Back in its heyday, the Yorkville area was home to factories and big breweries..one of the largest of these was the Ruppert Brewery, which took up several blocks in North Yorkville between Second and Third Avenue.

After World War II, national breweries such as Anheuser Busch started huge marketing programs which marked the homogenization of American beer drinking tastes and the decline of local breweries everywhere..

NYC before Prohibition had tons of small breweries and beer gardens, especially on what was then rural Staten Island, where people would take the ferry from "The City" and go for outings especially in the summer. There is one Czech brewery that is still around which is a holdout from those days..

NY beers included Rheingold, with its famous ( and frequently kidded) "Miss Rheingold" campaigns, with ads especially in the subways...

Later, of course, there was also a "Miss Subways" campaign that was also pretty hokey but which was part of the City where Jackie Gleason and Art Carney were two rather typical colorful local characters with their wives on"The Honeymooners" show....

Well, the City as I understand it at some point- believe this was late 70's--decided it had to build good quality housing on what was now the defunct Ruppert Brewery site...

And so they erected the big Ruppert Towers project, with park land and playgrounds, a pedestrians-only street on one block, and started a process of gentrification which was, however, not an immediate success..
From the beginning, Ruppert Towers was SUPPOSED to have, I believe, a certain percentage of "affordable housing" apartments and some disputes arose over these because as I remember some people claimed the City was going to house/ was already housing welfare families in them...

Well, SOMETHING happened with all this, and I notice that there is a plaque in the main park area that the whole project was "re-dedicated" in the late 1980's...why "re-dedicated?'

The whole Ruppert area has a lot of commercial space, a post office for the 10128 Zip Code which is mostly Yorkville ( and Carnegie Hill now, too)...

But I know there are some more interesting bits about this...let me just post something from the net to give you an idea how this all evolved...here from a site called "Wikimapia"-- sort of a funny posting, especially if you play close attention to the comments attached...

Ruppert-Yorkville Towers (New York City, New York)

USA / New Jersey / West New York / New York City, New York

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Site of the former Ruppert Brewery (owned by Jacob Ruppert, who owned the Yankees).

Built in the 1970s under the Mitchell-Lama housing program as government assisted middle income housing. Converted to
condominiums in 2003. Now houses large numbers of families with young children, as well as many elderly residents.

Nearby cities: Newark, New Jersey, New York City, New York, Town of Huntington

Coordinates: 40°46'54"N 73°57'1"W

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dZheck_SPb wrote about Harlem Meer 4 months ago

Do the Harlem Shake! ;)
Manan patel New Eraite (guest) wrote about Central Park 4 months ago

hmm! very huge
FilmFan wrote about Big Nick's 6 months ago

Rumors in early 2013 are that this neighborhood staple will be closing since the landlord plans on hiking the rent.
JoeWikimapia wrote about Home Plate, Yankee Stadium 9 months ago

They bulldozed it. What a disgrace.
Lop (guest) wrote about Independence Harbor 10 months ago

The teen singer JoJo lived there.

HOWEVER, the whole area around Ruppert Towers is now so built up with condo developments that comparing it to the Frederick Douglass Houses is something of a laugh...If you have been following my blog at all, you know how the whole area has changed, especially with the new "Carnegie Hill" designation for Upper Yorkville...

By the way, Mayor Rudi Giuliani lived for several years in a condo just North of the Ruppert Towers after divorcing his wife...which also meant a lot of uniform and plainclothes cops were in the once crime-problematic area ( especially 96th Street) --that had quite an impact....

Midtown Blogger/Manhattan Valley Follies

Friday, July 5, 2013

Ruppert Towers and the March of the Big Apartment buildings into North Yorkville...

Ruppert-Yorkville Towers (New York City, New York)

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