photograph by Carole Teller
The family of Henry Wannemacher covered a broad swatch of interests in 1855. Henry Wannemacher was a musician and composer. (His sons, interestingly, spelled their surname both as "Wannemacher" and "Wannemaker.") While Henry Jr. ran a feed store at 229 Third Street, he, too, was a musician and would eventually become a musical director in New York theaters. In 1855, Charles was already listed as a "music director," while Jacob Wannemaker was a tailor.
The family lived in the recently built four-story house-and-store at 217 Third Street (the "East" would be added later). The three floors above the storefront were clad in red brick. The hefty stone lintels of the openings harkened to the Greek Revival style, while the handsome pressed metal cornice with its scrolled corbels and paneled fascia was purely Italianate.
In the rear yard was a secondary house. Music seems not to have provided the income necessary to maintain the property. In 1857, the family was living in the rear house and the upper floors of the main building were operated as a boarding house. Charles had put his musical career on hold and opened a saloon in the store space. Henry Jr. was now supplementing his income as a tailor, no doubt working with Jacob.
Among Henry Jr.'s compositions in the latter part of the century was this march, composed for piano. from the collection of the Library of Congress.
Living above the saloon in 1859 were the families of Frederick Koch, Louis Mabriein and Christian Loetterle (all tailors); Jacob Becker, a tinsmith; Jacob Orth, who listed his profession as "segars;" and Joseph Weber, who dealt in portefeuilles (or wallets).
The Wannemachers left East 3rd Street in 1864. That year Jacob Graf moved his family into the upper floors and installed his grocery store in the former saloon space. Among the other residents upstairs that year was the John Blessinger family, who would remain for years. John Blessinger was a tailor (he would change his profession to waiter in 1868). His wife's name was Eva. Andrew Bessinger worked as a laborer, and Louis was a peddler. Eva Bessinger remained in their rooms following John's death in 1872.
The grocery store was taken over by John Kraft in 1876. Several of the residents had been here for years, like Casper Stumpf, a tailor who first moved into the main building in 1873, and Christopher Lock, a carman, who had been in the rear house as early as 1867.
Around 1880, Ignatz Martin leased the buildings. While he listed his profession as "boarding house," newspapers were less kind, calling 217 East 3rd Street a lodging house. Lodging houses were the lowest level of accommodations--rented by the day and offering no amenities other than a bed or cot.
On May 15, 1881, Jacob Ammann, described by the New-York Tribune as being "twenty-eight, a German," came to New York from Hoboken, where he lived. His revelry went late into the night and rather than go back to New Jersey, "he went at a late hour to the lodging-house at No. 217 East Third-st.," reported the newspaper. Early in the morning, he went to the 11th Precinct Police Station, "suffering from three severe scalp wounds, and said he had been assaulted by Ignatz Martin, the proprietor of the lodging-house, and several other men who were at the place." When police arrived at 217 East 3rd Street, said the article, "the men had made their escape."
In September 1881, the interestingly-named Woolf Woolf and his wife, Sarah, purchased 217 East 3rd Street. The change in ownership did not elevate the conditions here.
Small pox was commonly called "the speckled monster" in the 19th century. In the early 1880s, an epidemic broke out in New York City, with the Eastern Dispensary treating more than 21,000 cases per year. Uneducated and suspicious immigrant families avoided immunization. Additionally, knowing that patients were quarantined on North Brother Island, they hid cases from authorities. It sometimes resulted in tragedy.
On March 21, 1882, the New-York Tribune reported, "A sanitary inspector learned that Joseph Kranck, a baby four months old, had died from the disease in the tenement house, No. 217 East Third-st. The parents of the child had neglected to call in a physician."
Sarah and Woolf Woolf transferred title to the building to Samuel Woolf, presumably their son, in February 1883. It triggered a rapid turnover in ownership. Woolf sold it seven months later to Myer and Rosa Elsas, who sold it to Kate Offner for $18,100 on August 22, 1884. Offner hired architect Charles Sturtzkober to add a one-story extension to the rear.
