Yonkers

The Philipsburgh Building, also known as Philipsburgh Hall, is an architectural landmark building of downtown Yonkers, New York. The grand,... Beaux-Arts style structure was designed by G. Howard Chamberlain and built in 1904. For years, the enormous grand ballroom within, with its 30-foot ceilings and extensive gold leaf decor, was a fixture of the social scene in Yonkers, playing host to all manner of meetings, parties and theatrical productions. In the latter half of the twentieth century, the building and the neighborhood around it fell into physical and economic disrepair. By the 1980s, most of the building had been converted to low-rent apartments, while parts of it were left entirely unoccupied. In the 1990s, the building benefited from a renewed interest in local development, and was heavily renovated and restored. The grand ballroom, now called the "Roosevelt Ballroom," once again found its place as a focal point of local culture. The building was restored and renamed the Philipsburgh Performing Arts Center in 2001. The PPAC concept was short-lived, however, and by early 2005 it had ceased to be.
more

Linda Susan Boreman , better known by her stage name Linda Lovelace, was an American pornographic actress who was famous for her performance of deep... throat fellatio in the enormously successful 1972 hardcore porn film Deep Throat. She later denounced her pornography career, claiming that she had been forced into it by her first husband, and for a while became a spokeswoman for the anti-pornography movement, though she would subsequently accuse Andrea Dworkin and Kitty MacKinnon of financial exploitation. Boreman was born in Bronx, New York. She was born into an unhappy working class family, the daughter of John and Dorothy Boreman. Her mother was a harsh, domineering disciplinarian and her father, a policeman, was seldom around. She attended private Catholic schools including Saint John the Baptist and Maria Regina High School . She was nicknamed "Miss Holy Holy" in high school because she kept her dates at a safe distance. When Boreman was 16, her family moved to Florida after her father retired from the New York City police force.
more

Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song," "Queen of Jazz," and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist. With a vocal... range spanning three octaves , she was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing and intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing. She was a notable interpreter of the Great American Songbook. Over the course of her 59-year recording career, she was the winner of 13 Grammy Awards and was awarded the National Medal of Arts by Ronald Reagan and the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George H. W. Bush. Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia, the child of a common-law marriage between William and Temperance "Tempie" Fitzgerald. The pair separated soon after her birth and she and her mother went to Yonkers, New York, where they eventually moved in with Tempie's longtime boyfriend, Joseph Da Silva. Fitzgerald's half-sister, Frances Da Silva, was born in 1923.
more

Isaac Sidney "Sid" Caesar is an Emmy award winning American comic actor and writer known for the 1950s television series Your Show of Shows and... Caesar's Hour, and to younger generations as Coach Calhoun in Grease and Grease 2. Caesar was born in Yonkers, New York, youngest son of Max Caesar and his wife Ida , Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire who ran a restaurant. Caesar would wait on tables and learned to mimic the accents, something he would use throughout his career. He first tried his double-talk with a group of Italians, his head barely reaching above the table. They enjoyed it so much that they sent him over to a group of Poles to repeat it in Polish, and so on with Russians, Hungarians, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Lithuanians and Bulgarians. Despite his apparent fluency in many languages, Caesar can actually speak only English and Yiddish. Sid's older brother David was his comic mentor and "one-man cheering section." They created their earliest family sketches from then current movies like Test Pilot and Wings.
more

James Riley Blake is an American professional tennis player. Blake is known for his speed and powerful, flat forehand. As of April 2012, Blake is... ranked World No. 74 among active male players with 24 career finals appearances , whilst his career-high singles ranking is World No. 4. His career highlights include reaching the final of the 2006 Tennis Masters Cup, the semifinals of the Beijing Olympics and the quarterfinals of the Australian Open and US Open . His two titles for the United States at the Hopman Cup are an event record. Blake was a key performer for the United States 2007 Davis Cup championship team, going 2–0 in the championship tie vs. Russia at second singles. In 2005, Blake was presented with the Comeback Player of the Year award for his remarkable return to the tour. Later, in 2008, Blake was awarded another honor by the ATP where he was named the Arthur Ashe Humanitarian of the Year. On July 3, 2007, Blake's autobiography Breaking Back: How I Lost Everything and Won Back My Life, which discussed his comeback after his unlucky 2004 season, was released and debuted at No.
more

Thomas James "Tom" Laughlin is an American professional wrestler better known by his ring name Tommy Dreamer. He is currently working for various... promotions on the independent circuit. He is best known for his time spent with Extreme Championship Wrestling and World Wrestling Entertainment . After leaving WWE after a nine year stint in 2010, Dreamer worked a year for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling . Among other accolades, he is a fourteen-time WWF/E Hardcore Champion and a two-time world champion, having won the ECW World Championship twice, and is the only man to have won this title in both the original company and in the WWE relaunch. In addition to his most recent role, Dreamer is known for the time he spent in the Philadelphia-based Extreme Championship Wrestling promotion, of which he has been called the "heart and soul".
more

Paul John Teutul is one of the co-founders of Orange County Choppers, a manufacturer of custom motorcycles and focus of the reality television... series American Chopper. Teutul first appeared on the show with his sons Paul Teutul, Jr. and Michael Teutul. Teutul grew up in Pearl River, New York. In a few episodes of American Chopper, Teutul has alluded to past abuse of drugs and alcohol. He has stated that he was a frequent cocaine user and, according to him, "had basically done any drug around". During an episode in which his son Mikey interviewed OCC's staff for the Web site, he asked his father, "What is your best memory?" to which Teutul responded, "Gettin' sober." Additionally, he has mentioned having "missed out" on most of his children's childhood and also stated he wishes to make up for it with his grandchildren. In the book written by the Teutuls called The Tale of the Teutuls, Teutul reveals that he didn't know his middle name until his mid thirties, and he finds out that he is in fact a legal junior, having the same name as his father, but by then the nickname "senior" had already stuck.
more

