Tag: NYC bottler

Duhme & Meyer, 115 Christopher St., N. Y.

 

Duhme & Meyer was a New York City mineral water manufacturer and a bottler of soda and beer that operated in lower Manhattan during much of the 1870’s and 1880’s. The proprietors were German immigrants Henry Duhme and Wiliam Meyer.

Census records indicate that Duhme arrived in the United States  from Hanover, Germany in 1848. By the early 1850’s he had apparently joined his brother Martin in the grocery business under the name “Duhme & Brother.” The 1851 N.Y.C. directory listed the business in lower Manhattan with an address of 17 Grand Street. By the mid-1850’s the name “Duhme & Brother” had disappeared from the directories however, both Duhme’s continued to be listed as grocers at several lower Manhattan locations up through the mid-1860’s.

It was around this time that Henry Duhme opened a saloon at 198 Bleeker Street as evidenced by the occupation he listed in the 1870 census records: “Lagerbier Saloon.” This likely occurred in 1868 when his occupation in the directories changed from “grocer” to “liquor.”

Sometime in the early 1870’s Duhme partnered with William Meyer and together they established Duhme & Meyer. Meyer had immigrated to the United States from Prussia and I suspect he had recently arrived in New York City after first settling in New Jersey.

The business of Duhme and Meyer was initially listed in the 1871 N.Y.C directory at 112 Prince Street where they remained for over ten years. Early directories (1871 to 1875) referenced the company as a “soda” business while later directories called them “bottlers.” They were certainly bottling beer as well as soda in 1875 as evidenced by a Duhme & Meyer bottle found in a collection presented on brucemobley.com. The bottle is embossed “Lager Beer” on the front, with the year 1875 embossed on the back.

 

It wouldn’t be a surprise if the bottling business was actually an outgrowth of Duhme’s saloon business and they were bottling beer from the start but that’s entirely conjecture on my part.

Sometime in 1883 Duhme & Meyer moved to 115 Christopher Street where they were listed in the N.Y.C. directories until 1886 when Duhme apparently left the business. He ultimately moved to Brooklyn where 1900 census records listed his occupation as a real estate agent. He passed away in March 1909.

The bottling business continued to operate under the management of the Meyer family after Duhme’s departure. In 1887, both William Meyer and Henry W. Meyer, were listed with the occupation “waters,” at 115 Christopher Street. Henry was almost certainly William’s son, who, according to 1880 census records, was born in 1871.

The following year William Meyer was no longer listed, apparently leaving the business in the hands of his son who continued to operate it at 115 Christopher Street up until 1898.

A bottle embossed Henry W. Meyer exhibiting  the 115 Christopher Street address was found in the collection of Mike AKA Chinchillaman1 at http://mikesbottleroom.weebly.com (no relation to this web site).

Sometime in 1898 Meyer moved the business to 218 West 22nd Street. The move was almost certainly associated with a reduction in business due to New York State’s enactment of their 1896 liquor tax law, popularly referred to as Raines Law. Among other things, the law included an $800 license fee making it difficult for much of Meyer’s small business clientele to remain in business.

Shortly after the move the business came to a tragic end when Henry W, Meyer committed suicide. A story in the May 21, 1899 edition of the New York Tribune provided the sad details.

Henry W. Meyer, head of the firm Henry W. Meyer & Co., manufacturers of soda water, committed suicide yesterday afternoon at his home, No. 215 Tenth Ave., by taking muriatic acid. The shrinking of his extensive business to a condition of poor trade by the closing up of many small dealers with whom he had a monopoly of trade is thought to have caused Myer’s act. Myer lived with his wife and four children on the second floor of the Tenth Ave. house. His factory is in Twenty second Street between Tenth and Eleventh Aves. The man had built up a large business among the small saloons in the city, especially on the East Side. The Raines Law license drove a great many of these dealers out of business, and Meyer’s trade suffered, as he found himself unable to compete with the larger dealers.

The bottle I found is a pony with an applied blob finish that includes the embossed Christopher Street address. The monogramed back includes the embossed year 1883, suggesting it was manufactured specifically to reflect Duhme & Meyer’s move to new quarters that year.

Streeteasy.com reports that today the building at 115 Christopher Street was built in 1904, so it does not date back to the time frame of the business.

H. Harkavy, 510 – 512 E 85th St., N.Y.

Hyman (sometimes Herman, sometimes Harry) Harkavy was a Russian immigrant who, around the turn of the century, established a business that manufactured and bottled mineral/soda water.  Originally located in Manhattan, the company later moved to the Bronx.

The first listing I can find for his business was in the 1900 New York City Directory with an address of 193 Broome Street. In 1902 and 1903 the business was listed at 413 East 24th Street, then sometime around 1905 it moved to the address embossed on the bottle, 510 East 85th Street, where it remained until approximately 1931.

Originally the business was quite small and family run. Testimony from a 1934 court case, “Harkavy Beverage Co., Inc. against David Radek, et al,” indicated that in 1926 H. Harkavy had approximately 20 employees and that his son, Harry Harkavy was serving as General Manager. Then, in an effort to expand, on May 22, 1926 the business incorporated under the name “Harkavy Beverage Co., Inc.”

This advertising sign recently offered for sale on the internet listed a wide variety of carbonated drinks that the business was manufacturing under the corporate name.

