemplating whether to drive home or not, mainly because I suspect that finding a parking spot tomottow morning might be an ordeal... I might have to park six blocks away, near the local school.  I have all night to ponder this dilemma, by which I mean finding out if the buses are running.  

So, now, it's time to hunker down, brew a pot of coffee, and be glad that I'm inside.

The Topless Bar and the Tapas Bar

Years ago, I lived in the Dunwoodie Heights section of Yonkers,  about two miles from my current neighborhood, which is the Woodlawn-ish neighborhood which straddles the Yonkers/Bronx border.  The Dunwoodie house was best described as a beach house without an ocean- there were four of us who had known each other for many years, helping a friend pay his mortgage by paying him an almost perfuctory rent (basically, enough to cover the mortgage payment).  We would always have visitors over, and twice a year, we'd through huge parties with over 100 guests- that was the only way to do the major housecleaning... you had to clean before company came over, and you'd REALLY have to clean the day after the beer bash.  We'd always tell the neighbors, even invite them, and we never received any complaints.  The neighborhood is a safe one, a blend of working class and middle class, native-born and immigrant.  

We were a block north of a small commercial strip on Yonkers Ave, a couple of takeout joints, a small supermarket (I believe the term 'superette' should suffice), a pastry shop, and a couple of bars.  One of the bars is a low-key, low-rent topless joint, fairly unobtrusive but a bit of an anomaly in a neighborhood like that.  It never really attracted much ire from the neighborhood, and nobody ever seemed inclined to shut it down.  We're a live-and-let-live bunch for the most part.  Oddly enough, though, it seemed like every ten years or so, somebody would get killed in the place.  I've been combing through the news archives trying to document a shooting around 1990, which actually made a national 'true crime' show, but haven't turned up anything yet.  The second shooting took place around around 2000, and two friends of mine met there for a beer the next day, and wondered why the place was abandoned.  Recently, there was a non-fatal stabbing and a brawl in which a firefighter put some guy in a coma.  As I said, the neighborhood is a generally safe one, but I would joke that, if you wanted to get murdered in Dunwoodie, the topless bar was the place to go.  Even with the periodic mayhem, there really haven't been any calls to shut the place down.

There's a new contender for Dunwoodie murder spot... taking the mantle from the topless bar is the tapas bar.  In the wee hours of Sunday morning, there was an altercation in which an individual shot two employees, one of whom died.  I have to say that I might have been to the place once, soon after it opened, but I recall a time when it was owned by a wannabe wiseguy who spent his parents' money on coke and a vanity project as an aspiring bar owner.  Yeah, not a great place, especially when you hear a stray rumor of the owner keeping a gun in his office, probably next to the cocaine supply.  Oddly enough, even though the tapas bar has a lower body count than the topless bar, there are calls to shut the place down.  It's on the ass-end of the commercial stretch, across from an apartment building, so it's more obtrusive than the topless joint, which really doesn't seem to raise anyone's ire.

Now I have to change my routine- there's more than one spot to be murdered in Dunwoodie.

Yonkers Hanami

I live in the fourth largest city in New York State, a city of about 200,000 residents. My particular neighborhood is a blend of single-family homes, multi-family houses, and an assortment of apartment buildings of various sizes, all bounded by commercial strips to the south (McLean Avenue) and north (Yonkers Avenue). My particular street has a nice variety of trees lining it, including a couple of gorgeous cherry trees:

Yonkers isn't exactly the first place one thinks of when one thinks of hanami, but that is probably all for the best... I mean, who wants to elbow their way through throngs of cosplayers just to grab a slice at the local pizza joint?

Jewels in the Crown of the City of Y______

The day being beautiful weatherwise, and I having the day off (plus, me being in need of a "mental hygiene" break after a bad week's worth of current events), I decided to drive to the corner of the city furthest from my home (I live in the extreme Southeast of the City of Y, a couple of blocks north of the Bronx and a couple of blocks west of "money earnin'" Mount Vernon) to visit two of Yonkers' most precious jewels. My first visit was to the Hudson River Museum, on Warburton Avenue, which overlooks the mighty Hudson. The Hudson River Museum combines a modern museum and planetarium with Glenview, a well-conserved mansion built in the 1870s:





The setting of the museum is unparalleled, the views of the Palisades and the river is unexcelled:





As one looks south of the museum, one is reminded of a less idyllic memento of the past- the abandoned Yonkers power plant, which is featured prominently in the wonderful book Hudson Valley Ruins (in the interest of full disclosure, I know one of the authors):





The museum was featuring an exhibit titled The Panoramic River: The Hudson and the Thames. The inspiration for the exhibit was The Rhinebeck Panorama, a panoramic depiction of London found in Dutchess County, New York. While I didn't take any pictures inside the museum (I don't know if flash photography is allowed, and I always err on the side of propriety in museums), I will post images of some of my favorite paintings from the exhibit.

John Henry Dolph's Haying Near New Rochelle is a nice pastoral scene set in an area which is now a small, multicultural city and foodie paradise. The body of water in the background is Long Island Sound, the Hudson being a few miles to the west:





Another favorite of mine was James Bard's painting of the steamboat Francis Skiddy- gotta dig the "painting in a painting" motif, as the housing of the paddlewheel sports an image of the Hudson narrows:





Another favorite of mine, George W. Wright's A Terrible Bore, which is part of the permanent collection, can be glimpsed on page two of the Museum's School Brochure PDF.

For a brief visual overview of the exhibit, here is a promo from a local public television station:





Another highlight of the Hudson River Museum is the Riverama, a permanent exhibit detailing the geology and ecology of the Hudson River region, and centered around a thirty foot long topographical model of the region. There is a video on the return of the peregrin falcon to the region (unrelated to the museum, but of note is the Mid-Hudson Bridge peregrin falcon cam), an exhibit on invasive species, a brief piece on the different sorts of boats plying the river, an interactive "wild sounds" console courtesy of the Cornell Ornithological Lab, and other nice interactive displays. It's a good introduction to the inner workings of the river, hydrologically, geologically, biologically, and sociologically. Pete Seeger would approve.

