Status: 02/09/2022 12:48 p.m
The German men’s choral society came together here, weddings were celebrated and films were shot. Now the wrecking ball is supposed to end the 130-year history of the Grand Prospect Hall.
Even those who have never seen the Grand Prospect Hall – almost every New Yorker knows this commercial from local television: “We make your dreams come true.”
A place where dreams came true. 130 years. A huge Victorian style ballroom. With curved marble staircases, antique columns and roof terraces. With red plush curtains, chandeliers and lots of gold. Countless weddings, proms and bar mitzvahs have been celebrated here. And now – comes the wrecking ball.
“This place has given us so much”
“Every time we’ve been here, we’ve said, ‘We can’t wait to come back.’ It’s really hard to imagine that we’ll never be able to visit this wonderful place again. That nobody can. This place has given us so much,” says Julie Spiegel.
When the Grand Prospect Hall in Brooklyn’s Park Slope, which was closed a few months ago due to the corona pandemic, was covered with plywood boards, her 17-year-old daughter Solya and her boyfriend founded a citizens’ initiative to prevent the worst – but in vain.
“Demolition” is written on the signs on the wooden fence: “Abriss”. When it comes to shedding the old to create something new, Americans are not squeamish. And certainly not the New Yorkers. Monument protection is a largely unknown concept here.
The “Versailles of Entertainment”
The last owner died from Covid-19: Michael Halkias, the one from the TV spot. Two months later, his wife Alice decided to sell the building. A sad day. Apparently she didn’t love the building like Michael did.
Glenn Palmedo Smith has a very special connection to the Grand Prospect Hall. He is the great-great-grandson of John Kolle, the German immigrant who had the building built in 1892 as the “German Dance Hall”.
He has called it “the Versailles of entertainment”. Here was the first bowling alley in all of New York, twelve lanes in the basement. There was the first hand-operated birdcage elevator in Brooklyn. Silent films were shown in the Venetian Gardens in front of up to 1000 visitors. And in the opera hall there were big music events. When William Jennings Bryan ran for president in 1896, there was a rally here in front of 6,500 people.
A meeting point for German immigrants
Initially, however, the “German Dance Hall” was primarily a meeting place for German immigrants. With an inn, beer garden and rehearsal room for the male choir, says historian Andrew Dolkart of New York’s Columbia University:
There was a huge German community in the New York area at the time. Brooklyn was an independent city until 1898. New York City consisted only of Manhattan and parts of the Bronx. For much of the 19th century, New York was the third largest German-speaking city in the world, after Berlin and Vienna.
The history of the building began as a meeting place for the German community in the American metropolis.
Image: dpa
From the wedding to the and film set
After the Second World War, the German-American festival hall became one of the addresses for family celebrations of all kinds in Brooklyn – and a sought-after film backdrop: 2001 in Wes Anderson’s “The Royal Tenenbaums”, later in the series “Gossip Girl” and in the last season from “Twin Peaks”. And the Halkias family’s iconic advert became a gag on Jimmy Kimmel and the Saturday Night Live show.
But now the splendor of the past 130 years is over. The new owner, a building contractor, has already cleared out the inventory. When it gets warmer, one of the last German-American landmarks in New York will be demolished for good.
Historical German “Grand Prospect Hall” in New York is demolished
Peter Mücke, ARD New York, February 9, 2022 11:51 a.m