Friday, November 21st, 5:30 PM
Yonkers Riverfront Library

YONKERS PUBLIC LIBRARY COMMEMORATES YONKERS'
ROLE IN ARCTIC HISTORY

The Yonkers Public Library held an event  on November 21st to commemorate the City of Yonkers’ strong tie to early explorations of the Arctic polar icecap.  In 1931, Sir Hubert Wilkins organized and led the first attempt to reach the North Pole by submarine.  That submarine, named Nautilus, came to Yonkers to be fitted with hollow ice drills which could drill through the ice and enable a man to climb from the submerged submarine onto the surface of the icepack.  The drills were built by the Otis Elevator Company and installed by the New York Engineering Company, both located at the time on the Yonkers Hudson River waterfront.  After the drills were installed, the Nautilus also conducted a test dive in the Hudson just off the Yonkers shoreline.  The Yonkers Public Library’s Riverfront Library Branch is located in one of the buildings in the former Otis Elevator factory complex. 

Reaching the North Pole submerged was finally accomplished in the same year as Sir Hubert’s death (1958) by the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine U.S.S. Nautilus (SSN 571).
On Friday, November 21, the Yonkers Public Library held an event to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of Sir Hubert Wilkins and the accomplishment of the expedition with the installation of a large plaque fabricated by Yonkers Downtown BID member merchant Ly-Mac (42 Warburton Avenue) bearing images from the expedition.  Noted oceanographer, author, and lecturer Dr. Stewart B. Nelson presented a lecture about the expedition as part of the ceremonies.  Dr. Nelson is the co-leader of the 2005 expedition which located and photographed the Nautilus 1,100 feet beneath the surface off Bergen, Norway. Dr. Nelson, with Library Executive Director Steve Force and members of the Yonkers Library Board of Trustees, unveiled the plaque at the conclusion of the lecture. The plaque will be installed on the third floor of the Riverfront Library.

Dr. Nelson, flanked by Yonkers Library Executive Director Steve Force and members of the Yonkers Library Board of Trustees, lifts the covering to reveal the plaque commemorating Yonkers' role in Arctic Exploration.

Yonkers Library Executive Director Steve Force and Dr. Nelson with the plaque.


The plaque, fabricated of sea-blue glass is topped by a rough white surface emulating the polar icecap, with a
polar projection of the earth worked into the glass. Porcelain tiles of Sir Hubert Wilkins and photos of the Nautilus docked on the Yonkers waterfront in Delft blue are attached to the plaque by silver screws at varying heights from the glass.
Descriptive text is embedded in white glass resembling arctic ice floes.
Truly a masterpiece of creativity and craftsmanship by our own Ly-Mac Trophy commissioned with vision by the Yonkers Public Library.

A detail of the plaque showing a workman from Otis with the hollow ice drill which was installed
on the deck of the Nautilus when she was docked on the Yonkers waterfront in March 1931.

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