Shopping for History

The historic shops at 97 Orchard Street were busy places, crammed full of people and goods. To recreate these environments for our "Shop Life" exhibit, we've done a bit of shopping ourselves, collecting historic objects to help us tell stories from dating all the way back to the 1860's.

Kathleen O'Hara, Collections Manager and Registrar, recently revealed some of these objects. Here are some of the highlights:

Iroquois war club, Schnieder's Saloon

We know that, in the late 19th century, 97 Orchard Street resident and shopkeeper John Schneider was a member of the Improved Order of Red Men, a fraternal organization that modeled many of its practices after Native American customs. The Red Men were known to dress in feathered headdresses, apply paint to their faces and collect artifacts associated with Native American culture.  While Native Americans would have used this type of club as a weapon, for members of the Order of Red Men like John Schneider, this would have been a souvenir and symbol of the fraternity.

Beer barrel, Schieder's Saloon

What would a German saloon be without a beer barrel? Nineteenth century German saloons were family-friendly gathering places on the Lower East Side.  While beer may have been the main attraction for parents of both sexes, whole families gathered in saloons like the one at 97 Orchard Street to enjoy home cooked meals and a lively atmosphere after a long day.

Sash and bundle of sticks, Schnieder's saloon

These objects are part of the regalia associated with the Oddfellows, another fraternal organization that congregated in the back rooms of saloons on the Lower East Side. The sash is made of velvet with intricate beaded designs. The bundle of sticks is a symbol which can be traced to ancient Roman concepts of strength and unity.

Trading Cards

These trading cards from 1934 were manufactured by the Schutter Johnson Candy-Corp. Collectors of all 25 designs could trade the cards in for various prizes such as a baseball mitt, a wristwatch, or roller skates. Cards depicting a detective, a policeman, a jockey, a hunter, a sailor, and an athlete are included in the Tenement Museum’s collections.

 

Microphone, Max Marcus' Auction House

A microphone like the one above would have been used by auction-house owners like 97 Orchard Street’s Max Marcus.  The microphone, when plugged into a radio, would broadcast the auctioneer’s voice throughout the room. In this image of Marcus' crowded auction house from 1933, we can imagine that it might have been hard to hear Max’s voice even with the microphone!

Undergarments, Sidney's Undergarments

In the 1970s, the Meda family started their own business in the basement of 97 Orchard Street selling ladies undergarments, called Sidney Undergarments Co. These colorful underwear were given to the Museum by the Medas themselves.  While these objects will not be on display for Shop Life, they give the curatorial team insight into the styles and prints that were popular at the time.

    

This is just a fraction of the cool items we have as part of our "Shop Life" collection. We'll keep you posted as we get closer to the exhibit's opening on October 1! 

-- Posted by Ana Colon

A Behind the Scenes Look at Caroline Schneider's Kitchen

Do you recognize these treats?

They're traditional German cookies called "lebkuchen", and despite their humble appearance, they pack a serious punch of spicy sweetness.

Lebkuchen recipes are pretty involved, calling for a long list of ingredients include candied citron, almonds, cinnamon, and kirsch (cherry liqueur) among many other things. They would have been served by Caroline Schneider, who ran a 19th century German beer saloon at 97 Orchard Street with her husband John. Caroline managed all the cooking for the saloon, playing an important role in keeping the customers happy and the business competitive. We'll be exploring the history of Schneider's saloon as part of our upcoming "Shop Life" exhibit.

Check out the video below for more information and an invitation to our upcoming Tenement Talk on April third with Vice President of Education Annie Polland and Museum Educator and Historic Gastronomist Sarah Lohman. Annie and Sarah will give us a fascinating (and delicious) first look at Caroline's kitchen!

-- Posted by Public Relations Manager Kira Garcia

Guess the Artifact: Shop Life Edition

As you might have heard, Museum staff are hard at work developing a new exhibit for the storefront at 97 Orchard Street, "Shop Life." We've already shown you some of the artifacts that we'll use to interpret these immigrant stories, but as we get closer to the opening of "Shop Life," we thought we would give you a peek at some of the other fascinating objects that we're gathering.