I followed my visit to the museum with a visit to Lenoir Preserve, which I mentioned in a blog post three years ago. The preserve is just as lovely as ever, and I'll have to return in a few months to see how some of the more ambitious projects underway are proceeding.

For a relatively small city (pop. 195,976 as of 2010), Yonkers does have a nice variety of cultural institutions. To be sure, midtown Manhattan is only a half-hour train ride away, but sometimes it pays to stay closer to home.

The Six Degrees of Beer-Thirst Slakin'

Today and tomorrow, I have days off, even though October is pretty brutal on the workfront. A high school friend of mine who works as a branch manager for a small bank joined the Rotary International in order to get involved in community affairs and to drum up business from local businesses. He told me that a local Rotary branch was having an Oktoberfest fundraiser at the Captain Lawrence Brewery tonight. Being somewhat of a beer drinker, and having met the great guys who run the Captain Lawrence beer company, I decided that it would be a good thing to drink copious amounts of beer for a charitable cause. Did I mention that I was somewhat of a beer drinker?

The cover charge for the open bar/open buffet event was $30, so I knew that I would be making out like a bandit. I traveled up from Yonkers with a friend of mine and made arrangements to meet another compatriot at the brewery. About five minutes in, I recognized another attendee, a guy who was a poll worker at my jobsite on the last two election days. I reacquainted myself with him, and he told me that he was a board member of a group called Gift of Life, which offers children in the developing world treatment for heart disease. Currently, they transport children to the U.S. for surgery, but they are accumulating enough equipment to start running clinics in the countries in which they operate, with the hope that they will be able to train local medical students in cardiology. He introduced me to a fellow Yonkers resident who lives around the corner from the parents of my high school buddy who told me about the event in the first place (he was unable to attend due to a family obligation). This guy, who is retired, drives visiting patients to various medical appointments, and has pen pals from such places as Kosovo, Jamaica, and Trinidad. He told a funny story about how he showered my friend's father, an old school Italian gentleman who wears a suit even when shoveling snow, with a torrent of snow when he busted out the snow-blower last winter.

Throughout the course of the night, I kept running into people who I didn't know, but who had mutual acquaintances with me. Everybody there seemed to know somebody that I knew. After three hours, I had consumed enough beer to float a small naval vessel and ate enough wurst and sauerbraten mit Kartoffel Pfannkuchen to feed the Hessian mercenaries who fought in the Battle of White Plains. One topic of conversation was the disappearance of German restaurants in the region in the past thirty years... such storied places as Maxl's, Franzel's, and Ehrings simply vanished. The only German restaurants in the area are in Manhattan- Heidelberg, Zum Schneider, Lorelei. It's funny, because everybody I know likes German food, but it doesn't seem to be anyone's first choice of cuisine. A few years back, when I was dating a green-eyed Krakow charmer, I told her that there wasn't any material difference between a Polish guy and an Irish guy (I didn't add Germans to the mix, for obvious reasons)- you give them a potato, some pork, and some cabbage, and you wash it all down with copious amounts of beer to the accompaniment of accordion music, and they're happy). It's kind of odd that there's no places serving this sort of comfort food in this region, though a lot of bars are running German culinary specials throughout the month of October. I'm still crying because I will be working a double when Rory Dolan's is holding its Oktoberfest, with the Amish Outlaws taking their "Endless Rumspringa" schtick to Yonkers.

Finally Able to Surface

October is now behind me, and I didn't have to put anyone through a wall. It's been quite the slog, but it's nice to be able to earn some overtime pay... the next couple of weeks will also involve extra hours because we need somebody on site while the installations of the fundraisers are removed. At least I don't have to deal with the public much in the coming weeks. It's not as if I don't like people, but having crowds of them to deal with gets to be old after a couple of weeks. In one particularly odious case, the high-pressure tank in our handicapped-accessible toilet was put out of order (somehow, a metal bar gets pulled out of alignment at times, and has to be pulled into place)... I don't know why people don't approach any employees with problems like this, and throwing more toilet paper in the bowl doesn't fucking help.

One of the hallmarks of the Fall fundraisers is the use of contractors to assist the in-house staff. Some of the temporary workers have been impossible to deal with- in particular, one woman was found to have slipped twenties in among the singles in a cash register she was working, and she got into an argument with our long-time concession operator- she was not invited to return. Another winner had the temerity to ask one of our shop managers where the money from retail sales was kept, and was bounced. Of course, we also had plenty of great temps, including one Yonkers native who was extremely helpful to our retail staff and a genuinely nice fellow. If I had pull in the retail division, I would recommend that they hire him.

Our parking attendants for hire have been uniformly excellent. While a good portion of them are repeat contractors, there were plenty of new faces. Most of these folks are young African-American and Latino guys, with an admixture of a few women. Quite a few of them are Yonkers residents, my kind of people. One of the managers was a new hire, an older guy who had a good way with the younger employees... by the end of the month, I felt as if I'd known him for years. The company they work for is growing in the region, gaining parking contracts for local train stations, medical centers, and shopping malls. They are earning the business, because their employees are polite and helpful, while being no-nonsense. Since our organization contracted with this company, they have become indispensable to the success of our events. I always tell them that they are welcome to stop by any time for a visit.

As always, October was a slog, but things get real quiet real soon. The slog pretty much pays my salary, as the fundraisers contribute mightily to our operating costs. I have long described my job as 'really cushy, except when it's not', and it's the 'not' days which make the cushy part possible.