The General Slocum disaster
Smithsonian Magazine's account of the 1904 fire — the deadliest day in New York City before September 11 — and the exodus that made Yorkville German.
German Yorkville — The History of Manhattan's Germantown
For most of the twentieth century, Yorkville — E 79th to 96th Street, Third Avenue to the East River — was New York's Germantown: beer halls and dance halls on 86th Street, marzipan and smoked bratwurst on the avenues, German-language books at the library and German-language Mass on 87th Street. Most of that world is gone; more of it survives than people think. This guide covers how the neighborhood got its German identity, what 'German Broadway' was, and where to still find the real thing — every fact below is sourced, most of them from our daily 'Yorkville, Remembered' history corner.
How Yorkville became Germantown
Yorkville was already home to German immigrants when a single catastrophe cemented its identity as the city's Germantown. On June 15, 1904, the steamship General Slocum caught fire in the East River during the annual outing of the Lower East Side's St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church, killing more than 1,000 passengers, mostly women and children. Grieving survivors abandoned their shattered Kleindeutschland community downtown for Yorkville, transplanting German New York uptown and reinforcing a German character the neighborhood would keep for decades.
A library floor of German books
When the Yorkville Library opened on East 79th Street in 1902 — the first of the NYPL's Carnegie-funded branches — its third floor held only German-language books, sized to the neighborhood around it.
A parish founded in German
St. Joseph's at 404 East 87th Street traces to 1873, when German-speaking residents asked the Jesuits for a German-speaking priest; its stained glass still names the German-American families who paid for the 1895 building.
'German Broadway': East 86th Street
East 86th Street was Yorkville's 'German Broadway' for decades — beer gardens, dance halls, konditoreien and import houses running river to park. Its anchor was the Yorkville Casino at 210-214 East 86th Street, a six-story clubhouse built 1904-06 whose grand Tuxedo ballroom offered more than 15,000 square feet of floor and whose Deutsches Theatre was, by its chroniclers' account, the only movie house in the city then showing German-language films. The strip's history has a dark documented chapter too: starting in 1933 that same hall hosted the pro-Nazi Friends of New Germany's weekly meetings, and by 1938 was drawing German American Bund rallies — part of German Broadway's story as well. The old strip faded through the 1990s as rents rose and the generation that shopped in German moved on.
The Yorkville Casino
The 15,000-square-foot ballroom that anchored German Broadway — dance hall, German-language cinema, and the strip's most complicated history.
Elk Candy Company, the marzipan palace
Hand-made marzipan bunnies, eggs and pigs on East 86th Street - and when the shop closed, a family working to keep the marzipan tradition alive, as NPR told it.
The Kleine Konditorei and the rest of the strip
6sqft's tour of the vanished Germantown: the 'little pastry shop' at 234 East 86th, Cafe Geiger, the Lorelei dance hall, Bremen House and the merchants that closed as the strip's German character faded.
What's still here
The German Yorkville that survives is small, specific, and worth the trip. Both businesses below were open and serving when we last checked (September 2026); if that changes, our openings & closings tracker will say so.
Schaller & Weber (1654 Second Ave at 86th)
The German butcher and grocer that has anchored 86th and Second since 1937 — house-made wursts, imported groceries, and the neighborhood's most durable piece of Germantown.
Heidelberg (1648 Second Ave)
Of the dozens of German restaurants that once lined the neighborhood, the Heidelberg is the one still setting tables — accounts date it to 1936 or to a 1939 reopening of the Cafe Vaterland; the same family has run it since 1963.
German Mass at St. Joseph's
More than 150 years after its founding as a German national parish, St. Joseph's remains, per the Archdiocese, the only parish in the Archdiocese of New York with a regularly scheduled German-language Mass.
The Steuben Parade, every September
The German-American Steuben Parade first marched up Fifth Avenue on September 20, 1958, turning onto East 86th Street — the strip its committee calls the 'German Boulevard.' It still marches up Fifth each September, ending at 86th Street.
Names on the map
The neighborhood's German century is written into its proper nouns — sometimes in unexpected directions.
Carl Schurz Park
Renamed in 1910 for Carl Schurz — Union general and the first German-born American elected to the U.S. Senate. Our full guide to the park: yorkvilleledger.com/carl-schurz-park/.
York Avenue
Renamed from Avenue A in 1928 for Sgt. Alvin York, the WWI Medal of Honor recipient whose unit captured more than 125 German soldiers — a name that landed just as the avenue's blocks were filling with German immigrants.
Ruppert Yorkville Towers
Third Avenue between 90th and 94th stands on the site of the Jacob Ruppert Brewing Company — whose owner bought the Yankees in 1915 and paid for Babe Ruth with beer money.
Keep going
For the neighborhood as it is this morning — openings and closings, schools, real estate, and what's happening this week — The Yorkville Ledger publishes daily at yorkvilleledger.com. The history corner in each edition rotates through stories like the ones above. More guides: Carl Schurz Park (yorkvilleledger.com/carl-schurz-park/), Things to Do in Yorkville (yorkvilleledger.com/things-to-do-yorkville/), Yorkville with kids (yorkvilleledger.com/yorkville-with-kids/), and the running openings & closings tracker (yorkvilleledger.com/yorkville-openings-closings-tracker/).
Last reviewed 2026-09-18 · corrections: [email protected]