So, can you guess what this intriguing object is?

17 cm high and 9 cm in diameter, this mystery artifact is stamped metal, possibly brass, with nails placed in a circular pattern, four at the top and eight on the body. 

What could it be? (Hint: this object will be used to help interpret John Schneider's Saloon). Leave your guesses in the comment section and check back on Monday for the mystery reveal! 

Questions for Curatorial: Basement Businesses

Curatorial Director Dave answers your questions.

Did another business occupy the basement storefront adjacent to Schneider’s saloon during the late 1860s and 1870s?

According to the 1873 New York City Business Directory, 97 Orchard Street resident Heinrich Dreyer operated a real estate office with his partner, Christian Stark, in the building’s basement storefront.

A longtime real estate agent in Kleindeutschland, or Little Germany, Hanover-born Heinrich Dreyer frequently listed commercial properties for sale in German-language newspapers such as the New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung.

By 1873, Dreyer appears to have partnered with Wurttemberg-born Christian Stark. Available records indicate that in 1873, 28-year-old Stark lived with his mother, brother, and two sisters at 45 Forsyth Street.

Interestingly, the 1870 US Census indicates that Stark had previously owned a local liquor store. How did he get into the real estate business? Evidence suggests that, in 1870, his mother Catherine owned $20,000 worth of real estate. It is possible that she helped her son invest and enabled him to partner with Heinrich Dreyer.

More recent architectural probes in 97 Orchard Street's basement strongly suggests that the saloon took up the entire basement space. Therefore, it's likely that Dreyer and Stark operated their business out of the bar, which was a gathering space and often used for political meetings and social events.

Tomorrow, read about a few of the businesses that operated out of 97 Orchard in the early 20th century.

Questions for Curatorial: The Fate of Schneider's

Curatorial Director Dave answers your questions. Read yesterday's post first.

What happened to Schneider’s Saloon after Caroline Schneider died and John Schneider moved out of 97 Orchard Street in 1886?

A year after his wife Caroline died from tuberculosis, John Schneider moved across the street to 98 Orchard. His saloon, a business that had operated in one of the basement storefronts at 97 Orchard Street since 1864, appears to have been taken over by Austrian-born Henry Infeld. According to the 1880 Census, Henry Infeld, then 21 years old, lived with his parents at 198 East Broadway and worked as a “segar dealer.”

When John Schneider moved to 98 Orchard Street in 1886, he also appears to have opened another saloon in one of the building’s storefronts. Why would Schneider open another saloon directly across the street? Museum researchers are not yet certain, but it is possible that Schneider might have had a falling out with 97 Orchard Street’s new owner, William Morris, a German immigrant, who bought the building from Lucas Glockner in 1886 for $29,000.

Schneider appears to have operated a saloon at 98 Orchard Street until 1890. He died two years later from tuberculosis at the public hospital on Randall’s Island.

Monday, more on the other businesses that operated at 97 Orchard Street during the same period.

Questions for Curatorial: Schneider’s Saloon & LES Drinking Life

Curatorial Director Dave answers your questions.

When did John Schneider’s Saloon operate at 97 Orchard Street? When did the saloon close?

Bavarian-born John Schneider operated a lager bier saloon in one of 97 Orchard's basement storefronts between 1864 and 1886.

Schneider would not have been alone in his business. In 1865, a sanitary inspector named Dr. J.T. Kennedy visited the neighborhood on behalf of the Citizen’s Association Council on Public Health and Hygiene and counted a total of 526 drinking establishments in the 10th ward alone.

Seven years later in 1872, the police department counted a total of 726 drinking establishments in the 10th police district, whose boundaries were roughly coterminous with the 10th ward.

In 1882, the block of Orchard Street between Delancey and Broome was occupied for a total of four separate German lager beer saloons, including Schneider’s: Mr. John Kneher operated a saloon at 98 Orchard Street; Mr. Gustav Reichenbach operated a saloon at 94 Orchard Street; and Mr. Dederick Speh operated a saloon at 111 Orchard Street.

