A History of the Riverdale Yacht Club

By Ruben P. Mendez

The Riverdale Yacht Club is a small private association on the shoreline
of the Hudson River in the Riverdale section of New York Citys borough
of The Bronx. While author Ruben Mendez furnishes a chronicle of
the institution, he also discloses valuable historical information about
Riverdale, the Hudson River, the building of what is today the
Metro-North railroads Hudson Division, and the creation of the New
York-New Jersey Palisades into an interstate park.


Founded in 1931, the yacht clubs first decade coincided with the
Great Depression. During World War II, over sixty of its members
served in the military.


Mendez not only describes the sports and other activities that occurred
on the clubs ground, he also provides thumbnail sketches of some
noted members. They include Nobel Prize laureates; professors, deans
and presidents of institutions of higher education; journalists; authors;
diplomats; medical doctors; lawyers; and other figures of historical
importance. Thus he has produced a work recounting a little-known,
but essential part of the history of The Bronx and of New York City.


Lloyd Ultan
Bronx Borough Historian

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 5, 2008
• ISBN: 9781469114484

Book preview

Copyright © 2008 by Ruben P. Mendez.

Photographs on cover taken by Robert J. Kornfeld, Sr.

Interior Design by Manolito Bastasa

This book is published by Xlibris with the co-sponsorship of The Bronx County Historical Society.

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Contents

Overture and Overview

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1

Introduction

Chapter 2

Historical Riverdale

Chapter 3

Changing Contours and Configurations

Chapter 4

Membership and Management

Chapter 5

Remembrance of Things Past

Chapter 6

Sports

Chapter 7

The Rowing Trophy

Chapter 8

Some Distinguished and Interesting Members

Chapter 9

Bridges from the Past… and to the Future

Chapter 10

Summing Up

Appendix I

Some Random Thoughts and Recollections

Appendix II

Greetings to All

Appendix III

The Greatest Generation:

Members Who Served In World War II*

Endnotes

About the Author

Overture and Overview

This is a history of the Riverdale Yacht Club—the first ever to be written, long overdue, and in much demand by the Club’s members and alumni.

When I agreed to prepare the history, I was not aware of the Club’s gaping lack of records, especially of its early years. It did not have a system of organizing and storing information. The closest thing to archives was in the office of our long-standing multitasking Treasurer, Dante Bick Caputo, and his loyal and efficient assistant, Josephine Galbraith. As part of his fiscal responsibilities, the Treasurer keeps a record of when members bought and sold their non-interest-bearing notes, which are their certificates of membership. The Treasurer also has legal documents of transactions regarding land matters, and communications with the New York City bureaucracy regarding inspections, regulations, valuations, and the like. Josephine gave me photocopies of some of these documents. I also photocopied what other papers I could gather, interviewed members, especially those who were there during the early years of the Club, and searched for other sources within and outside the Riverdale Yacht Club.

This meant that I would have to rely in large part on interviews with long-standing members, their anecdotes, and their recollections. Sadly, some of them—mines of information, blessed human beings, and good friends—passed away before my wife Tilly and I could interview them. It was a race against time. Happily, Bick found the minutes of the meetings of the Board of Governors from Day One to 3 March 1945, and a photo album of over sixty members who served in World War II. The book includes photomontages of most of them. The new material came rather late but made it possible for me to produce a more comprehensive history, especially of the Club’s earlier years.

This history is an attempt, in the celebrated words of the nineteenth-century German historian, Leopold von Ranke, to show what actually happened (wie es eigentlich gewesen). Authoritative, if not authorized, the book is completely unexpurgated. It presents the RYC’s history in the context of contemporaneous events, lest it be a humdrum ho-hum institutional history—an inward looking stand-alone in a vacuum.

