Manhattan Valley Tutors

About Manhattan Valley

For nearly ninety years, Lion Brewing, a former mainstay in Manhattan Valley, New York, occupied the six city blocks immediately west of Central Park between 107th and 109th streets. Founded by German immigrant James Speyers and Swiss-German immigrant Emanuel Bernheimer in 1857, Lion Brewing was built by Catholic Bavarians, who held mass there on Sunday mornings once the building was complete.

Bernheimer was no stranger to breweries. He and another Swiss-German immigrant, August Schmid, had already founded the Costanz Brewery near East 4th Street and Avenue B. Costanz specialized in lagered beer, an immigrant favorite, and a second Costanz location on Staten Island soon followed.

Five years after the founding of Lion Brewing, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Internal Revenue Act of 1862 to raise funds to finance the Civil War. He also selected George Boutwell as the first Commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue. It took Boutwell six months to hire staff and establish almost 200 collection districts. Then he was ready to begin enforcing tax laws, including a new one on liquor: distillers and brewers were to pay fifty dollars per year for a license, twenty cents per gallon of spirits, and a dollar per thirty-one-gallon barrel of porter, ale, lager, or beer.

A group of American brewers, all German immigrants, decided to meet to discuss how to deal with the tax. Among these were Bernheimer, Schmid, and Speyers. Along with John Katzenmeyer, a bookkeeper for another of Schmid’s breweries, they founded the United States Brewers Association. The purpose of the organization—the first trade association in the U.S.—was not necessarily to fight tax legislation, but to organize themselves to deal effectively with federal taxation laws and authorities. Representatives from thirty-seven local breweries attended the organization’s inaugural planning meeting. When the organization became national, thirty-four brewers from the eastern United States attended USBA’s first national convention.

The new taxes on liquor drove smaller brewers out of business, benefitting Lion’s growth. By 1895, run by the founders’ sons and nephews, it became the sixth largest in the U.S. The site was massive, containing adjacent picnic grounds and a dance hall at 108th Street.

Unfortunately, Lion Brewery got caught in the middle of a series of mergers and closing of smaller area brewers, and, in 1941, it shut its doors. The brewery and canning facilities were auctioned off and the plant demolished in 1944. The demolition recovered over three thousand pounds of scrap steel that were used for World War II supplies. The site was paved over, and, after World War II ended, returning veterans could be found playing softball there on most Sunday afternoons, with home plate located close to 107th Street and Columbus Avenue.

Although Lion Brewing is now the site of apartment houses, its existence provides a storyline from which Manhattan Valley tutors and teachers can teach the region’s early history. Students who work with Manhattan Valley tutors can tap into that rich history to fully appreciate their community’s history.