The saloonkeeper’s wife played an integral role in the operation of such establishments, from preparing the free lunch in the morning to greeting customers during the afternoons and evenings. So when John’s wife Caroline died from tuberculosis on June 8, 1885, it had a devastating effect on the business. It's likely that Caroline’s passing caused John to close the saloon about a year later. Records indicate that he and his only child, Harry, moved across the street to 98 Orchard.

John and Harry appear to have lived at 98 Orchard Street until 1892, when they moved several blocks away to 175 Ludlow Street. During this time, John was also suffering from tuberculosis. He died from the disease on May 12, 1892 at the Randall’s Island Adult Hospital, a public institution administered by the city of New York.

On June 18th, 1892, guardianship over 14-year-old Harry Schneider was officially given to his uncle, George Schneider, also a local saloonkeeper, who at the time was living at 105 Ludlow Street.

Stop by tomorrow to read more about the saloon. Schneider's business will be recreated in the "Minding the Store" exhibit in 97 Orchard Street's basement, slated to open in early 2011.

A Lower East Side Anniversary

One hundred and forty-five years ago this month, Mr. John Schneider opened his lager-beer saloon at 97 Orchard Street.

On November 11, 1864 he placed an ad in the New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung, a leading German-language newspaper, which read:

The undersigned makes announcement to his fine friends and acquaintances as well as the honorable musicians, that he has taken over by purchase the saloon of Mr. Schurlein, 97 Orchard Street. Invited to the opening, Saturday, November 12^th, with a superb lunch, respectfully

                                                                                        John Schneider

                                                                                        97 Orchard Street

Why might Mr. Schneider have mentioned "honorable musicians" in his announcement?

The family had a strong connection to music. John Schneider played in a regimental band with the 8th New York Infantry Volunteers during the Civil War.  Most likely, the "honorable musicians" are those who played with him in 1860-62. His father, George, was also a respected musician on New York's German music scene. Because of his personal interest, John probably made an extra effort to provide music for his patrons on a regular basis.

Regarding German saloons on the Bowery in 1881, one observer commented, “Almost every beer saloon has a brass band, or at least a piano, violin, and coronet, and what the performers lack in finish they make up for in vigor. Through the open doors and from the cellars come outbursts of noise and merriment..." 

According to historian Madelon Powers, German immigrants were fond of mixing drink and song, and were noted for their spontaneous saloon singing. Writing about the music of German saloons in turn-of-the-century Chicago, Royal Melendy observed that, “The streets are filled with music, and the German bands go from saloon to saloon reaping a generous harvest when times are good.”1

The most common form of German-American music during the mid-to-late 19th century was choral music performed by singing societies that often met in saloon backrooms. It is likely that John Schneider’s saloon included a small stage or area where music was performed by local singing societies or mannerchor and small German bands. 

Many of the songs that became popular among German immigrants and the singing societies in which they took part expressed an ambivalence about the experience of leaving friends and family for an unknown land. Songs such as Muss I denn zum Stadtele N’Aus? (Must I Go Away from the Town?) and The Decision to Go to America; or, The Farewell Song of the Brothers expressed both an understanding of the need emigrate as well as the pain of leaving loved ones. 

Informal and spontaneous singing was also common in 19th century German saloons. When in a singing mood, patrons of Schneider’s Saloon might break into a rendition of Auch du leiber Augustin, Hi-lee! Hilo! or Die Wacht am Rhein.

Groups of saloon regulars not only broke into song for the purpose of entertainment but also as a means of strengthening group identity. Sung widely in informal settings such as the local saloon, heimathlied or “homesickness” songs not only helped German immigrants reinforce ties to the Fatherland but -- many Germans having emigrated before the creation of the German nation in 1871 -- helped contribute to a new consciousness among German immigrants, unifying these fragmented elements into an American ethnic community. 2

___________________________

1 Madelon Powers, Faces Along the Bar: Lore and Order in the Workingman’s Saloon, 1870-1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998)

2 Victor Greene, A Singing Ambivalence: Immigrants Between Old World and New (Kent State University Press, 2004).

- Research & Writing by Dave Favaloro

New finds in 97 Orchard Street basement

We uncovered more spaces in the rear of the basement. This is an area we believe was once a residential apartment. The brick was covered with sheetrock. We removed it to have a look at what was underneath.

