Podcasts by German Traces NYC Podcast
A Project of the Goethe-Institut New York
Further podcasts by Goethe-Institut
Podcast on the topic Gesellschaft und Kultur
All episodes
Welcome to German Traces NYC! from 2012-03-12T16:11:09
In 1626, Peter Minuit—a native of the German town of Wesel am Rhein—purchased Manhattan Island for 60 guilders worth of trade goods. Since that purchase, German immigrants have been integral to the...
ListenImmanuel Lutheran Church from 2012-03-12T15:52:24
The Immanuel Lutheran Church on East 88th St. in central Yorkville is a towering monument to the congregation’s German heritage. The congregation of the Immanuel Lutheran Church formed in 1863, but...
ListenHarmonie Club from 2012-03-12T15:51:23
On October 16, 1852, the Gesellschaft Harmonie was established, a social club constructed with the purpose of providing “mutually beneficial entertainment” for recent German immigrants. While the p...
ListenGoethe-Institut Uptown Building from 2012-01-12T14:19:54
Built in 1906 by real estate developers and brothers, William and Thomas Hall, this handsome Beaux-Arts town house was sold in 1909 to James F. A. Clark, partner of Clark, Ward & Co., bankers ...
ListenThe Church of the Most Holy Redeemer from 2011-12-13T20:15:35
In 1844, the Archbishop of New York asked the Redemptorists—a Catholic missionary congregation—to take charge of the burgeoning population of German Catholics in Kleindeutschland. At first, they mi...
ListenPuck Building from 2011-12-13T20:14:54
On a corner of the Puck Building sits a plump gilded statute of the structure’s namesake. Puck, from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is the mascot of one of New York’s best-known humor mag...
ListenOld Town Bar from 2011-12-13T20:14:13
How did this turn of the century German-style saloon manage to survive Prohibition and stay business for nearly 130 years? By operating as a speakeasy under the name Craig’s Restaurant and installi...
ListenHammacher Schlemmer from 2011-12-13T20:13:32
It all began in 1848 when German immigrant William Tollner opened up a modest hardware store at 221 Bowery. Tollner’s store became known for its high quality products, retailing some of the best mo...
ListenW. F. Mangels Company of Coney Island from 2011-12-13T20:12:54
At the age of 16, William F. Mangels immigrated to America from Germany, and like many German craftsmen at the time he was immediately drawn to the atmosphere of Coney Island. Already a bourgeoning...
ListenSteinway Tunnel from 2011-12-13T20:12:03
The Steinway name can be found throughout Manhattan and the city’s outer boroughs, including an important subway tunnel linking Queens and Manhattan. In 1885 a group of investors began planning a n...
ListenSteinway Village from 2011-12-13T20:11:21
German immigrant Henry Steinway founded Steinway & Sons in a downtown Manhattan workshop in the mid-19th century. The company’s first factory opened in 1860 on what is now Park Avenue in Manha...
ListenWankel’s Hardware Store from 2011-12-13T20:10:42
In 1900, a rash of suspected arson incidents in the Yorkville neighborhood nearly claimed the recently opened Wankel’s Hardware Store, as well as the lives of its owners, who lived in an apartment ...
ListenGerman Odd Fellows Hall from 2011-12-13T20:10:07
Friendship. Love. Truth. Ordinary people coming together to promote values that transcend language or nations. While these values are core to all spiritual practices, advocating them was unusual en...
ListenTenement Museum from 2011-12-13T20:09:30
As the word “tenement” indicates, 97 Orchard Street was a multiple family dwelling. Like most, it earned its reputation for overcrowding, poverty, and exploiting the working-class. From its opening...
ListenScheffel Hall from 2011-12-13T20:08:43
On the wind of several successful ventures, restaurateur and German immigrant, Carl Goerwitz, got a bit ambitious. He took out a long-term lease on 190 3rd Avenue, contracted architectural firm Web...
