In the post–Civil War era Yonkers had firmly established itself as the largest city in Westchester County and one of New York State’s great industrial powers. Between 1850 and 1890 the city witnessed one of the most rapid rates of growth in the United States, its population increasing from 4,160 to 32,033. During the same period, its manufacturing base expanded enormously, with a number of industries springing up in the downtown area. Yonkers, which benefited from its proximity to one of the major ports of entry, also quickly became a magnet for the large numbers of immigrants arriving in the United States. Between 1880 and 1890 the city’s population almost doubled. By 1890 the U.S. Census reported that approximately one third (34.14 percent) of Yonkers’ population was foreign–born, and more than two–thirds (69.74 percent) claimed foreign parentage. In comparison with other cities in New York State, Yonkers ranked fourth, after New York, Long Island City and Buffalo, but exceeding Brooklyn, in the number of its foreign–born citizens.

Bogart noted that Yonkers was rather sharply divided into two distinct sectors, a residential part, which was occupied principally by persons doing business in New York City, and a manufacturing portion, where the city’s industries were located and where the bulk of its working–class population was concentrated. Interestingly, and somewhat paradoxically, Bogart adds that because of the dispersion of working–class housing throughout the city, Yonkers had no slums, “strictly speaking.”

Yonkers’ tenement population was overwhelmingly composed of people of foreign birth or parentage, and only 15.7 percent of the inhabitants were classified as “Americans.” African–Americans, who comprised 4.1 percent of the study group, were not counted as “Americans.” Of the 11 groups enumerated in the survey, more than half, or 51 percent of the population living in the tenements studied, listed themselves as born in Ireland. Germans ranked next (6.9 percent), “Slavs” (2.9 percent), Russian (2.4 percent), Polish (2.1 per cent), Italians (1.7 percent), Scots (0.8 percent), Greek (0.7 percent), and French (0.4 percent). A little over 1 percent (1.4 percent) were identified as belonging to one of nine other, unspecified nationalities and approximately the same number (1.5 percent) did not specify a nationality. Sixty percent of the families interviewed had lived in Yonkers for a period often years or longer, while only 8 percent had lived in the city for less than two years. Sixty percent of Yonkers births reportedly occurred in tenement buildings.

Palisade Avenue from Getty Square, WCHS Postcard Collection

The various ethnic and racial groups living in the tenement housing studied by Bogart tended to settle in defined areas. Clinton, Saint Mary’s and Washington streets, comprising the “Flats” neighborhood located just southwest of present day Getty Square, were inhabited chiefly by “Slavs.” James and John streets, located east of Getty Square (present–day Chicken Island) were the home of Yonkers’ African–Americans. Carlisle, Garden; Mulford, Parker, Vineyard and Orchard streets, situated just northeast of Getty Square, were almost exclusively Irish. Yonkers’ rather small Italian population in 1896 lived southeast of Getty Square on New School Street, while working–class “Americans” could be found nearby on School and Webster streets. Palisade and Elm streets, referred to as being located in the business section of Yonkers, were characterized as having a mixed population.