 Here's one of the fireplaces. You can see that it's been boarded up.

This fireplace was not boarded up quite so professionally. Bob, Chris and Derya could easily get into an open space at the top and begin to sift through some of the debris that fills the fireplace cavity.

 

Here's the back of a piece of sheetrock. It should give us a clue as to when the sheetrock was installed.

We found a table knife, all rusted over.

We found this letter. It says, "Scher's Jobbing House, 97 Orchard Street, NYC." The return address is pre-printed on the upper left-hand corner: PO Box 743, City Hall Station, New York, NY. It was posted on July 19, 1933 at 6 PM, passing through "City Hall Annex New York."

A man named Scher was a mentor to Max Marcus, who ran an auction house in 97 Orchard Street in the 1930s. We won't be able to open the letter until it's been "re-humidified." Right now it's brittle and we don't want to damage the envelope or the contents. Derya will put it in a humidity chamber to soften it out a bit.

What could be inside? And how did a letter end up in a boarded-up basement fireplace? We shall report back to you on the former very soon, and feel free to speculate about the latter...

- posted by kate

Urban Archeology at the Tenement Museum

No one ever said museum work was glamorous. Here's Derya, the Museum's collections manager, discussing her work in the basement of 97 Orchard Street.



Tomorrow or Friday we'll share what small treasures she's discovered...

Work has begun on our Storefronts exhibit!

In addition to starting work on the rear yard exhibit, we have also begun serious work on Schneider's Saloon, which has long been in the planning and research stages. If you subscribe to our newsletter, you may have read about this exhibit already.

In 97 Orchard Street's basement, from 1864 until the late 1880s, John Schneider ran a lager bier saloon. This was a place for food and drink but also socialization, political discussions, and families to spend time together. We'll be reconstructing the saloon but also discussing some of the other businesses that were once housed in 97 Orchard, including a butcher shop and auction house.

Earlier in the summer, Jablonski Building Conservation completed some architectural probes in the basement. Now we've dived in even more, removing large sections of sheetrock on the walls to see what we can find underneath. The existing historical fabric is largely intact from decades earlier. Even seemingly insignificant information (like whether a column is painted all the way around or whether there is decorative woodwork on the ceiling) can tell us how the space was used at different times in history.

We found evidence of wallpaper in the north-rear room, which is used for storage (see Chris and Bob at work in the slideshow below). This is significant because it suggests that there were rear apartments in the basement space, something the Museum had suspected but never confirmed with physical evidence. In the late 19th century, wallpaper was largely identified with residential spaces, not commercial.

In all likelihood, there were two apartments in the rear and a large storefront up front, which in the mid-19th century would have been the saloon. The Schnieders may well have lived in back. Sometime in the 1890s, it seems the storefront space was subdivided into two, but the apartments probably remained for a bit longer, and the storekeeps may still have lived in back of the store. Eventually they were cleared out completely and both sides of the basement were turned over to storefronts.

Here are some photos from the space. Later this week, I'll post more on the work.




- Posted by Kate

Awash in Beer History: Tapping into the Little Germanies of the 19th Century in New York and Brooklyn

Illustration: “A German Institution” Featured in, “Bowery, Saturday Night.” Harper's New Monthly Magazine, April 1871. New York, NY. p.679. Courtesy of Harper's Magazine on-line archives.

Today, a special guest-blog by Cindy VandenBosch, founder of tour company Urban Oyster and beloved former Tenementer.

The history of American brewing is usually associated with cities like Milwaukee and St. Louis, but New York City's history is also awash in beer.

Germans flooded into New York starting in the 1840s, and they brought with them their taste for the beverage as well as their own techniques to brew it. By the end of the century, some of the country's largest brewers were located here in Manhattan and across the river in Brooklyn.

Breweries employed thousands of workers across the city, brewing millions of gallons of beer enjoyed by the city's residents. Germans brought two important innovations to the making and enjoyment of beer in America.

