A Touch of Paris at Nos. 7 and 9 East 20th Street

Idential doorways, one for the restaurant and one for the loft spaces, preserve the structure's symmetry.

When Christian P. F. Holtz arrived in the United States from Hamburg, Germany in the mid-19^th century, he changed his name to the more American-sounding Charles F. Holtz.  Unlike so many German immigrants in the 1850s who crowded into Little Germany on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Holtz settled across the river in Hoboken, New Jersey.

By 1859 he had opened the Park Hotel on the corner of 4^thStreet and Hudson Street, described by the Internal Revenue Service as a “4^thClass” hotel with three billiard tables.   In 1863, however, he had crossed the river to open a saloon-restaurant on Duane Street.  Trow’s New York City Directory listed Holtz in 1869 as a dealer in “Havana segars, champagnes, Bordeaux & Rhine wines.”

For a few years in the 1870s Holtz took on a partner, Henry Koennecke and the restaurant was coupled with an importing business.  The pair imported German and French wines and champagne, mineral water, “bitter water,” and canned goods.   Koennecke and Holtz parted ways in the mid 1880s and a new partner, Bruno Freystedt, joined the business.

Although the restaurant-saloon retained the name of Holtz Restaurant, the new Holtz & Freystedt partnership would be used for the retail and import business.  In 1896 the elderly Charles Holtz, now around 70 years old, either died or retired.  The company was re-incorporated as “Holtz & Freystedt Company of New-York City,” with a board of five investors.

That year a second Holtz Restaurant was opened at the corner of Broadway and Franklin Street.  The new directors aggressively expanded the business.    Six years later in 1902 they renovated the lower floors of the 6-story building on the corner of Broadway and Houston Street as their third restaurant location.  The Holtz Restaurants had developed from a single saloon downtown to classy, high end establishments that catered to businessmen and the well-to-do.  The New York Times called the newest restaurant “one of the finest in appointments in the city.”

In the cellar of the Broadway and Houston Street restaurant were stored thousands of cigars as well as the wine and alcohol.  Around 4:00 in the morning of June 12, 1904 smoke began wafting from the roof of the building.   Firemen were perplexed when no fire could be found, until they realized it was in the basement.  “When they at least discovered that it was in the subcellar, they lost no time in ripping up the glass sidewalks and demolishing the handsome stained glass domes over the basement entrance,” reported The New York Times.

And then came the rush of overpowering tobacco and alcohol fumes, so strong that “the firemen standing over the openings made in the sidewalk were toppled over like tenpins.”  The cigar smoke blinded the firemen, causing such pain to their eyes that “it was some time before they could see enough to make them available for service.”  Several fire fighters challenge faced the smoke and fumes to retrieve ice and seltzer and set up a make-shift bar on the opposite side of the street where overcome firemen were treated.  Cloths soaked in ice water were bound around their heads and they were given cold drinks of seltzer.

When the difficult blaze was finally subdued, the newest Holtz Restaurant was in ruins.

It would take a year before the restaurant could be reopened.  And shortly thereafter the directors laid plans for yet another Holtz Restaurant.   In 1907 the Fifth Avenue and Broadway area just south of 23^rd Street was a hotbed of development.  The staid mansions of a generation earlier were gone or converted to business as residents moved uptown and commercial buildings rose.  The towering 22-story Fuller Building, known popularly as the Flatiron Building, had changed the complexion of the area in 1902.  The neighborhood teemed with businessmen and hotel patrons.  It was an ideal location for the newest Holtz Restaurant.

Philip Braender owned the property at Nos. 7 and 9 East 20^thStreet on the short block between Fifth Avenue and Broadway.   He commissioned architect William C. Frohne to design a 12-story loft and store building, with the lower two floors being specifically customized for Holtz.  The German-born architect had produced handsome gathering spots the German community like the Bohemian National Hall and the 1889 Schuetzen Hall.  But for this building he would turn to France for inspiration.

The nine-story central arch stressed the building's height at the dawn of the age of skyscrapers.

Completed late in 1907 the brick and stone structure was embellished with Beaux Arts carvings of garlands, wreaths, lions’ heads and scrolls.   A central, nine-story arch flanked by single openings emphasized the soaring verticality of the skyscraper.   An imperious goddess head looked down on the passersby from below a sturdy cornice.

Banded fasces rise to the haughty goddess.  Carved shells terminate the long columns of single windows along the building's sides.

But the Holtz Restaurant space would grab the spotlight.  Frohne lavished the two-story space with expanses of glass and at the second floor created a full wall of French windows.   Above, a decorative medallion announced “HOLTZ, flanked by a pair of odd creatures—part griffin, part cornucopia.  It was Paris on 20^thStreet.

