Kreischerville's Rise and Fall

Balthasar named his mansion Fairview, it sat on top of a steep hill in Kreischerville.

The Kreischer Mansion was built in 1885 by a man named Balthasar Kreischer. Balthasar was a wealthy and successful brick manufacture who learned what he knew of brick making in Europe before he immigrated here in 1836.  He built this house along with another similar house for his son and daughter in law as a wedding gift.The other one burnt down ( reason unknown) after a very heated father/son fight, and the newlyweds were killed. From what I have heard the fight was very serous and Balthasar and his son where at each others throats. They weren't able to get over the fight and his son died while they were still fighting. The remaining mansion was turned into a restaurant and was said to be haunted. People reported doors slamming and lights turning on and off. I found a couple stories of the hauntings:

this is definitely i worked at the restaurant for about two weeks. i was a busboy there, and one night i waas sent into the basement to get supplies for the owner. i heard a door shut in the back of the basement. wondering who it was i went to the back and found nothing. after hearing some more suspicious noises i went back upstairs without the supplies. what i heard sounded like argueing but i was sure there was no one there. i quit my job there shortly after.-Chris

OMG! this place is freaky. 2 years ago a bunch of friends and I idled our car in front of the house. My friend (driver) started yelling at the house and siad that the guy dserved to bed dead and such… and some old guy in a pin-strip suit walked through the gate and made a swipe at the window. I screamed for my friend to hit the gas… turns out noone else saw the guy walk and the car and swip it…
Freaky part: after we were driving away finger marks streaked down the window on that side. My friend (driver again) goes “Oh yea… prove your here” “H-E-L-L-O” appeared backwards on the rear window so he could read it trhough his rearview mirror.
Needless to say I got outta that car ASAP. - Kabbit

Very Rare picture of the two houses together, this is the ONLY one I have found.

When I was a teen I used to hang out Feedback Studios which was right up the road from the Kreisher Mansion. This building intrigued me so much I did a day of research at the Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences on the house. Balthazar Kreisher built the twin mansions for his sons, he did not inhabit any of the buildings. He had georgian style mansion that overlooked the brick factory. His mansion no longer exists.
Before the firs of the house, his son’s wife was having an affair with Dr. Washington who had his office and house on Main Street in Tottenville. In fact, his house still stands and a friend of mine’s parents still live there. The house is catty corner to the 123 precint. The last time I was there the house was yellow.(I now live in Savannah, Ga) Anyways, B’s son’s wife left her husband and then the house mysteriously burnt down. The fireplaces and some of the fixtures in the Dr. Washington house were actually salvaged from the Kreisher Mansion fire.
Now I have no doubt that the standing Kreisher Mansion is haunted. An ex friend of mine has pictures that prove to me that there are people still there. The last thing I have heard about the mansion is that the property was sold to a property developer that is making an old folks living community. With these changes there have been a ton of changes to the house, which saddens me. It’s a beautiful piece of architecture. - Michelle

this is indeed true my parents owned the resturant that once ocupied the house strange things happined daily we have since shut down the resturant and opened more profitable businesses but we still own the house ive also found that the house makes a greatt setting for a halloween party its a sure fire way 2 scare the sh*t out of my friends - James

MY COUSINS UNCLE OWNS THE HOUSE AND HE LEASES THE PROPERTY I KNOW THIS FOR A FACT AND ALSO WHEN I WAS A LITTLE KID ME AND MY COUSIN WOULD GO IN THERE AND IT REALLY SEEMED HAUNTED AND THE COOK HUNG HIMSELF THERE IN THE KITCHEN IN THE EARLY 1900`S IF ANYONE HAS ANY QUESTIONS PLEASE E-MAIL ME AT AASOFTBALL@TMAIL.COM - Jeff

My grandparents, father and myself all grew up in Charleston, Staten island. My grandfather once told my father a story of how when he was a little kid (early 1900s)on halloween they went running through the yard of the mansion. One kid ran into legs and somebody had hung themselve in the tree right near the house. Maybe that person has somethign to do with the encounters. I also think that the history is incorrect, I think there was 3 mansions built two next to eachother and one across the road. My aunt used to knwo the poepl whome lived there as a house right before it bacame a resturant. I would be scared sh*t to live there. -Charles Kosa

What interesting is that this family supplied most of the area with its bricks, definitely all of Staten Island, and some of Brooklyn. You can still find some of them in brick work that hasn't been up rooted or destroyed. The business started out being run by two people, Balthasar and his partner Charles Mumpeton, who wound up passing away. The company was first called under the New York branch of The New York & Staten Island Fire-Brick and Clay Retort Works, Kreischer & Mumpeton, it was originally established in 1845. And so it stayed that way until about 1849, when Mumpeton died and Kreischer hired his nephew to help out around the factory along side his 3 sons. With the discovery of the abundant amount of clay that was found in the area around the Sandy Grounds up to what we know today as Charleston, the business flourished.