Isaac Sidney "Sid" Caesar is an Emmy award winning American comic actor and writer known for the 1950s television series Your Show of Shows and... Caesar's Hour, and to younger generations as Coach Calhoun in Grease and Grease 2. Caesar was born in Yonkers, New York, youngest son of Max Caesar and his wife Ida , Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire who ran a restaurant. Caesar would wait on tables and learned to mimic the accents, something he would use throughout his career. He first tried his double-talk with a group of Italians, his head barely reaching above the table. They enjoyed it so much that they sent him over to a group of Poles to repeat it in Polish, and so on with Russians, Hungarians, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Lithuanians and Bulgarians. Despite his apparent fluency in many languages, Caesar can actually speak only English and Yiddish. Sid's older brother David was his comic mentor and "one-man cheering section." They created their earliest family sketches from then current movies like Test Pilot and Wings.
more

James Riley Blake is an American professional tennis player. Blake is known for his speed and powerful, flat forehand. As of April 2012, Blake is... ranked World No. 74 among active male players with 24 career finals appearances , whilst his career-high singles ranking is World No. 4. His career highlights include reaching the final of the 2006 Tennis Masters Cup, the semifinals of the Beijing Olympics and the quarterfinals of the Australian Open and US Open . His two titles for the United States at the Hopman Cup are an event record. Blake was a key performer for the United States 2007 Davis Cup championship team, going 2–0 in the championship tie vs. Russia at second singles. In 2005, Blake was presented with the Comeback Player of the Year award for his remarkable return to the tour. Later, in 2008, Blake was awarded another honor by the ATP where he was named the Arthur Ashe Humanitarian of the Year. On July 3, 2007, Blake's autobiography Breaking Back: How I Lost Everything and Won Back My Life, which discussed his comeback after his unlucky 2004 season, was released and debuted at No.
more

Thomas James "Tom" Laughlin is an American professional wrestler better known by his ring name Tommy Dreamer. He is currently working for various... promotions on the independent circuit. He is best known for his time spent with Extreme Championship Wrestling and World Wrestling Entertainment . After leaving WWE after a nine year stint in 2010, Dreamer worked a year for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling . Among other accolades, he is a fourteen-time WWF/E Hardcore Champion and a two-time world champion, having won the ECW World Championship twice, and is the only man to have won this title in both the original company and in the WWE relaunch. In addition to his most recent role, Dreamer is known for the time he spent in the Philadelphia-based Extreme Championship Wrestling promotion, of which he has been called the "heart and soul".
more

Gary LeRoi Gray is an American actor and voice actor involved with movies, television, and animation. He is most recognized for his childhood role... as Nelson Tibideaux, the son of Sondra Huxtable Tibideaux and Elvin Tibideaux on the NBC sitcom The Cosby Show. He appeared on the series during its eighth and final season . Some of Gray's better known voice roles include Charley on Clifford the Big Red Dog, A. J. on The Fairly OddParents , Sam on Rocket Power, Mitch in Whatever Happened to Robot Jones?, and Bobby the Inquisitive Boy on The Weird Al Show. Recurring live-action roles have included Nelson Tibideaux on The Cosby Show and Nelson Minkler on Even Stevens. He also played Tyson, a male cheerleader, in the 2006 teen comedy Bring It On: All or Nothing and had a small role as little Carlton Banks on the television show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Gray also appeared as "Little G" in an episode of the TV show Family Matters.
more

Carlos Jaime Alazraqui is an American actor, comedian, impressionist, voice actor and singer. He is best known for his role as Deputy James Garcia... on the Comedy Central series Reno 911!. His voice-over work includes the role of Bobbi Fabulous on Phineas and Ferb, the Taco Bell chihuahua, Denzel Q. Crocker and Juandissimo Magnifico on The Fairly OddParents!, Rocko on Rocko's Modern Life, Lazlo in Camp Lazlo, and as Jonathan Weed on Family Guy. In 1994, he auditioned in Nintendo of America for the voice of widely popular video game star Mario but was beaten by Charles Martinet. Alazraqui was born in Yonkers, New York, to Argentine parents and moved to Concord, California, at an early age. Eventually, he moved to Sacramento to attend college at CSUS, where he began competing in open mic contests. After winning in his fourth year of competing at the San Francisco International Comedy Competition, he took his prize money and moved to Los Angeles. Alazraqui has since performed several voices for Nickelodeon cartoons, including Rocko on Rocko's Modern Life, as well as Denzel Q. Crocker and Juandissimo Magnifico on The Fairly OddParents, Winslow T.
more

Adam Michael Rodríguez is an American actor and director. He is best known for his long running role as Eric Delko on CSI: Miami.... Rodríguez was born in Yonkers, New York, the son of Janet, an airline ticket agent, and Ramon Rodríguez, an executive with the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. He is of one quarter Cuban and three quarters Puerto Rican descent. He attended Clarkstown High School North in New City, New York along with NFL player Keith Bulluck of the New York Giants, where he graduated with the class of 1993. Rodriguez had initially hoped to be a professional baseball player, but after a high school injury, he turned his attention to acting and performed in a children's theater in New York. Prior to full-time acting, he was a stockbroker. He has appeared in commercials, including one for Coca-Cola. His first film appearance was as an extra in The X-Files. He later appeared on Brooklyn South, Law & Order, Felicity, Roswell and NYPD Blue.
more