Pregled posta

Marketing

Melrose, Bronx

No. 614 Courtlandt Avenue , an early multi-use building in the Bronx, was built in 1871-72 for Julius Ruppert and contained a saloon, public rooms, meeting rooms, and a residential flat. Most likely the work of a builder-contractor, the imposing building displays a variety of early to late Second Empire style motifs successfully combined to reconcile the several uses contained within the building with their exterior expression. Hewlett S. Baker's renovation in 1882 only further enriched the facade.

The building is a monument to the first stage of urbanization within what had been the previously rural south Bronx, helping by its presence to establish a sense of place in the new village of Melrose South. No. 614 also has many of the stylistic features which characterized the buildings along the Bowery between Canal and Houston Streets in the area known as "Kleine Deutschland," where Julius Ruppert first established his business before following his fellow Germans to the Bronx. With its varied uses, the building sheltered a variety of German ethnic activities.

Melrose South and its Early Settlers

The majority of the mid-19th century settlers in New York City's future 23rd Ward (1874), the southwest Bronx, arrived from Manhattan's Lower East Side, eager to leave their noisy and dark, cramped and airless tenements. One of their earliest objectives was the sparsely populated freehold manor, seat of the Morris family who had been prominent in colonial government and the affairs of the early republic, which only recently had been opened for development. Though not a model for subsequent expansion, "New Village," the first subdivision, carries with it some of the method and some of the ingredients of those that followed. In 1848 an association 222 members strong, for the most part German and some Irishmen, mechanics and laboring men, met at the Military Hall at 193 Bowery. Represented by their agents, Jordan Mott, Nicholas McGraw and Charles W. Houghton, they had purchased 200 acres from Gouvemeur Morris, _ Jr.

Lots were drawn and assigned with but one proviso: each owner was to erect a house of no less than $300.00 value within three years, and Morris executed a deed to each new owner. In 1850 New Village became Morrisania, when Mott's early development along the Harlem River, (which had been Morrisania) became Mott Haven.

New Village's success inspired Morris to develop his property further. With Robert Elton and Hampton Denman he had Andrew Findlay, a surveyor, lay out several more communities, Woodstock, Melrose and Melrose East and South, in 1850. Melrose South was incorporated as a village a year later, and in 1864 Morrisania was incorportated as a township, embracing these and ten other villages.

At the time of its incorporation as a village, the boundaries of Melrose South were East 160th Street and the Village of Melrose to the north and East 148th Street and Mott Haven to the south. Its eastern boundary was the Old Boston Post Road (Third Avenue) and its western boundary the railroad. But before the Civil War the area was principally farmland. In 1856 the number of dwellings totalled 173; twelve years later there were 488. Like the citizens of New Village, the preponderance of Melrose South's first residents were German, seeking a healthier alternative to life on the Lower East Side.

Courtlandt Avenue, running north and south along a ridge, was the main shopping street, lined by beer halls and the scene of parades by German bands. Intersecting it, from south to north, were Mott, Benson, Denman,Gouverneur, Wilton, Schuyler, Springfield, Mary and Melrose streets.

The Protection Hall, whose members sponsored marching bands and drill teams, had its headquarters — incorporating a beer garden, bowling alley and dance hall — on the west side of Courtlandt between Springfield (154th) and Mary (155th) Streets. Melrose South had its own brewery, J. & M. Haffen's on Elton (152nd) between Courtlandt and Melrose. The Arion Liedertafel Hall was on the west side of Courtlandt between Benson and Gouverneur and so was the Melrose Turn v ere in. There were many beer gardens too. Indeed, Melrose South was compared with the area around Manhattan's Tompkins Square — "Kleine Deutschland," and Courtlandt was called "Dutch Broadway."

For example, in 1871 at the intersection of Courtlandt and Gouverneur (151st Street) — Ruppert's building would occupy the northeast corner — Jacob Sauter, a butcher, lived on the east side of Courtlandt north of Gouverneur; William Langrebe, a tailor, occupied the northwest corner of Courtlandt and Gouverneur; August Schulte had a grocery store on the southeast corner of the intersection. Andrew Schrenk, also listed on the southeast corner, may have lived upstairs. A rooming house occupied the southwest corner, among whose tenants there was an actor and an Irish laundress. August Frenke, a blacksmith in working in Manhattan, dwe

Frank awoke and grunted as he stood from bed, the headache’s numb pressure on his brain barely registering. Tapping two aspirin into his hand and gulping them back, he pushed aside the molding shower curtain and climbed into the steam.
He gasped and slipped on the wet porcelain, catching the curtain for support with the image of the broken car windshield, letting loose a cascading river of memories that included his mother’s murder, awakening in the middle of the night two nights in a row, dropping a beer bottle in the kitchen, and the realization that he was, indeed, Brian Sullivan, and not Frank Davis.
Brian sat in the bath beneath the raining showerhead as the shivers crawled over him like an invading army and the torrent of tears were washed down the drain between his quaking feet.