First, they brought a new style of beer – lager. Lighter than the ales and porters of this period, lager could also be stored for longer and transported farther, making it ideally suited for the American palette and the country's vast distances.

Second, they introduced a new way to drink beer – rather than swilling booze in dank saloons, Germans enjoyed their drinks in more social surroundings. Beer drinking was done at singing competitions, the theater, sporting clubs, and outdoor beer gardens or beer halls; it was rarely an end in itself. This practice soon spread to the rest of the American population, who began flocking to the gardens to drink beer among family and friends.

Celebrating the Capitulation of Sedan at the “Atlantic Garden.” Featured in, “Bowery, Saturday Night.” Harper's New Monthly Magazine, April 1871. New York, NY. p.679. Courtesy of Harper's Magazine on-line archives.

In 1864, just one year after Lukas Glockner opened up 97 Orchard Street to tenants, John Schneider published an official announcement in the German-language paper New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung to invite “friends and acquaintances as well as the honorable musicians” to the opening party for his new saloon, located in the basement of the tenement.

John Schneider's Official Announcement of the Opening of His Saloon:



Translation:

Hotels and Wirtschaften
“The undersigned makes announcement to his fine friends and acquaintances as well as the honorable musicians, that he has taken over by purchase the saloon of Mr. Schurlein, 97 Orchard Street. Invited to the opening, Saturday, November 12th, with a superb lunch, respectfully.
John Schneider
97 Orchard Street”

While far smaller than the nearby Atlantic Gardens (see above), a massive palace-like establishment on the Bowery that opened its doors in 1858, Schneider's saloon bore little resemblance to the city's traditional barrooms. Women and children were a common sight, and the purchase of a beer included a free lunch, as was often the case in German-owned saloons.

Just a ferry ride across the East River and a three-cent train ride away, another John Schneider (no relation) was hard at work in Brooklyn's “German Town” - what is today the neighborhoods of Williamsburg and Bushwick. This John Schneider was also in the beer business, perfecting his next lager recipe, training brewers, many of whom would go on to become beer barons in their own right, and operating a beer garden and hall adjacent to his brewery.

With the extension of the railroad line from downtown Brooklyn out to Bushwick and Williamsburg in the late 1850s, many more visitors could enjoy a day in the beer gardens of German Town for less than ten cents. The Brooklyn Daily Times declared about Schneider's hall in 1861,

“Schneider’s brewery is known far and near as the largest one making the best lager and having the jolliest, best-natured proprietor of any in this city. His gardens and his halle are also the largest, finest, and most aristocratic of any in the State. During the warm weather thousands daily visit them, lounge around, play billiards, listen to the sweetest of music and – drink lager of course.”

Schneider's business was so successful in those days that by 1870 his brewery, beer gardens, and hall had expanded to nearly an entire block, taking up 20 lots in the heart of a neighborhood that had over 300 saloons and more than 10 breweries at the time.

Today, only one building remains from John Schneider's old brewing business, but there are remnants of other breweries from that time period still standing (see below), as well as historic structures associated with beer drinking and the German community of the 19th century.

Once one of the city’s largest breweries, this 19th century brewery building still stands and is being used for recordings studios. Photo courtesy of Nathan Kensinger.

After a long absence, breweries and beer gardens have started to return to New York. No longer owned by German immigrants and their descendants, many establishments still try to reflect the city's rich brewing history.

For example, Brooklyn Lager, one of the most popular beers in the city, includes an old recipe from Brooklyn's pre-Prohibition days. Beer gardens serving fine craft beers and traditional German dishes (though the lunches are no longer free) are growing in popularity again – places like Radegast Hall & Biergarten in Williamsburg and the Bohemian Hall & Beer Garden in Astoria, Queens.

Just one year from now, the Tenement Museum will open an exhibit dedicated to telling the story of John Schneider's saloon within the context of the German immigrant community on the Lower East Side in the mid to late 19th century.

If you would like to learn more about the story of beer brewing in New York, both past and present, join us for our Brewed in Brooklyn tour on Saturdays and Sundays between March and December.

