carnegie responded in march 1901, with a donation of $50,000, asking only that the city of yonkers provide a suitable site for the library building and that it agree to expend $5,000 annually on the building's maintenance. several sites for the new library were proposed by members of the yonkers board of aldermen, including the site in the southwest corner of washington park that was eventually selected. designed by local architects edwin a. quick & son, and constructed by the local firm of lynch and larkin, mr. carnegie's library building opened to the public on the corner of south broadway and nepperhan terrace on july 9, 1904. support for this newly built library came from ervin saunders. saunders, an executive of a machinery manufacture at saunders & sons, incorporated, bequeathed $50,000 to the yonkers public library before his death in 1909. there was a stipulation that all of the money had to be spent on the purchasing of nonfiction books.