After a short factual account, the book describes what Riverdale was like before and during the founding of the Yacht Club. It then explains how the Club’s land, plant, and facilities were put together and evolved into what the RYC now is, physically. The history proceeds to a discussion of the Club’s human resources (to use a contemporary term): its members and former members, or alumni, founders, Commodores, and Stewards. A narrative follows of three phases of the Club’s history: its first decade, which coincided with the Great Depression; the period of World War II, when its main users were children and, to a lesser extent, mothers; and the early postwar years, during which the Club had a sort of rebirth and much of its present character took shape. There is then a discussion of sports, in which interest and activity have fluctuated over time—the main thread being enjoyment, over competition. This is illustrated in a section on the long-running Rowing Trophy. There follows a series of thumbnail sketches of some distinguished and interesting members. This is not about the rich and famous. The members of the RYC are in various ways distinctive for a private club: diverse and unpretentious, as well as accomplished, of historical significance, or notable in other ways.

In summing things up, the book focuses on the subject of transition—from the past, through the present, and into the future. There are the traditions and character that the Club has developed over the years, and there are long-standing members, who may be dubbed the old guard. There is, at the same time, a generation of new members. I hope there will be a junction between the two. For this, those who have been members as children and adults could perhaps serve as a continuum. This history should be of interest to the old guard, in whom it will evoke reminiscences—a remembrance of things past, in Shakespeare’s words.¹ It will, I hope, also appeal to new and future members who will be interested in knowing their heritage.

Acknowledgements

I must start by noting the invaluable help of Bick Caputo—erstwhile Commodore, long-standing Treasurer, éminence grise—who knows more about the Riverdale Yacht Club than anyone else. John W. Freeman, whose father was one of the founders, has been a member the longest. He was present at the creation and has an unparalleled historical data base. In addition to his many recollections he was able to untangle some of the knottier problems in determining what actually happened. Charlotte Beardshaw Ervin (née Zachry, aka Schatzi,) was perhaps the most conscientious—careful, scrupulous, and thorough. Now an alumna rather than a member, she lives in New Hampshire, but I was able to get her detailed comments and suggestions via e-mail, snail mail, and long-distance telephone. Scribner (Scrib) Jelliffe and Myrtie Buckner Hall—like Schatzi, early members (through their parents) and now alumni—also shared with me their extensive knowledge of things past.

My wife, Matilda McEwen Mendez, aka Tilly, was my constant consultant, and since she first became a family member in early 1941 and walked to the Yacht Club almost every day as a child, she was chock-full of first-hand historical information. Tilly was also my most valuable critic and read all my drafts, as did our children, Katy and Tomás, with whom we joined the Club as a family in 1966. Although they live out-of-state, Anne Goodrich Jones, Hubbard Goodrich, Sally Goodrich Hurlbert, Tom Goodrich (siblings who joined in January 1939), Anne McEwen Standridge, and Kathy McEwen Goodrich—all Tilly’s relatives and (roughly) contemporaries—were valuable sources of facts, anecdotes and photographs.

Franny Dennison and her late husband Denny, Celia and Robert J. Kornfeld, and Fritz Jacobi joined somewhat later but early enough—over sixty years ago—to know much of the Yacht Club’s lore. They were, in fact, a key component of this history. Tilly and I interviewed them on a number of occasions, and they were generous with their time.

Among the younger and newer members, Sandy Shalleck and Steve Byrns were also helpful. Sandy oversaw the day-to-day operations in the stripping of the Club’s old bulkhead and the construction of the new one. She took various photographs, some of which are reproduced in this history. Steve is an architect with an enquiring mind, knowledgeable of architecture and many other things, including Riverdale and, of course, the RYC.

Also an architect, Richard Stein, who is co-publisher of the Riverdale Press, scanned some photos, which are in the book. Tennis expert Mary Tait Goldschmid gave me information on specific matters, as did Christopher and Natalie Robins Lehmann-Haupt. Josephine Galbraith, as I mentioned in the preface, provided me with various records she had prepared.

Finally, I wish to thank Professor Lloyd Ultan, the official historian of the Bronx and past president of The Bronx County Historical Society, who has an unchallenged knowledge of the Bronx, including Riverdale. He reviewed my manuscript in detail, checked its factual content, and made useful suggestions from the vantage point of a professional historian.

Despite all this help, I wish to express the usual apologia and take responsibility for any errors and shortcomings the reader may find.

