Essential English phrases

Downtown Yonkers — the civic and commercial centre at the mouth of the Saw Mill River, where City Hall, the courts, the library and the bus hub all sit. Not the waterfront; the waterfront is three minutes downhill and a different world.

A regulated apartment with capped increases and a guaranteed lease renewal. People assume this is a New York City thing; Westchester is an ETPA county and Yonkers has a great deal of stabilised stock in pre-1974 buildings of six units or more.

The southern, dense, urban end of Westchester — Yonkers, Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, White Plains. 'Up county' is the leafier north beyond White Plains. Estate agents and locals both use the split constantly.

The Old Croton Aqueduct trail, a flat 41-mile path on top of the 1842 water tunnel that runs the length of Yonkers and on to Croton. It is the city's best free amenity and most newcomers walk past its entrance for a year.

The dense, steeply pitched neighbourhood above Getty Square — the most affordable central address in the city and the one where the hill is a genuine daily consideration, not a detail.

Westchester County's bus network, which is how most of Yonkers gets around locally. The county runs it, not the city and not the MTA — though it takes OMNY and transfers free to the NYC subway.

Metro-North's line down the east bank of the Hudson into Grand Central. Yonkers has four stops on it — Greystone, Glenwood, Yonkers and Ludlow — and which one you live near is the single biggest factor in a Yonkers commute.

The Saw Mill River Parkway, the north–south spine of western Westchester. Also the river it follows, which Yonkers uncovered through Getty Square after ninety years under concrete.

Not a synonym for highway. A New York parkway bans commercial vehicles outright and has stone bridges as low as 6'11" — which is why moving trucks get wedged under them every single month. Route your van on the Thruway or the Deegan instead.

The city income tax surcharge — 16.75% of whatever you owe New York State — and the 0.5% earnings tax non-residents pay on wages earned in Yonkers. Nowhere else in New York State except New York City has anything like it.

A long sandwich. Not a sub, not a hoagie, not a grinder — downstate New York says hero, and Yonkers's Italian delis are where you will be ordering one.

911 for emergencies. 988 is the national Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Yonkers has no 311 line — city services go through City Hall on 914-377-6000 or the Problem Solver form on the city website.