‘YONY Initiative’ Sees Rivertowns as Creative Business Hub

YONY Initiative, Inc., a newly formed nonprofit local development corporation based in downtown Yonkers, has identified upcoming businesses in Dobbs Ferry and Irvington as evidence that “creative businesses are attracted to the Hudson River and our historic downtowns.”

The new organization is launching a monthly networking event and speakers series targeted to tech and creative professionals Westchester’s river communities, dubbed “YONY Rivertowns Creative Meetup.” The first meeting will take place on Thursday, Dec. 12 at 6:30 p.m. in the Yonkers Riverfront Library, and is being co-hosted by the City of Yonkers and Sarah Lawrence College.

The launch party reception will be followed by a talk with the noted business strategist Tony Schwartz, who has consulted for numerous tech and creative firms, including Apple, Google, IBM and SONY Pictures on how to maximize the creative energy of their employees. He also writes the weekly Life@Work column for The New York Times DealBook, blogs for the Huffington Post and Harvard Business Review, and is a best selling author. His firm, The Energy Project, Inc., is located in downtown Yonkers in the former Herald Statesman Building.

 “YONY recognizes that Yonkers is part of a creative business corridor that is emerging along the Hudson River in Westchester County,” YONY founder Peter Boodell said. 

“When you look at the growing number of tech, biotech and creative companies moving into iPark Hudson in downtown Yonkers, in concert with the creative businesses at 145 Palisade Avenue in Dobbs Ferry and the Burnham buildings in Irvington, these are important cues that creative businesses are attracted to the Hudson River and our historic downtowns,” Boodell added.

YONY Initiative was formed, in part, to leverage the arrival of Mindspark, an InterActiveCorp (IAC) company, that recently relocated its headquarters and 145 employees from downtown White Plains into an $8 million build-out in iPark Hudson -- the former Otis Elevator factory complex in downtown Yonkers.

“We can have a new ‘working waterfront,’ no longer industrial, but rather centered on the new economy of knowledge-based creative businesses," Boodell said. "It is the goal of this monthly event to bring people together to accelerate this trend.”

YONY is encouraging people who are interested in technology and other creative businesses, as well as the arts, urban planning and sustainable development, to join and RSVP to the Creative Meetup at www.meetup.com/yony-rivertowns-creative-meetup.