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🏘️ Croton Local History
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with pheasant or wild boar meat was a great delicacy. Now we make with beef or chicken.” The porch of the Nikko Inn. “You know all these popular jazz songs have same rhythm as geisha girl song,” he said, coming back to his favorite theme.
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“Million-Dollar Baby just like old geisha girl song I heard in Japan many years ago. Geisha girls very fond of skiyaki. I hope you like it.” For my benefit Roy turned on an artificial moon, which shed its rays over the beautiful little lake below his
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Japanese “tea” house. “I like because it reminds me of Nikko,” he said, perhaps dreaming of his far-off Nippon. “You mean it looks like Nikko might look if it didn’t look the way it did,” I corrected. But I added that the skiyaki did a lot to create
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the illusion. As a matter of fact this little lake with its Japanese teahouse has the most “Japaneseey” outlook and atmosphere of any spot around New York. Coming next: Some multi-talented Federal prohibition agents use a clever ruse to bust the
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Nikko Inn in 1922. Share this: Print (Opens in new window) Print Email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Share on X (Opens in new window) X Share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
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Pinterest Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn Like Loading... Related Tagged Nikko Inn prohibition speakeasies Published March 13, 2013 August 12, 2014
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On June 17, 1922 the New York Times published an article on several raids conducted by Federal prohibition agents. The Central Brewing Company in New York City was indicted for selling beer with more than 4% alcohol content. The Feds also seized a
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Rabbi’s wine, a widow’s whiskey still and further upstate some multi-talented agents raided the Nikko Inn. The Nikko Inn at Harmon-on-Hudson [was] raided yesterday by Federal Prohibition Agents William McKay, Peter Reager and Leonard Gallante. At the
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Nikko Inn the agents represented themselves as actors. Charles Hase, the owner of the place, asked them to “do a turn” for him. McKay fiddled, Reager sang and Gallante danced. The innkeeper was satisfied with their work and was about to hire them,
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when the agents, after having been served with drinks, as they alleged, at $1.50 a drink, arrested Hase and a waiter, Hero Gotow, on a charge of violating the Volstead act. They gave $1,000 bail each for appearance Monday before a United States
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Commissioner. Share this: Print (Opens in new window) Print Email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Share on X (Opens in new window) X Share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
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Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn Like Loading... Related Tagged Nikko Inn prohibition speakeasies Published March 14, 2013 August 12, 2014
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Inventor Charles T. Harvey making a test run on December 7, 1867. The amazing thing about searching with Google is that not only can you find a needle in the internet haystack—sometimes you find needles you weren’t even looking for, like this story
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of Richard T. Underhill’s involvement in the West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway Company, the company that began the New York City transportation system. First some background, courtesy of the Mid-Continent Railway Museum in New Freedom, Wisconsin:
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“In 1867, Charles T. Harvey (1829-1912), a self-trained civil engineer . . . built an experimental single-track, cable-powered elevated railway from Battery Place, at the south end of Manhattan Island, northward up Greenwich Street to Cortlandt
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Street. His company had been chartered the year before under the name of the West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway Company, with subscribed capital of $100,000, to build a 25-mile elevated railroad from the southern extremity of the city northward
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through the city and thence to the village of Yonkers. The half-mile line was dubbed the “one-legged railroad,” because the single track ran above the street on a single row of columns. The cable was a loop, driven by a stationary engine, that ran
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between the rails for propulsion of the cars, then returned under the street. The concept was similar in many respects to that used by the San Francisco cable cars five years later—the primary difference being that Harvey’s patent called for the car
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to be secured to the cable by a sort of claw that would grab onto metal collars woven into the cable rather than a Hallidie-type “grip.” Cable car #1 of the West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway Company, shown in 1869 at the 29th Street Station. The
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line opened for business July 1, 1868, and [after] the State Commissioners who authorized the “experiment” . . . declared it a success, the Governor authorized its completion to Spuyten Duyvil . . . But the line had ongoing problems. The mechanics of
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grasping the cable proved less-than-perfect. Maintaining the mile-long cable was a problem. Having it “return” under the street was a problem that was soon fixed by having it return at track level, but it still had to be directed off the track and
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into the building where the stationary engine sat. Legal problems were constant, largely at the instigation of those who wanted the franchise for themselves.” The line at 9th Avenue and Gansevoort Street, showing the cable mechanism under the tracks.
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In his 1890 book The Most Notable Robbery of Modern Times —about the legal and financial chicanery in the early New York City transit system—Stephens O. Jennings wrote about Richard Underhill’s role as an investor in the West Side and Yonkers Patent
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Railway Company. Jennings knew Underhill personally and he not only adds to our knowledge about the “Grape King” of Croton Point, he prints a portrait of Underhill as well. According to Jennings , Underhill “appreciated the desirability of more rapid
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transit between his country residence and city office, and at an early date investigated and advocated Mr. Harvey’s plans as having the germ of the greatly needed boon.” Portrait of Richard T. Underhill from The Most Notable Robbery of Modern Times
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by Stephens O. Jennings, 1890. “Dr. Underhill became a subscriber; he . . . gave personal attention to the progress made, and counseled with the projector in his arduous labors. In like manner Dr. Underhill’s memory should be coupled with the
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elevated system, and one incident will suffice to show the propriety of so doing. As the time drew near in 1870 to open the railway to public use, he counseled great care in proving its safety. A car loaded with a heavy test weight of pig-iron was
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drawn over the line by horses with satisfactory results. But this did not show the effects of speed, and Doctor Underhill favored a test as to that element of danger. Accordingly one afternoon, the test car was coupled to a passenger car, to be run
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over the route by the cable machinery. The Doctor, Mr. Harvey, and [this] writer entered the car, which was soon running at high speed. At the longest bridge and sharpest curve in combination on the route, the centrifugal force of the load shifted
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the supporting beams and bent a column arm, causing a section of the track to slide into the street below, and the car with its three inmates also went down. Providentially, no one was injured. When the track was repaired and new safe guards added,