Post office

In 1863 a post office opened in Kreischerville, named obviously after the family and their business. It closed in 1879 but was then reopened in 1886. It was located on Kreischer and Androvette St. The little town also included a church, a town store, and a small school.

Its one of Staten Island's mysteries, what happened to the Kreischer family? We know that some of them are buried in a cemetery in Brooklyn, but as to where they went and where the descendants are is unknown. Balthasar died in 1886 and the factory burnt down a few years later and then was rebuilt, though the business never really recovered. Under the pressure of a failing business one of the 2 remaining sons shot and killed himself and his widow is said to still haunt the site as well. 

After the restaurant closed down and the house was undergoing renovations to become housing for the elderly, the mansion became a sight for mob slayings. It became the scene of  a crime commented against a man named Robert McKelvey, he was killed by Bonanno family associates over a "bad debt" after being lured to the house by the groundskeeper and mob associate Joseph "Joe Black" Young. McKelvey was strangled, stabbed, and drowned in a pool on the site. After they cut up his body, they burned it in the mansions inferno. Investigators went looking for the furnace for evidence, but by the time they started looking it had been replaced because of the renovations. 

* Courtney Hayes My old neighbor murdered a man in Kreischer Mansion .. His house was soon raided by the FBI one lovely morning while I was leaving for school, and he is now in prison for life ;D Ahh I loved that house in Pleasent Plains lolol

Her neighbor did in fact kill McKelvey. 

Hylan BLVD, Snake Hill, GreatKills, Arthur Kill rd in the 1980's (videos)

 

 1) Hylan Blvd. Staten Island August 1983 Great Kills To Tottenville

2) Staten Island Richmond Town Snake Hill Latourette 1983

3)Arthur Kill Rd (Pt.1)Staten Island August 1983 Kreischer/Outer Bridge

4)Arthur Kill Rd. Pt. 2 August 1983 Black Garter Century Inn 

 

The video quality is poor but still you can see things you recognize and I still lovee the videos because it really captures what me and my friends used to do on a hot summer day on the island, just cruising around. Hope you enjoy! 

Sea View: Embolishment of The White Plague

Sea View Hospital was not always a hospital, it started out as a poor house in 1829 called The Farm Colony. In its day it was extravagant and prestigious, very well known. When the hospital opened as Sea View Tuberculosis Hospital on October 28, 1912 it was considered to be the finest in the country for the treatment of TB, also known as 'the white plague'. In all there was 8 patient buildings that formed a semi circle, a children's hospital, and a rehab center that had 6 units. In all the total amount of beds the hospital had was 1.402, but with added beds it could accommodate 1,682 beds. The largest amount it ever held was 2,000 in a census that was taken in 1940-41. The final cost of the hospital was four million dollars, which was twice the amount that was originally estimated.

 

The buildings where decorated with beautiful, and expensive Terracotta murals. I have in fact seen them on the old broken down buildings and wondered why no one has taken them down to preserve. A lot of fancy and expensive things in Staten Island where decorated with Terracotta because of the factory on the island at the time. But the story is different for these because they were made by a company in Holland called Joost Thooft & Labouchere. They made the murals using a technique called Sectile. The difference was that each piece of the terracotta was shaped to the lines of the design, instead of the design being divided over a number of tiles. This company was the first and only at the time to do this between the years of 1900 - 1910. This makes these murals very rare and actually, the best sectile work in America. The architect that designed the hospital, Raymond F. Almirall sketched out these murals to add something a little light to the atmosphere. They where extracted from the decaying buildings sometime after 2005 and now hang in the main building.

There is so much to be said about this place that we now see as ruins and haunted by its mental patients, but was it even a mental ward? 

