Talk:Yonkers, New York/Archives/2012

Untitled

Don't know how to edit Wikipedia articles correctly. Someone fix and or remove this on the page: Broadway to Yonkers is also dealings ground for many members of D-Block. Hit me up, Walnut Street. Hit me up, Walnut Street? Are you guys okay with that? No? Fix it! LOL Signed, by Me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.80.245.188 (talk) 20:56, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

  • from WDC9 I believe there is a slight error in the name of one of the Slavic churches listed in the History portion of this entry on Yonkers. It should be St. Michael's Ukrainian Catholic Church, not St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church. I don't know how to make this change. I was born in Yonkers 61 years ago, but moved out over 40 years ago. I cannot find any reference to a "St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic" in Yonkers, but I know there is a St Michael's. (This is the end of my comment. I have obviously never done this before and I apologize for not knowing the appropriate etiquette for attempting to make a correction) *****

when i read this i could hardly believe that nothing is mentioned about the Polish, Chechoslovakian neighborhoods....the Alexander Smith Carpet Factory & Otis Elevator had many, many employees of Eastern European ancestry. You would think Yonkers was made up of Italians and Irish only by the discreption in Wikipedia. Totally untrue!!! I grew up in "The Hollow", born in 1939 & left the area in the early sixties. I recall Yonkers & my neighborhood of Poles keeping on eye on the children going to & from school, etc. Meeting the Irish, Italian, Polish, Russian, etc. people. Everyone had something worthwhile to contribute. Ethnically, we were all proud people & yet melded together. There were Catholic churches & schools, & Ukrainian and Russian orthodox. Many intermarriages in the late 50's. Marvelous memories from all these cultures. Fun going to the Italian section for their Feast eating the delicious Italian pastries & Italian Ice; going to the Polish bazaar & eating kielbasa w/ kraut; going to the Ukranian festival & eating their foods & celebrating w/ them their different calendar when their choralers came to apartments singing in January to celebrate Christmas; and to the beautiful Russian orthodox church in the "Hollow" observing their altar, priest's vestments, and solemn ceremonies. As teenagers, we were not prejucided. We were one. What a beautiful combination of cultures all striving to survive in difficult times. I have the most wonderful memories of a warm, colorful, safe "old world" in Yonkers.

Weasel Words / Citations

I've tagged this page with weasel words and more citations needed tags to address the issues discussed on this talk page. The "neighborhoods" section needs the most work - it's full of sweeping generalizations and has absolutely no citations. Other sections in the article also need references added. These tags should stay until these issues are addressed and the article as a whole is cleaned up. See "Image" section below for more details. Also, I've grouped together the neighborhood related talk threads on this page. Dale316 (talk) 01:50, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Italians

I Itsalian make greta pizza a pie." As an Italian-American, I personally feel that the Italian race should not be bunched together in a group known as "whites," when Italian-Americans have not always had, and in many cases, still do not have, the same priviledged "white" lifestyle as the real whites in America.


First, please sign your posts. Second, I doubt that you are actually an Italian American. You are probably just some troll. Italians, despite having last names that end ina a vowel, are very much in the mainstream of American life. More so than any other group except WASPs and Irish Americans. --Nelson Ricardo 04:24, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry that I didn't sign my post, sir. I didn't know you were the sole proprietor of this website. Next time I'll go through you first. I'm not trying to start anything or aggravate anyone, and if you were offended by what I said before, I'm sorry. But I don't see how it could have been offensive since I merely stated some personal observations and facts. I don't want this to turn into a battle, and I'm not going to say anything again after this. But I do disagree with you greatly over how "mainstream" Italians are in American culture. I find there are very few Italian characters in American comic books, tv shows, and movies, and the few Italian American characters that do exist are either stereotypes or criminals. And personally, having my own Italian culture, I don't quite fit in with WASPs, Irish Americans, or any other culture you consider "mainstream" in American. It seems to me looking different and having a vowel at the end of your name does in fact make a difference, and you would know this if you were ever called a racial slur right to your face. Don't dismiss my complaints because you feel my minority group isn't as discriminated against as others. Because I have news for you: Legally, no one is "discriminated" against anymore. But that law doesn't really help in social situations, does it? Signed: I'm Here

I would have to agree with the above. The way the ethnic makeup of southeast Yonkers is described in the article makes it sound like the area is populated by assimilated white Americans, which is patently false. Italians, Irishmen, Slavs, Jews, and so on are usually considered to be "ethnic" whites, which is a very different grouping from the WASPs most people envision when they hear the term white. And yes, members of all of these groups have faced prejudice not so far in the past. Furthermore, many of the residents of this section of Yonkers are recent immigrants. You'll hear lots of accents on McLean Avenue, and even among those who were born in the US, there is usually a strong tendency to identify with one's ethnic community in Yonkers. It's not a coincidence that the Irish watering holes in the neighborhood are primarily patronized by the Irish-Americans of the area. (Incidentally, I spent the first 17 years of my life living off McLean Avenue right by the intersection where the character of the street starts to shift from Italian to Irish (although I am neither). I would say most of my neighbors were ethnic whites. In recent years, though, the neighborhood has been seeing more and more houses being sold to black, south Asian, and Latino families.) -E.J.G.

