City native Eddie Dee, 73, sees a different streetscape, filtered through childhood memories when a vastly different Getty Square was referred to by some as simply, "The Village."
"(My mother) went to different stores, and she would always meet people, because Yonkers was like a small town, particularly on Saturdays when they were there doing their shopping," Dee said recently, speaking of the inspiration for his new memoir, "Getty Square — The Village and Other Yonkers Memories."
Dee's book celebrates a bygone era when Getty Square, not Central Park Avenue, was the place to shop, catch a movie and socialize in Yonkers. Bickford's cafeteria, W.T. Grant's department store and Proctor's theater — all vanished — are alive in the memoir, published by the Yonkers Historical Society.
"I'd like to see people enjoy the way it was," said Dee, a retired social worker from Irvington who sometimes is confused with Edward Dee, a Delaware-based crime novelist. "My message would be that it could be and should be a great place to grow up."
Dee began his collection of short stories about Yonkers as a contributor to the Yonkers Historical Society's newsletter. While taking a writing class, he decided to write down more of his memories about growing up in Yonkers.
The book consists of 17 short chapters, including impressions of Getty Square, his family life and neighborhood vignettes.
In "Concrete Kingdom," Dee recounts his childhood amazement about moving into the newly opened Mulford Gardens. In other chapters he describes summer Saturdays on the riverfront catching crabs and then selling them to firemen on Shonnard Place to buy treats on Lake Avenue.
"The feeling I was trying to permeate through the book was that people had a sense of togetherness and helping each other out. Those were pretty hard times after the Depression and through World War II," said Dee, who believes Getty Square began to change after he boarded the No. 2 trolley that once plied South Broadway and Palisade Avenue on his way to join the Air Force in the early 1950s.
"While I was away the trolley stopped running and they put in the buses. Also, in 1955, the Cross County Shopping Center was built," Dee said. "After the war, people started buying cars, and they could drive to the shopping center and they didn't have to use Getty Square. The concept of the village also changed, because people became more spread out."
Despite suburban sprawl, Dee is optimistic about Getty Square's future. Sitting on a waterfront pier on Wednesday, he surveyed the new apartment buildings nearby and a lunch crowd eating at an outdoor restaurant. "It's looking very good," said Dee, sitting near where he fished as a child. "It's got a great chance. This area was forgotten for a long time."
Eddie Dee of Yonkers, stands on the Yonkers
waterfront pier. Dee has written a new book
on the city's downtown, April 20, 2005.
( Stephen Schmitt / The Journal News )