Yonkers, New York, is a city in Westchester County of approximately 211,000 residents spread across 18.7 square miles of dramatically varied terrain — the fourth-largest city in New York State, a place whose character has been shaped by its position as a working-class and immigrant city whose manufacturing and industrial legacy stretches from the Otis Elevator Company to the Carpet Factory to the Alexander Smith Mills, by a waterfront on the Hudson River that is undergoing one of the most ambitious and most consequential urban renewal efforts of any city in the state, by a cultural and historical landscape that ranges from one of the finest Persian-style walled gardens in the Western Hemisphere to a Gilded Age mansion used as a filming location for HBO’s The Gilded Age, and by a civic identity of fierce, proudly working-class diversity — home to the largest Puerto Rican community in Westchester, significant African American, Irish, and Italian populations, and successive waves of new immigrants — that has always made Yonkers feel more like a borough of New York City than a suburb of it. Incorporated as a city in 1872 after nearly two centuries of development as a colonial and early American manufacturing settlement, Yonkers carries its historical weight in three great institutions: the Philipse Manor Hall State Historic Site at 29 Warburton Avenue — open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 AM to 5 PM, a restored Georgian manor described as the most balanced, inclusive, and thought-provoking local history museum a lifelong history buff had visited in hundreds of such museums across dozens of states, where hearing your shoes on the original floorboards is described as amazing and where the staff is described as patient, kind, and genuinely wonderful — a museum that brings to life the story of a Dutch carpenter turned merchant and his savvy businesswoman wife building a real estate empire in colonial America while unflinching in its treatment of the site’s complicated history. The Hudson River Museum at 511 Warburton Avenue — open Wednesday through Friday from noon and Saturday and Sunday from 11 AM to 5 PM, admission $15 — is the city’s most comprehensive and most beloved cultural institution, a small but great museum with a nice array of Hudson River School painters in the permanent collection, a planetarium with an informative general-audience show described by a returning visitor who hadn’t been since 1984 as still just as magical as they remembered, the adjoining Glenview Mansion — a preserved Gilded Age home used as a filming location for The Gilded Age on HBO — whose colorful tiles, high ceilings, art by Warhol, and Victorian Christmas decoration make every visit feel like a genuine encounter with the opulent and improbable past of Yonkers’s Gold Coast waterfront era. Untermyer Gardens at 945 North Broadway — open daily from 9 AM to 6 PM with free admission — is the city’s most extraordinary and most internationally celebrated public destination, a 43-acre garden on a former Gilded Age estate described by visitors as an absolute hidden gem just outside New York City whose walled garden with Persian-inspired design, reflecting pools, and fountains is described as breathtaking and incredibly peaceful — a Temple of Love overlooking the Hudson River described as especially stunning, views of the Hudson and the Palisades described as gorgeous, Shakespeare in the park and a grand holiday illumination among the seasonal programming, and an atmosphere described as stepping into another world in every nook and corner created with so much love, thought, and art — a garden described by devoted regulars as something to die for and one of the most remarkable free public spaces in the entire New York metropolitan area. Tibbetts Brook Park at 355 Midland Avenue — open daily from 8 AM — is the city’s finest and most beloved all-purpose recreational destination, a Westchester County park with trails for walking and enjoying the scenery, playgrounds great for families, a huge and beautiful lake described as peaceful and gorgeous with swans, ducks, and geese, a wave pool with a lazy river and water slides open in summer, a concession stand, and an atmosphere described by devotees as a park hidden from the public that locals keep to themselves — a park whose combination of waterfront beauty, recreational amenity, and genuine wildness in its wooded sections has made it a multigenerational gathering place whose visitors describe it with the kind of ownership and pride that comes from a place that feels genuinely theirs. Yonkers’s dining scene is anchored along Main Street, Warburton Avenue, and the waterfront in a concentration of Italian, Latin, and American restaurants that reflects the city’s extraordinary cultural diversity and that has made the downtown waterfront restaurant cluster one of the most surprising and most rewarding dining destinations of any city its size in the entire region. Zuppa at 59 Main Street is Yonkers’s most celebrated and most storied Italian restaurant — open seven days from 11:30 AM or 5:30 PM, with over 25 years of history described as felt the moment you walk in, a burrata with pear carpaccio and honey drizzle described as delicate and refreshing, duck sausage with grilled radicchio drawing praise, a pappardelle and panna cotta described as must-tries, a drink menu so extensive it has a table of contents, valet parking in downtown Yonkers described as a huge plus, and a stunning warm and romantic elegant space described as one of the top Italian restaurants in all of Westchester — a restaurant described as a Yonkers institution of over 25 years and rightfully so, one that instantly becomes a top restaurant from a first visit. The Sea Fire Grill Westchester at 99 Main Street — on the Yonkers waterfront in the former X2O space — is the city’s most breathtakingly situated and most lavishly appointed dining destination, open Tuesday through Sunday from the afternoon and weekends from noon, with sweeping Hudson River views, valet service described as providing a QR code to summon your car at meal’s end, caviar opened tableside with mini blinis and classic accompaniments described as truly luxurious, a lobster cooked to perfection described as the best in hundreds of lifetime lobsters, a burrata served at perfect temperature with basil oil and tomato marmalade drawing equal rapture, a rack of lamb and porterhouse for two described as both cooked perfectly, truffle mashed potatoes and lobster mac and cheese described as unreal, and service described as super warm, friendly, and professional without hovering — a restaurant described as beautifully transformed into an elegant dining destination whose Hudson River views and impeccable kitchen make it worth the trip from anywhere in the metropolitan area. La Lanterna Restaurant Wine & Beer Garden at 23 Gray Oaks Avenue rounds out Yonkers’s dining picture as its most warmly family-owned and most lovingly consistent Italian neighborhood institution — open Tuesday through Sunday from the afternoon, with a spicy vodka lobster pasta described as a favorite that every dish they’ve tried has been incredible, a spicy lobster pasta and spaghetti carbonara both described as out of this world — cooked perfectly, rich without being heavy, and full of authentic flavor — meatball appetizers described as ginormous in the best way and packed with flavor, bartender Marcella and the bartenders described as making perfect drinks every time, a family-owned warmth described as making you feel like family the second you walk in, and an overall experience described as a go-to spot whose food never disappoints — a restaurant described as an all-around wonderful experience by visitors who came to celebrate special occasions and left feeling genuinely, warmly cared for from the moment they arrived.
