There's a lot of early 20th century Harlem photos floating around so we get really excited when a few rare images from the 1800's surface. The above photos are of the Hudson River Beef Co. which used to have river views of the Hudson at the intersection of 132nd Street and 12th Avenue (click on images to enlarge). Horses were the mode of transportation before the age of the automobile and belgian stones paved the city streets even in the industrial section. This area was similar to downtown's meatpacking district and this corner today has another notable market on the exact site since Fairway set up roots in West Harlem years ago. The smaller scaled, free standing buildings that look more like saloons are long gone but there are quite a few early century warehouses still standing in the area today. Note also in the 2nd photo that there was a Pabst Milwaukee outlet just up the street from this location.
That may be the masts and bowsprit of a sail boat behind the building in the first photo. Great photos.
ReplyDeleteThis post is about a meat market, but the note about Pabst Milwaukee reminds me that there were many breweries uptown, starting in the 17th century and peaking around the early 20th century.
ReplyDeleteOne of the fanciest restaurants uptown was actually A.H. Meyer’s Pabst Harlem Restaurant at West 125th Street between Seventh and Eighth avenues. The Pabst Brewing Company had been founded in 1844 in Milwaukee and by the 1870s was the nation’s largest. The company opened a chain of restaurants across the country to guarantee a market for its beer, and the New York branch came in 1900 and was reputedly the biggest restaurant in the world, with room for 1,400 dinner guests—who were urged on by paid actors disguised as patrons to raise a glass and toast “Milwaukee’s greatest beer brewer, Captain Fred Pabst!” It was certainly one of the country’s most famous restaurants, with a Christmas Tree that dwarfed the one at Rockefeller Center and a massive mural depicting a scene from Venice in the sixteenth century. An adjoining Pabst Concert Hall went up in 1900, at the same time as the restaurant, at 243-51 West 124th Street (the entrance was on West 125th Street). Despite the presence of the theater next door, the Pabst Restaurant was well known for its orchestra, whose regular pianist ($55 per week) in 1910-11 was the Hungarian Sigmund Romberg, who would go on to become the last great composer of operetta.
May I correct myself? Of course, the tradition of a Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center only started in 1931, while the complex was being built, so the Pabst tree is being compared to the size of the tree decades later...
ReplyDelete