Yonkers, N.Y. [Alexander Smith & Co.]

This factory scene documents a long gone industrial hub at Palisade Avenue and Elm Street in Yonkers, New York. In the distance, from left to right, a silk factory, carpet factory and hat factory seem peacefully settled in the landscape; but the noise of their machinery would have been deafening at close range and the pond is man-made, created by a dam on the Saw Mill River. The watercolor is unsigned, but at the time its vantage point would have been near the house of painter George McCord.
McCord is also represented in the Hudson River Museum's collection by a painting of the Palisades (Hudson River View, circa 1870, accession #43.62).