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Putting The New Hunters Point South Complex in Perspective for its Historical Location

History and The Waterfront Crabhouse

Tony Miller's Hotel, named after its popular proprietor, was constructed as a three-story building in 1881 and for the next 25 years anybody who was anybody important appeared there. Now, The Waterfront Crabhouse   The Waterfront Crabhouse   View across the Hunters Point South complex over the East River to Manhattan.

Long Island City, New York February 9, 2011 - One of the best ways to learn about the area where the new Hunters Point South Complex will be developed, is to get to know The Waterfront Crabhouse, where the announcement was made by Mayor Bloomberg, February 9, 2011. The HISTORY of The Waterfront Crabhouse location originally appeared as an article presented written by Joanne Gerber and appeared in the Queens Ledger, October 24, 1981. It is presented here as a matter of historical interest courtesy of The Waterfront Crabhouse and Queens Ledger.  In addition, the New York State Athletic Commission announced in December 2010 that The New York Boxing Hall of Fame would be located in Long Island City.  It's initial location will be The Waterfront Crabhouse. The years of travel When Anthony Mazzarella opened his restaurant, The Waterfront Crabhouse at 2-03 Borden Avenue, he did not know that the two-story, hundred year old building was something more significant than just a good piece of real estate. In the late 1800's-early 1900's, it was the social center of what was then a flourishing town, as well as a favorite watering spot for New York's theatrical, political and sporting elite. Tony Miller's Hotel, named after its popular proprietor, was constructed as a three-story building in 1881 and for the next 25 years anybody who was anybody important appeared there.   Visited by the Elite As described by the Long Island City Star in 1905, "What the Fifth Avenue Hotel is to Manhattan, Miller's Hotel is to Long Island City. It is an old landmark patronized by men who have held cabinet offices under our presidents, political leaders like Richard Croker (then head of the Democratic machine in Manhattan), multimillionaire like Russell Sage, military and naval officers of high degree, sportsmen like Lucky Baldwin, champion tennis players like the Doherty brothers...and others of international and national reputation too numerous to mention." The list of local political leading lights featured "Curly" Joe Cassidy, a Queens Borough President and a power in the Queens Democratic Party, Henry Debevoise, a mayor of Long Island City, John Sutphin, county clerk, and Congressman Timothy Campbell. The prosperity and eventual decline of Miller's Hotel mirrored the history of Long Island City. Both the town and the hotel benefitted from their location at the terminal of the Long Island Railroad. Since no bridge or tunnel connected the terminal to Manhattan, travellers took ferries from 34th or Fatten Streets to Queens, where they would walk across Borden Avenue to the trains. Usually 50,000 people made the trip each day. Some were probably commuters, others were headed out to summer homes on the island or to the Vanderbilt City races in Hempstead. Many would make a detour by way of Tony Miller's bar. Theodore Roosevelt was seen passing through. And 20 years ago a 90 year-old man told a Long Island Press reporter about the time he spotted another President at the hotel many years before. "I saw Grover Cleveland come off the 34th Street ferry and go into Miller's, walk over to the bar and have a drink before taking the Long Island Railroad train. Nowadays you know how they talk about having Secret Service men around the President all the time. Well, he was there without a guard of any kind. I could have reached over there and touched him."        A visitor to Miller's bar or restaurant might also have rubbed shoulders with some of the Whitney scions, architect Stanford White, racing driver Barney Oldfield, prize fighter Tim Sullivan, or some famous actors of the day, among them: John Drew, Lillian Russell, Louis Man, Henry Irving, Modjeska, and Mrs.J.Fiske.   Long Island City Changes Long Island City became a municipal entity in 1870, through the consolidation of the villages of Blissville, Hunters Point, Ravenswood, Astoria, Dutch Kills, and Bowery Bay. By the 1880's, Borden Avenue was a bustling commercial and residential street, with horse-drawn trolleys clattering down to the car barn next door to the hotel. Local factories making soap, dye, glue, varnish and other products were numerous enough to qualify Long Island City even then as a major manufacturing center. Yet the city was also a pleasant German-Irish residential community, boasting mansions scattered around the outskirts and fine brownstowns facing treelined streets. Nearby were farms, orchards and skating ponds. Miller's Hotel was the focal point of the town, partly because of the railroad, but also due to the fact that it was the largest and most spacious hotel in L.I.C. "On the ground floor is the bar, fitted with a huge circular counter in the shape of a horseshoe, each side being formed of a solid piece of black walnut thirty feet long," according to one 1881 account. "The fittings are of the most elaborate description - satin, wood panels, black walnut, mahogany and bird's eye maple trimmings... On the ground floor is a general dining room and two private dining rooms... The third floor was entireley devoted to bedrooms, there being 30 rooms of this character in the hotel."   