Site Content

 In 1894, the voters of Mount Vernon (and nearby Yonkers) voted, along with the voters of Kings County (present day Brooklyn), Queens County, and Richmond County (present day Staten Island), in a referendum on whether or not they wanted to become part of a "Greater New York City". While the results were positive elsewhere, the returns were so negative in Mount Vernon and Yonkers that those two areas were not included in the consolidated city and remained independent.

Like neighboring Wakefield (in the Bronx), which was named after the plantation where George Washington resided for much of his life, Mount Vernon was named after the eponymous Virginia plantation where Washington spent his final years.[5]

The Mount Vernon Public Library, a gift to the city from Andrew Carnegie, opened in 1904 and is now part of the Westchester Library System, providing educational, cultural and computer services to county residents of all ages.

During the 1960s, Mount Vernon was a divided city on the brink of a "northern style" segregation. Many blacks from the southern United Statesmigrated north and settled in the city of Mount Vernon for better job opportunities and educational advancements. At the same time, many white Americans from the Bronx and Manhattan looked to Mount Vernon as a new "bedroom community" due to rising crime in New York City (a "white flight" factor entailed as well). As a result, Mount Vernon became divided in two by the New Haven Line railroad tracks of the Metro-North Railroad: North Side and South Side. The population south of the tracks became predominantly black, while that north of the tracks was largely white.

At the height of this segregation in the 1970s, August Petrillo was mayor. When he died, Thomas E. Sharpe was elected mayor. Upon Sharpe's death in 1984, Carmella Iaboni took office as "acting mayor" until Ronald Blackwood was elected; Blackwood was the first Afro-Caribbean mayor of the city (as well as of any city in New York State). In 1996, Ernest D. Davis was elected the mayor of Mount Vernon; he served until 2007. Clinton I. Young, Jr. became the city's mayor on January 1, 2008. Four years later, on January 1, 2012, Ernest D. Davis became the 21st mayor of Mount Vernon. In 2013, Davis was investigated for failure to report rental income.[7] In 2015, Richard Thomas ran against Davis (and several other opponents) and defeated him in an upset victory during the September primary. Thomas had to run again in the November general election, where he received 71% of the votes to become the next Mayor of Mount Vernon.[8][9]

Mount Vernon has in recent years undergone a transition from a city of homes and small businesses to a city of regional commerce. Between 2000 and 2006, the city of Mount Vernon's economy grew 20.5%, making it one of the fastest-growing cities in the New York metropolitan area