The new Holtz Restaurant opened on March 12, 1908 as commercial tenants filled the upper stories.   A. G. Thienel, manufacturer of ostrich feathers, moved in that year as did the Daisy Costume Manufacturing Co.    Before long Staheli, Reitmann & Co. would take the 5^th, 6^thand 8^th floors for their lace curtain factory.   Barnard Rapp tried to make a go of his cloak and suit company, but it did not work.

An advertisement in The Sun on March 12, 1908 promised the same standard of "cuisine and management" (copyright expired)

The apparel maker began business on July 15, 1912 as a partner in Rapp & Meyer.   The partnership dissolved only four months later and Rapp continued on alone.  A year later, on August 6, 1913, he was forced to file bankruptcy.  That same year the Holtz Restaurant closed for business.

Lions holding clusters of fruits, garlands and ribbons, and carved scrolls embellish the entrances.

Philip Braender died in 1917, leaving an estate of just over $1 million.  On January 7, 1920 Meister Builders purchased the building from his estate, quickly flipping the property eight days later.  In the meantime, the building continued to attract apparel-related firms.  In 1921 the 8^th floor was home to Babash, Kailo & Udoff, and Mendelsohn Brothers took the 2^ndfloor.  The following year the Belgian Waist and Dress Company took over the 5^th floor.

Perhaps its side street location protected the structure from the brutal street level modernization that so many buildings in the neighborhood suffered during the mid- to late 20^th century; yet Frohe’s handsome designs for the Holtz Restaurant, including the cast panel above the French windows, survive.

In 1987 the upper floors were renovated to apartments, with the exception of the 10^th which became a “studio,” according to Building Department records.  Here the Castillo Theatre operated throughout the 1980s.    Now called the Holtz House, the space where cloaks, suits, dresses and lace curtains were manufactured is now 14 residences.    And where diners once savored French cuisine and champagne, a kitchen and bath showroom displays bathtubs and faucets.

photographs taken by the author.

The 1889 Schuetzen Hall -- 12 St. Mark's Place

The imposing terra cotta panel survives beneath a graffiti-slathered mansard -- photo by Schreibkraft

In the last half of the 19th Century, over a million and a half German immigrants poured into the Lower East Side neighborhood creating what came to be called “Kleindeutchland” or “Little Germany.”  The Bowery was lined with music halls and beer gardens where the locals could relax.

In 1889 another gathering place appeared – the Deutsch-Amerikanische Schuetzen Gesellschaft, or the German-American Shooting Society at No. 12 St. Mark's Place.

The Hall as it appeared in 1893 - King's Handbook of New York (copyright expired)

More commonly referred to as Schuetzen Hall, it was designed by William C. Frohne for a conglomeration of two dozen shooting clubs. The Society’s main thrust was a yearly shooting contest, held normally in Queens or on Long Island, and the hall was used as a place for meetings and conviviality.

Frohne lived in the neighborhood at the time and the Hall was one of his first major commissions. He reflected the Society’s native roots by designing the building in an enthusiastic German Renaissance style. The architect lavished the limestone and brick façade with terra cotta ornamentation; the most pronounced being the enormous cast panel of the fourth floor depicting crossed rifles behind a target. Four flags, a spread-eagle and the motto in German “Unity Makes Strong” completed the elaborate panel. Above, a nearly-vertical slate-tiled mansard featured a severely angled mansard cap between two dormers.

photo by Alice Lum

Separating the second and third floors was a wide frieze announcing the name of the Society and between the third and fourth were decorative terra cotta panels of swags and a female face.

photo by Alice Lum

In the basement were a shooting gallery and a bowling alley. The street level housed a saloon, a large meeting room and a restaurant. The rest of the building was reserved for lodge rooms and an apartment for the caretaker on the fourth floor.

The lodge rooms were rented to a variety of union groups over the decades – the International Molders and Foundry Workers’ Union, The National Federation of Post Office Clerks, the Building Trades Council, and the Gas Workers Union among them.


Carved faces flank the date when construction commenced -- photo by Alice Lum

On the evening after Christmas in 1888 the hall was formally dedicated. The New York Times reported that “The entire building was handsomely draped and festooned with the national colors of Germany and America and with fancy banners.”

The annual shooting contest – called the Schuetzenfest – attracted competing clubs from around the country. The Society along boasted over 1400 members and the scope of the event was staggering. In 1891 as planning got underway, The Times noted that “The complete arrangements for the contest will involve an outlay of nearly $150,000. Fifty rifle ranges will be constructed and immense dancing, reception, and refreshment halls will be erected.”

Not all of the 24 shooting clubs were solely German. Among them were the Christopher Columbus Company, The Grenadier Company No. 11, the Washington Rifles of New Jersey and the Gotham Revolver Club.