ListenSteinway&Sons from 2011-12-13T20:08
Henry Steinway built his first piano in the kitchen of his home in Seesen, Germany, but back then he was known as Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg. Heinrich, his wife, and their children left Germany fo...
ListenCarl Schurz Park from 2011-12-13T20:07:15
On October 2, 1910, crowds gathered at what was then known as the East River Park to mark the 9th annual German day celebration of the United German Societies of New York City. The day’s festivitie...
ListenBrooklyn Bridge and the Roeblings from 2011-12-13T20:06:22
Having already completed several other suspension bridges throughout the eastern United States, German immigrant John Roebling set his sights on a bridge to connect Brooklyn and Manhattan, a projec...
ListenRuppert Park from 2011-12-13T20:05:21
The link between baseball and beer reaches at least as far back as the early 20th century to Jacob Rupert Jr., owner of both a brewery and the New York Yankees. Ruppert wore many other hats through...
ListenGlaser’s Bake Shop from 2011-12-13T20:04:30
In 1896, two German immigrants were married in St. Joseph’s Church of Yorkville. John and Justine Glaser were fond enough of St. Joseph’s that when a nearby property went up for sale some yea...
ListenSchaller&Weber from 2011-12-13T20:03:22
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...
ListenHeidelberg Restaurant from 2011-12-13T20:02:24
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 ...
ListenZion St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church from 2011-12-13T19:59:16
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. M...
ListenGreat East Side Bazaar (aka Bloomingdale’s) from 2011-12-13T16:58:16
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 ...
ListenNew York Turn-Verein from 2011-12-13T16:57:27
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 e...
ListenDeutscher Liederkranz der Stadt New York from 2011-12-13T16:56:29
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 me...
ListenRoman Catholic Church of Our Lady of Sorrows from 2011-11-08T18:14:50
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...
ListenFirst German Baptist Church from 2011-11-08T18:13:52
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 Chu...
ListenGermania Bank from 2011-11-08T18:12:35
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 ...
ListenGerman Dispensary from 2011-11-08T18:11:44
In May of 1884, Mr. Oswald Ottendorfer stood on a temporary platform at the grand opening of the new German Dispensary building, eulogizing his wife Anna. Each of the event’s speakers shared the st...
ListenGermania Fire Insurance from 2011-11-08T18:10:29
1835 brought with it the Great Fire of New York, which tore through southeastern Manhattan and racked up millions in damages. It was the first of a series of major urban fires across the country th...
ListenAstor Place from 2011-11-08T18:09:31
Many words can be used to describe John Jacob Astor, not all of them complimentary. He was a millionaire, a slumlord, a war profiteer and a ruthless jobber who shipped opium to China and sold liquo...
ListenSlocum Memorial, Tompkins Square Park from 2011-11-08T18:08:41
June 15th 1904 was the day of the seventeenth annual picnic of St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church whose members were mostly of German birth or origin. Some 1300 church members boarded a triple-...
ListenTompkins Square Park from 2011-11-08T18:07:38
The tranquility of Tompkins Square Park is misleading. The Elms, many dating back to the 1870’s, the dog run, the playground and the grass typical to many urban parks, are but a thin mask to the tu...
ListenAschenbroedel Hall from 2011-11-08T18:06:31
It all started as a practical joke. The Prince of Wales was visiting New York, and a great ball was given in his honor. German-American musicians, who were at the time victims of anti-immigrant fee...
ListenGerman American Shooting Society Clubhouse from 2011-09-27T00:06:43
It is 1888 and opening night of the German-American Shooting Society Clubhouse. The 1400 club members, made of 24 shooting companies, gather for the last time in their temporary meeting place at th...
ListenOttendorfer Library from 2011-09-26T21:41:58
To the many “firsts” that German-Americans can take credit for we can add the first branch of the New York Public Library, the Ottendorfer library. While today this area around St. Marks’s place is...
Listen