This tour begins with a visit to the Brooklyn Brewery and a sampling of various beers on tap, and then we head over to the heart of the old Brewers Row in the eastern part of Williamsburg where we explore what it was like to live, worship, and work in the '”Little Germany” of Brooklyn in the mid to late 19th century.

Along the way, we visit a couple of mom and pop businesses and a beautiful church that was built by German immigrants; hear the stories of residents past and present; and, of course, taste some of the finest food and beer Brooklyn has to offer today. For more information and to make a reservation, please visit http://www.urbanoyster.com/.

Cindy VandenBosch is the co-founder of Urban Oyster, a company dedicated to creating tour experiences that explore the past and present of neighborhoods in New York City with an emphasis on local consumption and production, historic preservation, cultural diversity, and sustainability. She was formerly the Education Coordinator at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.

What the Building Next Door Tells Us About Schneider's Saloon

An update from Project Manager Chris Schneider on our effort to recreate 97 Orchard's basement.

On-site work for the architectural probes has winded down, but the conservators at Jablonski Building Conservation are already hard at work at the lab analyzing the data they’ve been collecting (material samples, paint-layer stratigraphy, molding profiles, etc). We won’t know their conclusions until next month, but we’re hoping for a lot of new information about how the basement spaces have been configured (andre-configured) over time.

In the meantime, research intern Aimee VonBokel has been able to dig up some very useful information to help connect the architectural changes in the basement at 97 to patterns of commercial use in the neighborhood. There are relatively few historical architectural records for 97 Orchard itself, but Aimee has been analyzing Tenement House Department records covering a sample of analogous buildings in the area. Like 97, these are all pre-old-law tenements, five stories tall, with raised central stoops flanked by basement storefronts. (You’ll see them in your travels around the neighborhood, usually with a lot of modern metal storefront infill on their basement and first floor levels.)With the same configuration as 97 Orchard, and with generally similar kinds of use over the years, these buildings have turned out to be useful in reconstructing how the lower floors of 97 may have arrived at their current state, and what they may have been like originally.



Here is the “B-card” sketch for 99 Orchard, the sister building to 97 (built at the same time in 1863). The oldest layer of information in the sketch shows the floorplan as of 1904, in black ink. This includes the two storefronts at the front (left), and two former apartments at the rear (right), and turns out to have been the typical layout for basements of these buildings. Later inspectors updated this sketch through the early 1920s, in red pencil. Their annotations show three major kinds of changes: Conversion of the residential space to commercial use (with the removal of many of the old partitions); removal of the stair hall (merged with the north storefront); and construction of the airshaft and hall toilets (at the top, near the center).

Schneider's Saloon Update - Horse Hair

Paint and wallpaper samples are still in the lab, and a search beneath the linoleum floors turned up nothing. So the mystery remains: what did Schneider's Saloon, the pub in 97 Orchard's basement, once look like? We do know that a staircase once abutted a portion of the north side of the center partition, and that the other section may have been constructed at a different time. To learn more, project manager Chris Neville pulled back a strip of pressed metal wall covering (installed before the museum was established; we're still trying to figure out when), revealing scorched dry wall and plaster studded with horse hair. A fire had burned in the room at some point, damaging the material, and as for the hair - it was mixed in to prevent the plaster from cracking. When we were restoring an apartment once occupied by the Moores, a family of Irish immigrants, our conservationist made sure to follow this traditional practice, using hair from his daughter's horse.


A bag of horse hair was mixed into the Moore apartment's plaster

-posted by Liana Grey

Schneider's Saloon Probe Photos

We're in the process of recreating a saloon once housed in 97 Orchard's basement. A team of conservators peeked behind the basement's metal and sheetrock walls for clues of its history, and sent paint and wood samples off for analysis. Here's some of the work they've done so far:

Exposing wood panelling behind the sheetrock

Charred wood indicates long-ago fire damage.

Bubbled-up paint is further evidence of a fire.

Our longtime handyman, Bob Yucikas, removes sheetrock from the ceiling.

-posted by Liana Grey