The Ottendorfer Library in New York is a remnant of a once-bustling Manhattan neighbourhood known as Little Germany. — BENNO SCHWINGHAMMER/dpa
The Ottendorfer Library is a solid brick building with the words Free Library and Reading Hall on its façade.Built in 1884, it is still a library today – and a trace of a once-bustling German neighbourhood, located in Manhattan's busy Second Avenue in the United States.
Known as Little Germany, it was a community of people who ate German food, pursued German customs and spoke the German language.
That was in 1850, when New York City was home to the world's third-largest German-speaking population, after Berlin and Vienna.
Little Germany, located in what is now the East Village and Lower East Side in Manhattan, boomed just like Chinatown and Little Italy, until catastrophe caused its downfall 120 years ago.
Disaster at German festival
It was a beautiful morning in June 1904 when 1,350 people – mostly women and children of German descent – were celebrating the end of the school year.
Just as it did every summer, the Lutheran St Marks Church had chartered the SS General Slocum for the German-American community on the Lower East Side.
But this year marked one of the greatest civilian shipping disasters in US history. Half an hour after the steamer left the dock, a fire broke out in a storage room.
Later investigations showed that a spark from a cigarette or straw improperly stored let to the blaze, ignited by the galley.
Fire like 'hell itself'
Attempts to extinguish the fire failed. The crew is believed to have told Captain Van Schaick: "It's as if we had to extinguish hell itself."
The ship, some 76m long and 21m wide, sank off the coast of the Bronx at Hell Gate, a narrow tidal strait in the East River.
Hundreds of passengers suffocated, were burnt or drowned in the heavy swell. Many were unable to swim and were dragged under by their long, heavy garments, so fashionable at the time.
The day which had begun so happily ended with the deaths of more than 1,000 people, most of them women and children of German origin.
It was the greatest loss of human life in a NYC disaster until 9/11 – and the second-worst maritime disaster to happen in the US.
A blow for Little Germany
New York's Little Germany never recovered. It had been a vibrant community of more than 50,000 German immigrants, and covering some 40 blocks.
At the time, some half a million New Yorkers spoke German and the number grew as ships brought newcomers every week.
The area around Tompkins Park was home to beer gardens, delicatessens, German schools and churches, choral societies, sports clubs and shooting clubs.
But after the General Slocum disaster, hundreds of men lost their families. Kindergartens and school yards remained empty, dozens of widowers took their own lives or fell into depression.
Others went back to Germany or moved further north in Manhattan, to Yorkville, where a second Little Germany eventually emerged, though it remained a pale reflection of the original.
From wars to assimilation
The tragedy was not the only reason for the disappearance of the community.
"At the end of the 19th century and in the 20th century, there was already an expectation that not only Germans, but also other citizens, would assimilate more and identify more with America than with their national roots," says diplomat David Gill, German Consul General in New York from 2017 to 2024.
Another factor accelerated the development among German-Americans, he says.
Plus, as many German immigrants rose up in society, they left their roots behind.
But the community was not wholly erased, with the achievements of some still marking the city, most notably John Augustus Roebling, who designed Brooklyn Bridge. – dpa
