Huntington History

Only a hand full of buildings survived the Urban renewal initiative that devasted Huntington Station in the 1960s and 70s.  Now with the demise of the former auto repair shop at 1000 New York Avenue, there is one less.  Right next door to the now gone auto repair shop stands a surviror with a long standing conection to Huntington’s African American community.

The story begins in 1906 when Louis M. Brush filed a subdivision map for a large tract of land on the east side of New York Avenue, south of Olive Street.  The subdivision of 337 lots was known as Highland Park.  The subject property, 1006 New York Avenue, comprises lots 31 and 32 of the subdivision.

On August 23, 1909, Brush conveyed the property to Charles W. Fox (Liber 708, page 563).  Less than two weeks later, Fox conveyed the property to Emma Paulding pending payment of a $2,000 loan due in three years at an interest rate of 6%. (Mortgage Liber 346, page 124).  Under the terms of the transaction, Fox was obligated to insure the buildings on the property, indicating that buildings existing in 1909.  Although the 1909 atlas does not show any buildings, an item in The Long-Islander edition of October 2, 1908 indicates that Mr. & Mrs. Jurgensmaier had broken ground on a new residence in Highland Park.  The 1917 atlas identifies the owner of the property to the south of the subject property as Jurgensmaier.  The reference in the mortgage and the development of the adjoining property point to a construction date of about 1909 for the subject premises.

Over the next decade, the property changed hands several time among the children of builder George W. Fox[1].  Charles Fox sold the property to Elizabeth B. Gardiner (The Long-Islander, February 25, 1910, page 5).  She then sold the property to Oscar W. Fox (The Long-Islander, March 24, 1911, page 5), who then transferred it back to her (The Long-Islander, October 18, 1912, page 5).  Finally, she transferred it back to Oscar W. Fox one last time (The Long-Islander, March 17, 1916, page 4).  Interestingly, these transfers were all reported in The Long-Islander, but not found in the County Clerk’s records during a title search.

The property left the family in 1917 when Oscar sold the property to Cecelia Kehoe.  (The Long-Islander, January 26, 1917, page 4).  Apparently, George Fox had given the purchasers a loan to purchase the property and they defaulted on it because notice of foreclosure and sale of the property was printed in The Long-Islander on December 7, 1917, page 9.  However, it appears that the original mortgage from Emma Paulding had never been satisfied.  An action between Emma Paulding and members of the Fox family resulted in a judgment for Paulding in the amount of $2,532.36 on October 11, 1918 and the transfer of ownership of the property to George Fox (Liber 965, page 477).

George Fox then sold the property to Charles H. Ballton on April 19, 1920 (Liber 997, page 366).  The deed refers to a $2,000 mortgage, but the earlier mortgage had been discharged and no record of a mortgage given by Charles Ballton was found in the County Court records.  Charles H. Ballton was the son of the famous Greenlawn entrepreneur and farmer Samuel Ballton, known as the Pickle King.  Charles Ballton owned a moving and trucking company and also engaged in the sale of sand and gravel and refuse removal.  (Advertisement in The Long-Islander, September 11, 1925, page 17).

Less than two years later Ballton conveyed the property to the Crispus Attucks Lodge No. 9055 of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows (John H. Plummer, George Allen and Charles H. Ballton, trustees) for $3,200 (Liber 1033, page 595).  The Grand United Order of Odd Fellows was a fraternal organization first chartered in this country in 1843 when a lodge in Philadelphia was established with a charter from the Grand Lodge in Manchester, England.  In this country, African American Odd Fellow lodges were generally associated with the Grand United O rder, whereas white lodges were affiliated with the Independent Order.  The Huntington lodge was established in 1913 with 30 members (The Long-Islander, August 22, 1913, page 4).  It was named for the African American who was one of the five people killed in the Boston Massacre in 1770.

According to Richard Robertson, the nephew of Charles Ballton, the building was known as Odd Fellows Hall.  The Odd Fellows met upstairs (the Elks Club met there as well).  Downstairs was an apartment in which Mr. Robertson’s aunt Maude Smith lived.  Maude Smith was the granddaughter of Benjamin Ballton, who was Charles Ballton’s brother.

According to Mr. Robertson, the Odd Fellows was made up of brick masons from the south.  The only young members were a man named Shakespeare and George and Willy King, who owned the biggest black construction company in Huntington.

Maude Smith moved out of the building in the mid-1930s.  After she moved out, two of Benjamin Ballton’s sisters operated a restaurant there, serving what would now be called soul food.  Mr. Robertson said that after the end of the World War II the Odd Fellows started meeting at Rosetta Hall on Church Street, which was behind the firehouse and also owned by Charles Ballton.  Mr. Robertson thought the upstairs of the subject property remained vacant for a long time after the Odd Fellows moved to Rosetta Hall.  This recollection coincides with the sale of the property by the Odd Fellows in January 1945 to Max and Clara Herman for $3,875.  (Liber 2419, page 139).

Max Herman was a kosher butcher, who had a shop two doors down from the subject property.  He was in town by 1924 when he advertised in The Long-Islander (May 23, 1924, page 4) (“If you have chickens for sale, communicate with Max Herman, Butcher”).  According to Adele Kalstein, whose parents operated a grocery store in the same building as Herman’s butcher shop, Herman was an exclusively kosher butcher and attracted customers from a wide area.  Next door to the north was the butcher shop of Samuel Levy, who arrived in town as early as 1917 (The Long-Islander, January 12, 1917, page 6 and April 6, 1917, page 6).  However, Levy sold both kosher and non-kosher meats and, therefore, did not attract as many kosher customers.

Herman apparently owned the subject property as an investment.  It is believed that the storefront has been used as a barbershop since the 1940s.  Mr. Herman died on February 7, 1965 (The New York Times, February 10, 1965, Obituary section).  Later that year, Sam Raskin, as executor of Herman’s estate, sold the property to Brun-Wal Corp. of 780 New York Avenue (Liber 5764, page 1574).  The corporation conveyed the property to James F. Straub in 1970 (Liber 6860, page 301).  The current owner, Rehab Investors, acquired the property in 1979 (Liber 8670, page 7).

ADDENDUM:  Odd Fellows Hall was demolished in the Fall of 2018 as part of Renaissance Downtowns’ Gateway Plaza Project.  See http://renaissancedowntowns.com/projects/huntington-station/