32 TIMES • MAY 14, 2015 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.timesnewsweekly.com old timer Ringing up history at Hanover House One of Glendale’s most popular watering holes at the turn of 20th century was John Brockmann’s Hanover House hotel and saloon, started by a German immigrant who relocated to the area from Bushwick. Then 60, John Brockmann developed Hanover House on the northeast corner of Lafayette Place (present-day 69th Place) and Myrtle Avenue. He purchased the site, the western end of a dairy farm, in 1898 and erected a twostory wooden frame building with a saloon on the ground fl oor and six hotel rooms atop it. Brockmann emigrated to the U.S. from Germany in 1838 and, when he purchased the Glendale site, had already owned and operated a saloon for many years at the corner of Broadway and Jefferson Street in present-day Bushwick. He relocated to Glendale along with his wife, Annie, and their four sons. Having a hotel atop a saloon in New York State was not an uncommon practice in that age, but it also doubled as a bureaucratic loophole by the late 1800s. During that period, New York State adopted “blue laws” that restricted the sale of alcoholic beverages; however, hotels which had a minimum of six rooms were exempt from that law. After opening, Brockmann had installed at the Hanover Hotel one of the fi rst telephones in the neighborhood. In fact, the June 1899 directory identifi ed it as one of only six working telephone numbers in the Glendale area: Bushwick (the telephone exchange name) 568-A. The Brockmann family, however, soon suffered tragedy. John Brockmann Sr. died in 1908 at the age of 69. His son, John Jr., took over the operation of the business, but he suddenly became ill and died several months after his father. The Hanover Hotel was left to John’s three younger brothers — Herman, George and Frederick — to operate. As with modern businesses, they tried to build a network of new customers by joining local fraternal organizations, but they also sponsored a fi shing club and, in 1909, the Glendale Hanover Field Club baseball team. The team enjoyed modest success in Glendale, but relocated to the Rockaways in 1912 after the brothers decided to end their sponsorship. But as with so many other businesses, the Hanover Hotel and Saloon took a hit in 1920 when Prohibition took effect nationwide. The brothers eventually converted the premises into a restaurant. By 1946, however, they sold the property. Small businesses and apartments now occupy the former saloon. A 1912 photo of Myrtle Avenue looking eastward. Photo courtesy of Nicholas Strini, Property Shark A 2008 photo of the northeast corner of Myrtle Avenue and 69th Place, where the Hanover House once stood.
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