RPMendez

October 2007

Doctor Gary Hermalyn, the Executive Director of The Bronx County Historical Society, authorized the co-sponsorship of this publication in April 2008. I wish to thank him for providing the Society’s auspices. The book has used various sources which are in the Society’s archives, and it will, I hope, be a useful part of the Society’s continuous efforts to enlarge the knowledge of and literature on the County’s history. Ms. Kate Philips of the Xlibris Corporation was especially helpful during the final stages of this publication. Her skills at formatting and coordination, and her attention to detail were invaluable in seeing the book go to press.

RPM

August 2008

Chapter 1

Introduction

The Riverdale Yacht Club was incorporated on 2 March 1931,

To establish, maintain and operate a yacht club… , indoor and outdoor tennis or squash or squash-tennis courts, boathouses and boat landing, and suitable clubhouses, bath houses, swimming pools, and other accommodations and facilities for the use and convenience of the members. (New York State Certificate of Incorporation)

The time was the start of a difficult decade for the United States: It was only sixteen months since the initial stock market crash of 29 October 1929, and, in retrospect, it was the start of the Great Depression. The formation, despite these hard times, of a recreational and sports club was due to the efforts of the original directors and other well-to-do Riverdalians who wanted a place in the neighborhood where they and their families could get together, relax, swim, play tennis, and go sailing. Partly because of the economic conditions of the time, however, the Riverdale Yacht Club started with an uncertain financial footing.

It was envisaged from the very beginning that the Yacht Club would be family oriented—that its membership would consist primarily of families or couples. It opened its first season in the summer of 1932, with a membership of 46 families, who were recruited by the directors in the course of the preceding months. The Yacht Club was located at its present site but had a smaller area since this was before the grounds were expanded by landfill. The Club’s finances were shaky: Its initial budget—$30,751—was far larger than its resources. The sole source of operating income lay in annual dues of $50 and initiation fees of $100, of which $50 was payable upon election and the same amount callable if deemed necessary by the Board of Governors. The RYC in its early years depended on the largesse of the Perkins and Freeman families, who among other things owned most of the Club’s premises. (More on this later.)

The RYC, nevertheless, was chartered and officially recognized as a Yacht Club—a standing that continues to this day. Its burgee (the usually triangular identifying flag of a yacht club flown by the boats of members) was designed by the Freemans’ oldest child, Dorothy (Dodo), then a girl of seventeen. The burgee design was approved by a special committee appointed by the Commodore, and registered and officially adopted in June 1933.* When the Freemans, later in the 1930s, sailed their schooner, the Blue Goose, into Boothbay Harbor, Maine, it proudly displayed the RYC burgee atop its mainmast.

In its early days a number of members owned sailboats, but they were moored next to the Yacht Club at best only intermittently. Jack Cunningham, the Club’s third Commodore, had a 100-foot schooner, the Sea Gypsy—the largest in greater New York Harbor—which he tried mooring permanently at the Yacht Club for about a year. He finally gave up and moored it mainly on Long Island Sound. He used to take various members sailing up and down the Hudson River and at times to Long Island Sound or New York Harbor (narrowly defined) by the Battery, the southern tip of Manhattan. The Yacht Club kitchen would prepare food to eat on the yacht so that the Captain, passengers and crew could go on day trips.

The Freemans’ schooner, the Blue Goose, was occasionally moored at the Yacht Club for special events—a memorable sight all lit up on a dance night, according to one witness.² The Freemans, however, kept their boat in Maine. The Dodges had a motor launch in which they took members and school children on birthday parties and picnics, but they had their own dock. The Dennisons had a Morgan 34 sloop and cruised every summer to Martha’s Vineyard, but they kept their boat at the American Yacht Club in Rye. There was a proposal in 1936 that the Yacht Club charter a yacht, but this was never followed up.

Unfortunately, there are practical problems in mooring sailboats in the waters next to the Yacht Club. The tides of the lower Hudson River cause its currents to race north and south, reversing course twice a day. The river’s Mahican name, Mahican-netuk, means great waters in constant motion.³ The early sailboats were constantly knocked about by the swift and changing currents.* This convinced the sailor