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April 2018
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boatingonthehudson.com
I
f you have a concept or ideas you really believe in, and
have others that are listening, and acting on that dream it
can happen in your lifetime.
Fred Danback, a member of the Hudson River Fisherman’s
Association, Andy Hudak and Bob Walters, inspired by Fred
Danback, had such a dream, somewhat independent of
each other. They kept finding ways to bring up the idea of
“daylighting” whenever they could. The daylighting of the
Saw Mill River or “bringing the river back to the light of day”
which was once a parking lot, has created a unique, one of
a kind dramatic change to the overall betterment of Yonkers
that no one could have imagined thirty years ago.
The earliest mention in print for the idea of uncovering
the Saw Mill comes from a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Reconnaissance Study for Flood Control & Ecosystem
Restoration in September 1999, which lists one of the
options for restoration was “daylighting the covered reach
in Larkin Plaza.” These Army Corps studies are years in the
making and are directed by local input. Someone had to
have given them the idea!
One of the most significant reasons daylighting occurred
was due to a group of citizens when they responded to a
US National Park Service grant opportunity to establish a
“Groundwork Trust” in Yonkers in 1999. With their proposed
focus on daylighting, these board members of the “old”
Beczak Center with Bob Walters at the helm captured the
attention, the imagination, and the funding to establish
February 2018, Phase 3, Chicken Island location of the Saw
Mill River. Note the round vertical pipes in the bank of the Saw
Mill they are for the over flow during high water. The concrete
structure in the foreground is the flume for the waterwheel.
The word Daylighting takes on a whole new meaning in Yonkers!