Response to the 2025 Yonkers State of the City from a blue-collar worker
The City of Yonkers has changed greatly since I first arrived in this fair city in 1962
I attended St Peter’s School and then Commerce High School before going into the Army and doing my Duty.
We lived at several addresses on the west side of Yonkers over the years, but I am now fortunate enough to be a homeowner and taxpayer.
Local Services
We had many small supermarkets in those days, and you could find most necessities with a short walk to Riverdale Ave or South Broadway. Northwest Yonkers was similar at that time. Yonkers was a mix of low-rise apartment buildings and private homes, and most people knew their neighbors. Cops walked the beat, and everyone knew them by name. We had a nice, cozy feeling. Yonkers had a population of about 192,000 people in 1962
Fast forward to 2025, we have a population of just over 211,000 people, or a growth of about 19,000 residents. The city was, at one time, a manufacturing hub. My second job after school was assembling pens at a plant on Riverdale Ave. Today, Yonkers brands itself as Hollywood on the Hudson and the Empire Casino. We are attempting to move away from our small manufacturing and warehouse spaces and develop a more “sophisticated” image of a cosmopolitan community where getting your hands dirty working is not an appealing occupation.
What is the Yonkers IDA?
In Yonkers, we have two very large entities, both run and controlled by the Mayor. The Yonkers IDA (Industrial Development Agency) and the City Of Yonkers. The YIDA has a mandate to promote business and jobs in the City and to support the City of Yonkers government in doing this.
The Blue-collar worker in me looks at the two entities today and asks How are they going about this, and does it make sense? Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding no. We know from every economic and news cycle we hear that the greatest source of jobs in the USA is small businesses. The Yonkers IDA, in its 2024 Annual Report, lists 27 projects, all large. Much of this is funded by City of Yonkers Bonds. This year, 8% of your City budget is going to debt service on our debt. My problem with this large amount of spending is that it is for projects not designated to help the residents of the City, but to change the Character of our neighborhoods and make the City far too expensive for the average resident to live. The process of doing this has created large problems for homeowners, small business owners, and anyone seeking to do business in the COY that is not a multi-million dollar developer.
Building Department
The COY Buildings department can only handle a certain level of projects being pushed through their pipeline. Large projects have choked the process, and any homeowner or business owner seeking to open a business or renovate an existing business will wait over a Year, possibly 18 months, for their paperwork to process through the system. Once that is done, the wait for inspections, approvals, and the processing of that paperwork is more than most small businesses can afford. Large projects can hire an engineering firm to certify that they have built according to the Yonkers and NYS building codes. This has proven to be a problem on many projects.
When I walk around Yonkers today, I see much of North West Yonkers lacking any retail business and ones that did exist have closed leaving empty store fronts. The Area around Lions Gate in Getty Square is a good example of retail space going and staying vacant.
Promise of Better Quality of Life Unfufilled
So the promise the Mayor has made to the Residents of Yonkers was a better quality of life and more jobs but I am sorry to report that this has been a failure even after 14 years in office. Concentrating on large businesses that in their filings with the IDA say how many jobs they expect to generate, and most have an income level between $37,000 and 45,000. That wage in not a living wage in Yonkers and is only half the average income in the city today. If we had developed small businesses or small manufacturing, we would have competitive jobs that would pay the residents a living wage. Instead, we have opted to go with large developers who have out-of-state management. The YIDA does not attach any stipulation when it lends our tax dollars to ensure proper management and reporting on these projects. It is often difficult or impossible for tenants in these buildings to organize and present grievances to management, as they are not allowed to meet in common areas that were designated for residents’ use.
The Mayor will often tell us at public meetings that even though a project has received outlandish variances from the Zoning board that we still have two bites at the apple. One being the planning board and the next the City council for the approval of a zoning change or a vote on the Bonds. He fails to admit that he appoints both Planning and Zoning board members and has control over a Majority of the Members of the City Council. In other words, if he did not approve of the project, it would not have made its way to any of those needing approval.
A recent article in New York Focus highlighted the web of intrigue that exists in the City of Yonkers and why we blue-collar workers will need to find a new city to love.