Colorful Mayor Gleason It was also the unofficial headquarters of Long Island City's colorful mayor, Patrick "Battle Ax" Gleason, reelected several times until he lost his job when Queens joined New York City in 1898. Gleason's "office" was a bootblack's chair set up on the sidewalk next to the hotel. He would sit there for hours talking to his cronies and conducting city government. "Battle Ax" Gleason earned his nickname in 1888, when the L.I.R.R. constructed some workshops and a fence on Front Street (now 2nd Street), blocking the way so that the public could not pass without buying a railroad ticket. To put things right, Gleason and some followers armed themselves one night with axes and chopped the fence and sheds into pieces, to the cheers of Irish immigrants watching from their tenement windows. After the incident, his grateful constituents formed the Battle Ax Club, whose members would hang out at Miller's. While drinking at the bar two years later, Gleason made the front page of the New York Times by attacking George Crowley, an Associated Press reporter and Secretary of the Democratic County Committee. Gleason used Crowley's head to smash a glass cigar case in the lobby. The mayor was tried, fined $250 and sentenced to jail for five days, during which neighbors brought him flowers and home-cooked meals.   Progress and Decline Gleason's victory over the railroad was, in a sense, a temporary one. For in 1910 the L.I.R.R. built tunnels through to Penn Central Station, allowing passengers to bypass the ferry and Borden Avenue altogether.                              This and the opening of the Queensboro Bridge in 1909 eventually doomed Long Island City. Miller's Hotel became a quieter place after 1910; in 1916 it finally shut its doors for good. (Tony Miller never saw this happen since he died in 1897 and left the hotel under the management of a James Nixon.) For a while the area continued to thrive. Caroline Schiantella, 82 years old and a Long Island City resident for 75 years, remembers Borden Avenue during World War I as a street filled with bars, barbershops, hotels and food stores. Ferries were still bringing crowds to the railroad terminal, but by then the passengers were soldiers on their way to Camps Upton and Yaphank on Long Island. "I was a young girl, 18, and when I took the ferry home from work all the soldiers were around," said Schiantella. "I was embarrassed but they were very polite. I could hardly get to my door. I'd go upstairs and my sister and I used to wave to them. My father was a barber there, and when the trains came in, he would run into the closet bakery and buy pies, cut them up and give them to the boys." In 1919 the Prohibition dealt another blow by closing down the neighborhood's 350 saloons. In that same year, Miller's Hotel was sold and turned into a phonograph factory. The ferry also succumbed, closed down by the L.I.R.R. in 1925 after operating for years at a loss.   After 1920 The building that was once Miller's Hotel was used as a warehouse from the 1920's on. It briefly housed a hotel after World War II, and during the 1950's-60's had a small restaurant catering to workers from nearby factories. Long Island City in the meantime was engulfed by industrial expansion, with companies like Ford, Chicle, Pierce-Arrow, Sunshine and Packard setting up shop there. By the 1970's the increasing costs of staying in New York and a sluggish economy drove out many of the large manufacturers, leaving behind a tight-knit, predominantly Italian community to cope amidst shrinking city services. In recent years, the former Miller's Hotel passed through several owners. Mazzarella rebuilt the interior and opened his restaurant after a fire destroyed the top floor in 1975. Today his restaurant is again attracting patrons from all over the city, including its share of celebrities. Hockey player Bobby Hull was there, as was N.F.L. official Tony Vetteri, and because of the revival of Astoria Studios, the restaurant has been visited by Dustin Hoffman, Maureen O'Hara, Paul Newman and Ed Asner (the latter two during the filming of Fort Apache). Athletes and actors - reminiscent of the kind of people who dropped by in Tony Miller's day. Customers now dine on fish and meat combinations or a seafood "kettle" with homemade tomato sauce underneath prints of period posters, mounted song sheets, and, on one wall a large map of old Long Island City. Perhaps this 100-year old building will continue to reflect the fate of the neighborhood. The success of this and other businesses may be the bellwether of a revitalization of Long Island City bringing back some of the glory of the days when Paddy Gleason and company presided and brawled at Miller's bar. Original Article by Joanne Gerber appeared in Queens Ledger, October 24, 1981   Tony Miller's Hotel, named after its popular proprietor, was constructed as a three-story building in 1881 and for the next 25 years anybody who was anybody important appeared there. Now, The Waterfront Crabhouse The Waterfront Crabhouse View across the Hunters Point South complex over the East River to Manhattan.

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