Max Yavelow

Max Yavelow

Max Yavelow, a Russian immigrant came to Mount Vernon in the 1890s as a peddler selling goods to the army of workers working on lowering the New York-New Haven Railroad tracks. It was not long before he moved to Mount Vernon. By walking to and from work and doing without food, Max scraped together $50 with which he opened a clothing store on Fourth Avenue. By the end of World War I his original investment had grown into a $50,000 business on Gramatan Avenue. By 1925 Yavelow’s had become so successful that it moved to the heart of the commercial district at 128 South Fourth Avenue. In 1942, Max died at his Bedford Avenue home. In 1948 after 59 years of business, Max Yavelow and Sons closed its door with the retirement of his two sons. The photograph was the signage on the building. It was taken down when the building was sold. The hinges for the sign can still be seen on the building we now know as the Association of Community-Based Artists of Westchester (AC-BAW Center for the Arts).