With its strong ties to labor unions as well as shooting clubs, the Hall was the site of a reception and dance in December 1909 for the benefit of girl shirtwaist strikers who were arrested and sent to the workhouse for picketing.

On Wednesday, Jun 15, 1904 Little Germany experienced its most devastating tragedy when 1,031 women and children were drowned or burned to death in the fiery sinking of the paddle steamer, the General Slocum. The group, organized by St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, was on a pleasure excursion for the day.

Three months later a group of 300 survivors and bereaved met at Schuetzen Hall to demand the punishment of the negligent ship owners and the Federal Inspectors who “willfully and dastardly permitted this unfit vessel to be in commission.”

Charles Dersch announced “While most of us are of German birth or descent, we are here to demand our rights as American citizens.”

The fight for those rights would go on for years.

The group was back at the Hall in August 1911 protesting the release of the boat’s Captain, William Van Schaick and again on December 21, 1912 when President Taft restored the captain’s citizenship.

The Slocum disaster eventually led to the end of Little Germany. The devastated community never really recovered and slowly the community dissolved as residents moved away. In 1920 the Society sold its headquarters to Anna M. Brindell.

In the late 1920s it became a homeless shelter called The Tub, run by Urbain Ledoux.  Ledoux, known to the men he helped as “Mr. Zero,” accommodated 135 homeless men on steamer chairs and advertised “auctions” of the men’s services in order to find them temporary work.

As the Great Depression hit New York, desperate men flocked to The Tub for a free meal and hopes of employment. On New Year’s Day 1929, over two thousand homeless men ate dinner here. The line outside was unbroken from early morning through the afternoon.

The financial burden of maintaining the facility became too much for Ledoux, however, and by the end of the year he owed Anna Brindell $7,345 in rent and was dispossessed.  She sold the building the following year.

In 1943, until 1962, it became the home of the Polish community group called the St. Mark’s Community Center. As the ethnic makeup of the neighborhood changed, it was the Ukrainian Culture Center during the 1960s, and became the original site of the St. Mark’s Bookshop. Today the ground floor is home to a restaurant. 

The vibrant neighborhood has greatly changed since the days when German was the dominant language. Yet scattered throughout there are reminders of Little Germany like William Frohne’s remarkable Schuetzen Hall. It survives in a state of remarkable preservation and was designated a New York City landmark in 2001.

The Bohemian National Hall -- Nos. 321-325 East 73rd Street

photo by Alice Lum

Czech and Slovak immigrants first settled in the Lower East Side of Manhattan and by the 1870s were firmly established as a community around Tompkins Square.    With them they brought the vocations they had learned at home; but most, by far, were familiar with cigar making.

Even those new residents who sought other types of work often ended up in the tobacco trade and many of the women and children made cigars in their homes as piecework.

By the 1880s the Yorkville area was attracting German, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak and other immigrants.  Conditions in the Lower East Side were increasingly crowded.  For the Czechs and Slovaks, the northern area not only offered better housing, it was nearer to the cigar factories.

The tradition of social clubs for the various ethnic groups was well established in the Lower East Side and the Czechs and Slovaks had theirs:  the National Hall on East 5^th Street.  Here socializing, political rallies, sports club meetings, and other functions were held.

As the population shifted to Yorkville, another hall was necessary.

More than fifty organizations pooled money to erect a new, impressive structure.  Fundraising efforts began in 1892, including a concert led by Antonin Dvorak that same year.  Construction would begin three years later.  Architect William C. Frohne produced a dazzling Renaissance Revival style hall of beige Roman brick, terra cotta and stone.  An impressive porch supported by paired granite columns vied for attention with a series of two-story arches, also supported by paired columns, below the cornice.

photo by Alice Lum

The Narodni Budova, or National Hall, was opened in 1896; but Frohne was called back the following year to enlarge it, extending the building 25 feet eastward.  The resulting structure, costing over $200,000, included a restaurant, bar, shooting range, bowling alley, various club rooms and, most popular of all, the ballroom-theater.

photo bohemiannationalhall.com

The ballroom was designed to hold up to 800 guests and saw weddings and receptions, theater productions and dances.  It was here on December 19, 1901 that famed violinist Jan Kubelik brought his audience to tears when he played the Bohemian National Anthem on his Stradivarius.

The New York Times reported that “The Bohemian told to the Bohemians in simple notes the story of the Fatherland, so that at the end of his brief performance there were few dry eyes among his naturalized compatriots, and then there was a burst of hand clapping, not hysterical, but hearty and American.”