Something nagging told Brian to show his face at work. With barely enough time to collect his senses and calm down, he took quick strides down the street towards the factory, trying to emit calm but failing miserably.
For the first time, the sound of The Guard’s massive tires crunching up the road from behind offered, not an uneasy comfort, but a spike of fear. Sweat beaded on his lip. A brick somehow found itself inside his stomach. Brian flipped up the collar of his coat to protect his eyes from their gaze, staring down at the scuffed toes of his shoes, pulling him forward more quickly than normal.
“You!” bellowed a voice through the loudspeaker.
Brian slowed his pace.
“You there! Stop!”
Brian peered up over his collar and saw The Guardsman pointing a black-gloved finger at an elderly man, who stood frozen in the center of the street before the rumbling engine.
“Yes? What can I do for you?”
Brian heard The Guardsman at the machine gun cock the weapon. The driver checked his watch.
“It’s 8:55. We haven’t seen you here at 8:55 before. Tell me where you’re headed,” he demanded.
The old man’s grey combover blew up into a shark’s fin in the cool wind whipping as he stood, overcoat unbuttoned, eyes bloodshot without an answer.
“I, I work up the road. I’m, I’m a tailor. M-m-m-y wife…she’s sick, very sick, so I was taking off this morning to go to the pharmacy and –“
One burst of orange from the silencer on the gun barrel and the old man’s head exploded into a fan-shaped crimson smear that covered five feet of pavement. His torso shook twice and slumped to the ground.
Brian sucked down the panic.
“You. Keep a move on,” commanded the voice to Brian.
Images of his mother’s falling carcass gripped his throat. Nothing entered or left his lungs.
“You. Move on. NOW!” demanded the voice over the loudspeaker.

Brian steadied his hands and wove the tight blue flame across the two shiny pieces of metal. Nearly finished with the day, he raised his dull brown eyes to see Tim waving his hands and gesturing to his watch from across the floor.
With that, the break buzzer rang.
Tim sat waiting at their usual table in the breakroom, drumming his thumbs on the tabletop, humming.
“Tim,” Brian started, sliding into the chair across from him, “have you ever felt strange about yourself?”
Tim cocked his head and stopped his thumping fingers.
“You mean, like, crazy? Sure, all the time. You ever see the way people treat me at this place? I might as well have a lit candle jammed up my ass, the looks I get.”
“No, no, no. I mean, like you’ve haven’t been in control of anything you do? Any of the decisions you make, they aren’t your decisions?”
Tim’s eyes narrowed.
“Frank: You getting married? Sure sounds like you got the idea down.”
Brian wanted to grab him and strangle some sense into his skinny rooster’s neck but instead took a deep breath and leaned forward on his palms.
“When was the last time you were sick? Or hurt yourself? Where did you go to for your last vacation, Tim? When was the last time you screwed your wife?”
A blank stare was the response.
“Do something for me, will you? Because, honestly, I don’t know if I’m going insane. Will you do something stupid for me, if only just to calm me down?”
Tim looked into Brian’s pleading eyes, filled with desperation and whites strangled by a highway of red wires.
“Sure. What are friends for?”
“Just…relax your mind. Close your eyes and relax your mind.”
Tim rolled his eyes.
“The hell you doin’ here, Frank?”
“Please.”
“Okay, sorry. Fine, fine, fine.”
Inhaling deeply, Tim closed his eyes and sank back in his seat.
“Now what?”
In a hushed, soothing voice, Brian whispered, “Think about something that scares you; that really scares you. Even if it was just a nightmare you had once, a long time ago.”
Tim sat motionless as several workers strolled back and forth to the coffeepot, sipping from their cups and groaning about work. One of his eyes snapped open.
“You know those crates ain’t gonna load themselves, Frank –“
“ –Please!” Brian pleaded.
“Sorry. Sorry. Okay…”
A full minute ticked off the clock as Brian watched Tim lull into a trance. People shot puzzled glimpses on their way to the vending machines, pun