In the meantime, Joseph Rubatsky's saloon occupied the ground floor. It was operated by Paul Zambory by 1891. That year, he and five other men sent a petition to the Governor of Pennsylvania "asking him not to pardon the three Slovaks who are under sentence of death for taking part in the Edgar Thompson Steel-Works riot at Pittsburg," reported The Evening World. The petition resulted in Joseph Santandrassy's suing all six for what today we would call a hate crime. The article said, "Santandrassy says that the circulating of the petition was actuated by nationality hatred prevailing for centuries among Hungarians and Slovaks."
In October 1895, Kate Offner leased the ground floor to Elizabeth and Paul Zamborg, who took over the saloon.
The back room in the new extension was used for meetings. On November 5, 1898, The Sun reported on the many appearances that Colonel Theodore Roosevelt would be making. Among the venues listed was "Paul Zambory's [sic], 217 East Third street." The change in demographics in the neighborhood from German to Hungarian at the turn of the century was reflected in the Hungarian Democratic League's establishing its headquarters in the rear room in 1900.
In the summer months, tenement residents had no refuge from the heat. Each day newspapers listed the previous day's victims. Among the deaths from the heat on July 1, 1901 was 71-year-old Mabline Zahulke, who succumbed in her room here.
The property was purchased by Welz Zerweck Brewing Co. in December 1904. Breweries often owned buildings like this one so they could monopolize the products sold in the saloons. The following year, the firm made major improvements, hiring architect H. E. Funk to install indoor plumbing, toilets and new windows.
Despite the improvements, the conditions of the residents were miserable. On April 5, 1914, the New York Herald reported on the 2,200 loaves of bread that the The New York Sun distributed within the Lower East Side. "It was the longest line yet," said the article. "At the end of the first hour, 1,700 loaves had been given away." It profiled a few of the people who waited for bread, saying in part:
A middle aged, haggard looking woman with a baby in her arms came in. After she had received four loaves she was willing to tell something about herself. She said she had come all the way from 217 East Third street, which is near Avenue B about a mile away from the depot the shortest way you can walk. The baby in her arms, she said, is 11 months old and she has an eight-year-old boy at home.
Julia Witkawsky's plight was even more dire. Born in Poland, her husband had abandoned her three months earlier and she had used all the money she had. The New York Herald reporter accompanied her to 217 East 3rd Street. He wrote, "The landlord said he had served a dispossess order on her last month, but out of sympathy had allowed her to stay. Her rent was due again yesterday, he said, and he could not wait longer." Julia Witkawsky was desperate.
"I can live on bread and milk," she said, "working at the wash tubs, but I've got to have a roof over the children."
It is unclear what happened to Julia Witkawsky and her children.
After decades of being home to a saloon, Prohibition caused a major change to the ground floor of 217 East 3rd Street--it became a restaurant.
image via the NYC Dept of Records & Information Services.
As soon as Prohibition was repealed, however, Waskel Bakalo got a liquor license for his restaurant in 1932.
At the time, the upper floors were crammed with indigent families. Several homeless men got access of a vacant third-floor apartment in 1934. On the night of September 1, they accidentally started a fire. The New York Times reported that it "drove sixteen families...from a four-story tenement." One firefighter was injured "when a fourth floor stairway collapsed under him," said the article. "The tenants escaped without difficulty, part of them reaching the street by the stairway of the building, and the rest crossing over the roof to an adjoining tenement."
The repairs to the fire damage resulted in one apartment per floor above the store. Around 1984, the St. Philip African Methodist Church opened here. It was most likely at that time that the storefront was divided into two, and a second doorway installed.
In April 1999, Michael Mendez and Casey Torres opened the restaurant Latin here. The New York Times reported that customers could find, "a dance lesson, a radish-and-spinach empanada, [and] pork chops with rice and beans." The article said, "Latin jazz, merengue and salsa are played, paella ($17) can be ordered at tables, and dance instructions will be offered."
By 2002, Plant, a jazz club, occupied one of the spaces. On November 15 that year, The New York Times said the owner "has honed a less exotic style, using bits of jazz and soul music to create smooth grooves."
photograph by Carole Teller
Where once 16 families crowded into rooms, there are now just four apartments in the building.
many thanks to artist Carole Teller for suggesting this post
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