Yorkville, New York
Yorkville, New York (once known as Germantown) is a neighborhood on the upper east side of Manhattan. The area comprises 79th to 96th streets and Third Avenue to the East River.
Germantown became a thriving German-American community in the 1930s with German-oriented restaurants and shops. The neighborhood declined in the 1960s when German businesses were driven out due to high rents and Jewish real-estate developers like the Ornstein family.[1] Also during this time immigration laws were changed where fewer German immigrants arrived being replaced by new arrivals from the Third World.
During the 1930s and early 1940s Yorkville became a hotbed of political activism with the presence of the German American Bund and the Christian Front. Nationalist speakers would hold daily rallies on street corners usually condemning Jews and President Franklin Roosevelt. The Yorkville Casino a six-story entertainment center located at 210 E. 86th Street contained a motion picture theater, vaudeville stage, and dance ballrooms which hosted Bund meetings.[2]
Due to anti-German sentiment as a result of two World Wars, younger German-Americans of the community Anglicized their names and moved to the suburbs of Long Island and New Jersey.
