Schaller & Weber is the last German butcher shop in the Yorkville neighborhood. Over seventy years after it was founded, the store remains in the family, owned and operated by Schaller’s three sons. Founders Ferdinand Schaller and Anton Weber came … Continue reading →

One of the few remaining German businesses on the Upper East Side, Heidelberg Restaurant continues to serve authentic German dishes to both tourists and regulars who remember the neighborhood when it was known as German Yorkville. Located on the same … Continue reading →

The beginnings of this Upper End Side church are in the sad events of the Slocum Disaster of 1904 when over 1,000 of the Lower East Side’s St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church lost their lives. Many of the victims’ families … Continue reading →

School children doing pushups and jumping jacks in physical education classes throughout the country can thank the German Turner Societies, which were responsible for the introduction of physical education to public schools in America. In 1848, America received a large … Continue reading →

For 140 years, Bloomingdale’s has been a Mecca for shoppers on New York City’s Upper East Side. It opened as Bloomingdale’s Great East Side Bazaar at 938 3rd Avenue on April 17th, 1872, founded by brothers Joseph and Lyman Bloomingdale. … Continue reading →

School children doing pushups and jumping jacks in physical education classes throughout the country can thank the German Turner Societies, which were responsible for the introduction of physical education to public schools in America. In 1848, America received a large … Continue reading →

In the period before the Civil War, German singing societies sprang up across America, created to preserve and promote German cultural and musical traditions. On January 9th, 1847, a group of 25 men of German heritage founded Deutscher Liederkranz der … Continue reading →

The Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of Sorrows commenced somewhat inauspiciously—with a hushed mass in a bar room backed by a cow stable. Reverend Bonaventure Frey acquired the room, which sat no more than 130 people, to serve as … Continue reading →

One would be hard pressed to find a better example of the changing ethnic identities of New York neighborhoods through architecture than the First German Baptist Church on East 14th Street. The Church emerged out of the need to serve … Continue reading →

What do you get when you combine a butcher, a safe maker, a brewery owner, a furniture dealer, and a cigar maker? The founding board of Germania Bank. Germania Bank opened in 1869 on the Bowery, a street dominated by … Continue reading →