By the early 1930’s the company had moved north from Manhattan to the Bronx, listing their address as 415 Concord Avenue in the 1931 directory. The 1930 census records listed Hyman Harkavy’s spouse Jennie as a widow so Harkavy had apparently passed away sometime in the late 1920’s leaving his son Harry as president.

In 1946, the Harkavy Beverage Co. formed a second company called Doc’s Beverages, Inc. Both the Harkavy Beverage Co. and Doc’s Beverages were listed in the 1948 and 1949 NYC directories at 415 Concord Avenue.

The summary of another court case, Dad’s Root Beer vs. Doc’s Beverages, Inc., et al.,” spells out the reasoning and history behind the second corporation.

In 1941, the plantiff (Dad’s Root Beer Co.) granted to defendant, Harkavy Beverage Co., Inc., the franchise for the Borough of Bronx and the County of Westchester in New York. For the next six years the concern continued to sell there plaintiff’s product which it manufactured from concentrate purchased from plaintiff. In 1946, however, the individual defendants formed Doc’s Beverages, Inc., the other corporate defendant, and began sometime later to substitute their own product, Doc’s Old Fashioned Root Beer, bottled, labeled and boxed in strikingly similar fashion on orders for plaintiff’s root beer. When plaintiff discovered this fact in March 1947, it terminated the franchise, and in October of that year filed the complaint in this action.

This advertising sign, also recently for sale on the internet, depicts “Doc’s Old Fashioned Root Beer” being sold under the Doc’s Beverages, Inc.’s name.

Dad’s Root Beer was granted and injunction in the case and other than an accounting of profits, Harkavy/Doc’s did not appeal.

On a side note: I was contacted by Harkavy’s granddaughter who, after reading an earlier version of this post, informed me that Doc’s was named after Harkavy’s brother, Nathan, who was a dentist; hence the name Doc.

In 1953, the Harkavy Beverage Co., Inc. and Doc’s Beverages, Inc. were both listed at 629 East 136th Street in the Bronx. That address was also the listed address of the Apollo Bottling Company. According to “The Practical Brewer: A Manual for the Brewing Industry,” some of the assets of the Harkavy Beverage Company were ultimately purchased by the Apollo Bottling Company. The timing of this purchase is not clear to me.

According to streeteasy.com 510 East 85th Street is, today, a 13 story apartment building built in 1956 so it does not date back to the business. The same website indicates that the existing building at 415 Concord Avenue was built in 1931 so Harkavy was likely the original tenant at this location.

The bottle I found is 27 oz. with a crown finish. It’s embossed with the East 85th Street address so it dates between 1905 and 1931 when the company was located at that address. Machine made, it likely dates to the teens or 20’s.

M. Bacci, Italian-American Bottling Co., 451-455 Pearl St., N.Y.

According to census records, Michael Bacci (Michele Baoci) immigrated to the United States from Italy sometime between 1875 (1900 census records) and 1880 (1910 census records). He operated a local business in lower Manhattan, near what is now Foley Square, for over 40 years.

He was first listed in the New York City directories in the late 1880’s as a grocer located at 88 Park Street (1889 to 1894) and later 46 Park Street (1896 to 1897) in Manhattan. (Note: Park Street in Manhattan no longer exists having been de-mapped in the 1900’s. A one-block section of it still exists today as Mosco Street.)

In 1898 his occupation, as listed in the directories, changed to “liquors” and his address changed to 504 Pearl Street. Census records from 1900 indicated that he was the proprietor of a “saloon.”

In 1902, his son, Frank Bacci, joined him in business and between 1902 and 1907 the NYC Copartnership and Corporation directories listed the company as M. Bacci & Son naming both Michael and Frank as partners.  In 1908 Frank apparently left the business. Afterwards, until 1912, the business continued to be listed as M. Bacci & Son but Michael was now named as the sole proprietor in the directories.  During this period the business continued to be listed as “liquors” at 504 Pearl Street.

In September, 1913 Michael Bacci filed plans for the construction of a new building at 451 Pearl Street, the address embossed on the bottle that I found. An item announcing the new building was published in the September 20, 1913 issue of a publication called the “Engineering Record,”

New York, N.Y. – Plans have been filed for erection of the following buildings: 6-story brick tenement and store at 451 Pearl St. for Michael Bacci, cost $30,000. Matthew W. Del Gaudio, Archt., 401 E. Tremont Ave…

Bacci was first listed at 451 Pearl Street in the 1915 NYC Directory and subsequently both lived and ran a grocery business out of that location. The Orrin Thacker 1917 Directory of Wholesale Grocers listed him as a wholesale grocer focused on Italian products and over the 14 year period from 1915 to 1929, NYC directories associated him with several related occupations that included “wholesale grocer,” “food products” and “importer.”

Census records from 1930 listed Bacci’s wife as a widow so he apparently passed away sometime in 1929 or 1930.

While I can’t find any mention of the Italian American Bottling Company in the NYC directories, Bacci was bottling beverages dating at least as far back as his early 1900’s saloon business. I’ve seen bottles pictured on the internet embossed “Italian American Bottling Company.” whose embossing also includes the company name, “M. Bacci & Son.”

The bottle I found is a champagne style beer bottle embossed with the more recent building address of 451-55 Pearl Street which puts its manufacture no earlier than 1914 or 1915. It has a blob finish so it likely wasn’t made much later than that. It must have contained a brew favored by the Italian community.