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New York - Yonkers - Points of Interest ST. JOHN'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SW. corner of S.Broadway and Getty Square, is designed in a modified Romanesque-Victorian Gothic style. The plan is cruciform, with a very high nave, high, broad aisles, and narrow, low transepts, much like side vestibules. The second lord of the manor gave a glebe for the church and cemetery and built the original edifice in 1752, which was partially destroyed by fire in 1791 and rebuilt in 1792. The old walls were incorporated in the present church, built in 1870. The YONKERS CITY HALL, S.Broadway opposite Prospect St., occupying the crest of a sharp hill, is a three-story-and-basement structure built in 1908 of yellow pressed brick with buff stone trim. It is designed in the neoclassic style, its high, domed clock tower dominating the downtown section. The World War Memoorial, at the foot of the hill, is a semicircular monument of pink granite set into the rocky face of the hill and bordered by shrubs and flower beds. In the center stands a female figure in bronze executed by I.Konti. PHILIPSE MANOR HALL, NW. corner of Warburton Ave. and Dock St., is an example of restored Georgian Colonial architecture, built of weathered brick with white wood trim. The building is L-shape in plan, with hipped slate roof, dormers, and roof balustrade. The symmetrical, five-bay façade with its fanlighted doorway and small Doric portico is typical of the period. The older part of the house, the south wing facing Dock Street, was built about 1682; the northern portion was added about 1745. During the Revolution it was held alternately by Americans and British. In 1780, 16,000 British soldiers encamped on the estate for several weeks; in 1781 the grounds were occupied by Americans. A 300-acre parcel of the estate, including the manor house, was sold to Cornelius P. Low, New York merchant, in 1785. It was purchased by Yonkers in 1868 and became the village hall. When the new city hall was built, the preservation of Manor Hall as a shrine was made possible by a gift of $50,000 by Mrs. William F. Cochran. Title is vested in the State and the property is in the custody of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society. The building contains Colonial furniture and objects of historical interest and a priceless collection of portraits of the Presidents from Washington to Coolidge and of a number of early American leaders, including the Tuckerman portrait of Franklin, portraits of George and Martha Washington by Gilbert Stuart, the portrait of Alexander Hamilton by James Sharples, and the portrait of John Quincy Adams by Thomas Sully. Of the five portraits of Washington in the collection, three are with brown eyes and two with blue eyes. There is a local tradition that Washington courted Mary Philipse, sister of the third lord, in this house, and that in the midst of the feast following her marriage to Captain Roger Morris an Indian appeared and uttered the Sibylline prophecy, 'Your possessions shall pass from you when the Eagle shall despoil the Lion of his mane.' This came to pass when the manor was confiscated during the Revolution. The OTIS ELEVATOR WORKS, 44 Wells Ave., a number of old brick and new concrete buildings, manufactures electric elevators. Elisha G. Otis, the inventor, settled in Yonkers in 1852 and installed the first elevator to carry freight in his bedstead factory, in which for some years the Otis elevators were made. In 1853 he demonstrated his 'perpendicular stairway' at the Crystal Palace exhibition in New York, and the contrivance soon became popular. The HUDSON RIVER MUSEUM AT YONKERS, 511 Warburton Ave., is housed in the Victorian Gothic Trevor Mansion. Built in 1876, it is of rock-cut stone, -with square and round towers, many dormer windows, bracketed cornice, high, patterned slate roofs, bay windows, and balconies. The collections include manuscripts, books, newspapers, prints, maps; antique furnishings; American Indian, Philippine, Australian, and African native material. The museum serves the city schools and has special loan exhibitions. The BOYCE-THOMPSON RESEARCH INSTITUTE, 1086 N.Broadway, is a center for the scientific study of plant growth. Alarmed by food shortages during the World War, the late Colonel William Boyce-Thompson founded the institution and equipped it with facilities for growing plants under controlled conditions. GREYSTONE, 919 Broadway, built in 1873, is a solid graystone three-story structure designed in the French Second Empire style with bulky square towers that rise an additional story above a mansard roof. The grounds are especially beautiful during the blooming of the rhododendrons in May and June. Once the home of Samuel J. Tilden, it was owned by Samuel Untermeyer until his death in 1940. The garden includes a cryptomeria walk, one-color gardens opening from the walk, Persian canals, Greek temples, and a 'living sundial' of flowers. ST.JOSEPH'S SEMINARY, 201 Seminary Ave., is an immense ashlar stone building, five stories high, with high attic, slate roofs, and cut stone trim. It is of modified French Renaissance design. The main entrance unit is marked by a pyramidal roof surmounted by a high open lantern and flanked by circular towers with conical roofs. The EMPIRE CITY RACE TRACK, Yonkers and Central Aves., is the smallest and least pretentious of the metropolitan tracks. It was built in 1898-9 by William H. Clark and in 1902 was purchased by James Butler, chain store magnate. After a long controversy with the Jockey Club, Butler was finally given a license for his track, and in 1907 he entered upon his colorful career as a racing promoter. Butler has become a legendary figure in Yonkers. 'The Squire of East View,' as he was known, was no flashy mixer of the 'Diamond Jim' type, but had a vast acquaintance among horsemen everywhere and was well liked by his Westchester neighbors. When one of his thoroughbreds stood in the winner's circle, Finnegan's Band invariably played The Wearing of the Green, and the crowd shouted its approval. Butler, however, never let sentiment interfere with business, and when the band became too great an expense it went the way of all unnecessary trimmings, Butler declaring that if the crowd must have its favorite tune of victory, 'Let 'em whistle it!' Butler would not look at golf or tennis. When his neighbor, John D. Rockefeller,Sr., invited him to play a few holes, Butler refused, declaring that golf was a rich man's game. He maintained the fiction of being poor by riding to his racetrack in a rickety automobile of outmoded design. For education, however, he loosened the purse-strings. Marymount College, on a high hill opposite Rockefeller's estate in Tarrytown, was founded by Butler.