WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES AUGUST 29, 2019 27
Rise of a Glendale saloon of yesteryear
This 1912 postcard shows Myrtle Avenue looking eastward from the corner of present-day 69th Street in Glendale. One block away, on the north side
of the street, was where Brockmann’s Hanover House Hotel once stood. Ridgewood Times archives
BY THE OLD TIMER
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
EDITORIAL@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
@RIDGEWOODTIMES
John Brockmann’s Hanover House
Hotel and Saloon was located on
the northeast corner of Lafayette
Place (now 69th Place) and Myrtle
Avenue in Glendale. Later this building
became 25-41 Myrtle Ave. (now 69-27
Myrtle Ave.)
This section of Glendale had been
part of the Tompkins Farm, which at
one time consisted of about 55 acres
and extended from 69th Street to 73rd
Street, between the Long Island Rail
Road’s Montauk Branch and Cypress
Hills Cemetery.
On May 4, 1878, Joseph E. Tompkins
sold 4 ½ acres of his farm, located on
the north side of Myrtle Avenue from
about 69th Place to Webster Avenue
(present day 71st Street), for $5,500
to Sarah J. Gascoine. She and her
husband, James, started a dairy farm
with about 50 cows. They lived in the
farmhouse with their two children
and a farmhand.
Because of the limited pasture
available for their cows, they bought
hay and spent grain from local
breweries to feed the cows. The
milk was sold to wholesale dealers
in Brooklyn.
On Sept. 4, 1880, Joseph E. Tompkins
sold Gascoine additional land on the
west side of Webster Avenue, north
of Cooper Avenue, for about $1,500.
But 11 years later, in May 1891, the
Gascoines sold their farm to Robert
Evans, who continued to run it and
also raised peacocks. Their feathers
were valuable for ladies’ hats at
the time.
His son, John Evans, eventually
took over the operation of the farm
and subdivided it into building lots.
The old farmhouse was fi rst moved
to Wyckoff Avenue (present day
73rd Street) and then eventually to
Webster Avenue, where it was used
for a brief period as a schoolhouse.
In about 1898, John Brockmann,
who was then 60, purchased an oddshaped
lot on the corner of Myrtle
Avenue and 69th Place, the western
end of the Evans’ dairy farm. On the
site, he built a two-story woodenframe
building to be used as a saloon
on the ground floor and a hotel
above it. He had operated a saloon in
Brooklyn at Broadway and Jeff erson
Street, which he had sold before
moving with his family to Glendale.
Brockmann was born in German
in 1838 and came to America in 1856
when he was 18. He had a wife, Annie,
who was 47 at the time they relocated
to Glendale with their four sons: John,
Herman, George and Frederick.
On March 23, 1896, the Raines
Law took effect in New York and
mandated that no alcoholic beverages
could be sold on Sunday unless the
establishment was a hotel. To qualify
for the exemption, in Glendale, you
needed a minimum of six furnished
bedrooms and pay an annual license
fee of $200.
Brockmann moved to Glendale
because, under the law for Brooklyn,
he would have needed 10 furnished
bedrooms and to pay a $650 annual
license fee.
Brockmann’s Hanover House
Hotel served Jacob Ruppert’s beer on
draft . Baseball fans know that name
very well, as Ruppert used his beermaking
fortune to purchase the New
York Yankees in 1915.
Four years later, he facilitated
the purchase of Babe Ruth from the
Boston Red Sox in 1919, and forever
changed the fate of the both teams —
with the Yankees winning 26 World
Championships between 1923 and
2004, the year the Red Sox wiped
out an 86-year World Championship
drought dubbed “The Curse of
the Bambino.”
Shortly aft er the Hanover House
Hotel was completed, Brockmann
had one of the fi rst telephones in
Glendale installed. In the June 1, 1899
telephone directory, there were just
six telephones in Glendale, and he had
one of them with a Bushwick number
#568-A, which was a party line.
His eldest son, John, helped him in
the business as a bartender. Herman,
before working for his father, was
employed as a debt collector for
Charles Gomer Sons, a clothing
store. George was a salesman for
Frederick Loeser’s Department Store
in Brooklyn, and Frederick was still
in school.
John Brockmann Sr. died in 1908
at the age of 69. His eldest son, John
Jr., then 31, took over the operation of
the hotel. Unfortunately, he became
ill and died several months later. His
three youngest brothers, Herman,
George and Frederick, then took
charge and operated the business as
the Brockmann Brothers Hanover
House Hotel.
To build up their bar trade, in
1909, they sponsored a baseball team
known as the Glendale Hanover Field
Club, and also sponsored a fi shing
club. In addition, the brothers joined
a number of fraternal organizations
in Glendale, such as the Glendale
Benevolent Society, the Woodmen
of the World and the F&A Court
of Glendale.
During World War I, it is believed
the Brockmann Family dropped the
last “n” from the spelling of their
name, making it “Brockman.”
When Prohibition took eff ect in
January 1920, and the sale of alcoholic
beverages containing more than
½ of 1% of alcohol by volume was
prohibited, Brockman Brothers
changed their hotel and saloon into
a restaurant.
On June 19, 1946, the Brockman
Family sold their property to
Violet Hubmeier.
Reprinted from the Aug. 15, 1985
Ridgewood Times.
* * *
If you have any remembrances or old
photographs of “Our Neighborhood:
The Way It Was” that you would like to
share with our readers, please write to
the Old Timer, c/o Ridgewood Times, 38-
15 Bell Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361, or send
an email to editorial@ridgewoodtimes.
com. Any print photographs mailed
to us will be carefully returned to you
upon request.
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