The wide-ranging activities of the Hall were highlighted by the New York Tribune on March 15, 1908 when it pointed out that the building “contains a restaurant, a café, a gymnasium, several lodge rooms, a room for the use of labor organizations, a room for singing societies, two school rooms where children assemble at 4 o’clock every day to learn to read, write and speak the Bohemian language, a library of books in English for children and another library for adults of about two thousand volumes in English and Bohemian pertaining to the history of Bohemia and kindred subjects; quarters for a trade school, a room for weddings and the use of the Bohemian Literary Association, an auditorium and a stage with scenery which is used for large assemblages, rifle ranges and bowling alleys.”

photo by Alice Lum

A member of each of the clubs and societies that contributed to the construction of the Hall was included in the Board of Directors to manage it.  By the time the Tribune published its account of the National Hall there were approximately 30,000 Bohemians living between 65^th and 67^th Streets, from Second Avenue to the East River.    The hard-working immigrants had bought up real estate, so that in 1908 The New York Times reported that "three-quarters of the houses in which they live belong to men of their own race.”

While the women still worked mainly in the cigar factories, the men had finally been able to diversify.   The East 67^th Street Police Station had several Bohemian policemen and the 67^th Street Post Office employed several Bohemian letter carriers and clerks.

The Times marveled at the close-knit Yorkville community around National Hall.  “It is really almost unnecessary for a Bohemian living in this part of New York ever to have dealings with an ordinary American,” the newspaper said on January 9, 1908.  “There are Bohemian doctors and Bohemian lawyers, Bohemian landlords who will take in no one but a native Bohemian.  The stores are Bohemian, and there are plenty of restaurants where Bohemian cooking and Bohemian wines may be obtained.  Finally, when one of the colony dies he will find a compatriot in business as an undertaker, ready to take him to the Bohemian church for the funeral service.”

The financial success of the ballroom/theater was evident on November 29, 1921 when a gang of four robbers broke into the building and bound and gagged the 60 year-old watchman, Antone Skrevanek.  The thieves made off with $2000 in cash and $1000 in Liberty bonds.

With the advent of World War I the Bohemian National Hall became a focal point for nationalist meetings.   Here ninety representative Slovaks met as a Congress of the Slovak League of America in 1918.  Their purpose was twofold:  to help America and its allies win the war in Europe, and to establish an independent homeland, free from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

photo by Alice Lum

The building continued as the central point of the Czech and Slavic community until mid-century.  Then, after World War II and like many other ethnic neighborhoods, the sense of community dissipated as younger generations moved on and the older residents died off.  With fewer groups using the space, funds for maintenance were scarce.

For the first time in its history the Bohemian National Hall was leased out to outside groups, including the Manhattan Theatre Club.  Among one of the young stars to appear here was Liza Minelli.

As the Hall became shabbier, the Manhattan Theatre club offered to purchase it.  Negotiations faltered, however, ending in a lawsuit that dragged on for several years.  In the meantime, the Czechs sought other organizations who might lease the building; however infighting among the various managing organizations prevented any headway.

While the lawsuit went on and the Czechs fought among themselves, the once-proud Bohemian National Hall deteriorated.  Finally, in 1986 the Department of Buildings declared it unfit for occupancy.  It seemed to be the end of the road for the noble structure.

As it stood dark and neglected in 1994.  The New York Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the Hall a city landmark that year saying “Today, though vacant…it stands as a reminder of the once vibrant ethnic communities of Yorkville, and a monument of the immigrant experience that has characterized such a large part of the history of New York and the United States.”

Liza Minelli came to look at the old theater where she had performed years ago.   She asked to see her former dressing room and, when she saw the condition of the building, she broke into tears.

It was the Czech Republic who stepped in to save the building.  On December 7, 2001 it purchased the Hall for $1.00, taking over the responsibilities of restoration and maintenance.  The Republic gave one floor to the Czech groups for their use and began plans to use the rest for governmental purposes.

The condition of the building was so degraded that little could be saved.  $10 million was budgeted for the restoration and renovation to designs by Czech-American architect Martin Holub.  A Czech firm, PSJ Holding, and an American contractor, Vanguard Construction, worked jointly in the project.  Jan Hird Pokorny prepared the plans for the exterior restoration.

Holub lavished his attention on the ballroom/theater.  The heart of the old Bohemian National Hall, this was the one room that demanded restoration.   The painted stage curtain was reproduced, only real plaster moldings were used, and hand painted woodwork, travertine and hardwood floorings were all imported from the Czech Republic.

Having sat empty for four decades, the renovated Bohemian National Hall was reopened in October 2008.  By now the cost had escalated to $45 million.  The dazzling space not only houses the offices of the Czech Consulate General and the Czech Center, it now includes a 70-seat theater, library, and an upscale restaurant and lounge.  The Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association shares space in the building as well.

After decades of neglect, the grand building glows with life again. -- photo by Alice Lum

Plucked from the edge of certain destruction, the grand Renaissance Revival hall survives as a living reminder of New York’s rich ethnic heritage.