Image

In my opinion, this section is a POV nightmare. Let me point out some passages:

Yonkers currently deals with a famously negative image. It is believed by most citizens of Westchester County, New York to have the worst crime rate in Southern Westchester

  • Beyond the dependence on WP:WEASEL, this supposed perception is never contrasted with reality (i.e. actual statistic) and is therefore meaningless.

Several native rappers such as DMX and Jadakiss help contribute to the criminal mystique of Yonkers. The most dangerous neighborhoods are considered Getty Square and Nodine Hill, both havens for illegal gambling and drug activity. Gangs in Yonkers range from Italian Mafia groups such as The Tanglewood Boys, which is a recruiting body for the Lucchese Family, to Puerto Rican gangs, to African-American chapters of the New York Crips and Bloods.

  • The bit about the rappers is probably overstated, and the rest needs a source.

In fact, Yonkers has the lowest crime rate of any city of its size in the United States. This low rate is undoubtedly helped by the proximity to New York City. Much of the petty crime that one would expect to find in a large city is effectively "outsourced" to the Bronx or Upper Manhattan; the high-crime neighborhoods of Washington Heights and the South Bronx are only ten minutes' drive away. Also, in recent years, New York City itself has had one of the lowest crime rates of major U.S. cities, and this "spillover" effect of reduced crime has lowered neighboring Yonkers' crime rate as well.

  • If the first sentence is true, I shouldn't have any trouble finding statistics to back it up. As for the rest of the paragraph, it claims that high crime rates in NYC are to blame for the low ones in Yonkers, then claims that low crime rates in NYC cause the same phenomenon.

The final paragraph is probably fine, although it'd be better with a source. I'm going to look for some statistics to solidify this section, but I suspect a lot of it is going to have to go. What say you? --djrobgordon 22:22, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Removed References

I removed a reference to what appeared to be a gang in Nepera Park with no link or references, as well as an individual under notable persons with no article, who appeared to have placed himself (Mike Haggerty). Eran of Arcadia 16:28, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I also removed Darryl A Gibbs and Mike Willsen as they had no links to articles or citations of any sort. Eran of Arcadia 16:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Modify Article Head

The second paragraph of the existing article head clearly doesn't belong in the head; I'm not sure if it belongs in the article at all. Any opinions/consensus? -DrGaellon (talk | contribs) 18:03, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Sixth Borough

I removed a sentence that said that Yonkers is currently being considered for annexation to the City of New York as its "sixth borough." There is no evidence of this. The last time this issue was seriously debated was in 1934. See http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70810F7395B107A93C1A9178AD95F408385F9 68.198.11.33 (talk) 21:49, 19 October 2

Census data and illegal immigration

According to the census information given here, there would be roughly 68,600 people of a Hispanic or Latino origin in Yonkers. That number has to be higher. The census numbers given probably don't take into account undocumented immigrants. In other words, there are alot more Hispanic/Latino citizens in Yonkers, I'd be willing to guess pushing 50 percent of the population. People who live in Yonkers what do you think? 74.101.163.144 (talk) 23:43, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Yonkers can be difficult to describe

Well it is a city. Under the laws of New York State it is considered a municipality. It has a population of roughly 200,000 and is 21 square miles in area.

Sure; see Core-periphery; every place is in the middle of one or more regions and at the edges of other regions. Yonkers is in the commuting zone of Manhattan, it's on the left bank of the Hudson, it's in the northern temperate zone, it has forests in the middle (I often visit that part), it fits some meanings but not all connotations of Inner suburb and so forth. Its internal geographic structure is also vague, at least to my mind. Quadrants? Where are the dividing lines, other than Nepperhan Creek? Cross County Parkway? Tibbets Creek? In what quadrant is Yonkers Gateway Motel? Or Mulberry Street? Jim.henderson (talk) 00:53, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
what forests in the middle? I'm curious. I know most of the wooded areas are in the northwest part. I guess you mean the wooded area near the parkways? You're response is funny too. I deleted my earlier comments but left yours. The heading difficult to describe should be enough.
I like the woods along the southern part of the South County Trailway. Anyway the question of subdivision remains, lately in connection with Commons:Category:Yonkers, New York. That category is subdivided topically but I'd like to subdivide it geographcally as well, and need definitions to do that. One definition of Northwest Yonkers uses only Sawmill River, while another uses Ashburton Avenue and I-87, thus excluding much of Downtown and including various incland territories such as St Joseph's. Is one of these more accepted than the other, or is there perhaps a better one? Jim.henderson (talk) 13:04, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

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SbmeirowTalk • 15:11, 10 August 2012 (UTC)