 I can find absolutely no evidence to support the claim that Seaview was ever a mental hospital. I think what gets people confused, is that the Willowbrook State School was very nearby. The school wasn't built for years after Sea View was, but that school was knocked down and Seaview still remains. We pass by it all the time on Brielle Ave. It does look scary so I guess we just assume that it has a violent history, but in fact Sea View was a historical place where many discoveries where made. By the 1960's the medical staff at Sea view was discovering new medicine, they invented something called isoniazids, this was a treatment for TB. With the new medicine the demand for TB beds went down drastically and therefore Sea View in a way put itself out of business. This medicine, along with fresh air cured TB. The hospital was advance, they even had special houses that had ceilings that opened up to let in the fresh air. In whole the campus had 37 buildings. According to Wikipedia this is the list of houses:  Administration Building (1913), Surgical Pavilion (1913), Nurses Residence (1913, addition 1932), Staff House (1913), Power House / Laundry and Ambulance Complex (1912, addition 1935), Kitchen and Dining Hall Group (1912), and Women's Pavilions (1909-1911). Sanatorium additions include the Auditorium or "New Dining Hall" (1917, now known as Colony Hall), Group Building (1917), and Men's and Women's Open Air Pavilions (1917). Later buildings include the Catholic Chapel and Rectory (1928), City Mission Chapel or Chapel of St. Luke the Physician (1934), Pathology Lab (1927-1928), Children's Hospital (1935-1937), Sputum House (1911 / 1932), and Richmond County Isolation Hospital (1928)

 

Because the hospital was going to go out of business with the cure of TB, the Farm Colony was turned into a 1,400 bed hospital for older patients with aging problems such as Alzheimers. Since then Sea View has stuck with its purpose of being a home and hospital as well as a rehab center for older patients as well as younger ones with brain injuries or other server injuries. If you ever find yourself visiting Sea View, make sure you stop by the museum that is housed right on the site, it takes you on a visual walk though on the history of the place. 

This is only the 1st post I am doing on Sea View, this post is to simply cover the past of the hospital, such as what it really was and what good it actually did for history and TB. The next post I do will be more about the Sea View we see today, the abandoned and presumed haunted Sea view. As well as my own stories, since after all I spent two years going to school there.

 

Happy Holiday's !

 Richmond Ave. 1930

 

Start a New Family Tradition for the Holidays

Staten Island can truly be a beautiful place around the holidays, if you know where to look and what to do. A lot of people tend to stick to old traditions that have been passed down from their own parents and grandparents, but never really consider starting their own with their kids. Why not though? It could be a great experience that would live on through your children as something that they will never forget. With the number of households that have both parents working increasing, our kids get lost in the everyday shuffle that has become our lives and we lose sight of the important things in life, especially around the holidays. It's no ones fault, there is just so much to do when the year's end starts racing in on you that you forget to take a breath. A simple way to spend time with your family around the holidays in Staten Island, New York, is a Richmond Town's famed Candlelight Tours.

Every year around the holidays you and your family can go back in time right in the middle of suburbia. Richmond Town, located at 411 Clark Ave. here in Staten Island, is beautiful this time of year. With its houses that can be dated back as far as the mid 1600's, its truly a gem that shouldn't be over looked. The whole town is lit up by only candles and oil lamps while everyone of the tour guides and staff is dressed in old fashioned attire. They teach about how Christmas came to be and how its changed and evolved through out the centuries. It's a wonderful way to teach your children how much more there is to Christmas then Santa and gifts, and they will learn to appreciate the holiday so much more. You will walk through all of the old fashioned buildings and experience them like you never have, surely you've been stuck at the light on Aurthur Kill Rd. and looked at this place, but have you ever taken the time out to truly experience it?

The tour costs $22.00 for adults and $10.00 for children under 12. They serve up freshly made old fashioned holiday sweets and they also hold a Wassail Bowl Reception in the towns courthouse. A Wassail Bowl is old fashion hot mulled cider made with sugar, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg and topped with slices of toast. The ingredients are put into a bowl and heated and and then the toast is added to sop it up. They have caroling and teach songs of the past. If your interested in this unique tour of the past contact 718-351-1611, ext. 281 for reservations, they are a must and slots fill up quickly. To contact through e-mail reservations@historicrichmondtown.org .

Rare pics from the New York Air Disaster

 

With Due Respect to Those Lost in the Devestating Crash Of 1960, 50 yrs later

2010 marked the 50th anniversary of what history calls The New York Air Disaster. To read up on the terrible disaster refer here, to my post about it . I am going to post people's memories that I was reading on a different site. This is important, just because these tragedies happened before our time does not mean people didn't die, they shouldn't be forgotten by any means. They say if you know where to look, you can still find the evidence of the event, such as debris that is still rusting in one mans backyard.

I was a second grader at St. Augustine’s School on Sterling Place, one block from the Pillar Of Fire Church on 7th Avenue that took a direct hit. My mother’s friend Benny, maybe Bernie, was selling Christmas trees in front of the church and was, in her word, vaporized. No trace. Same for the few praying parishioners inside. From my desk, I saw a piece of flaming wreckage falling through the air and seriously considered that the Second Coming might be upon us as the Mother Superior came on the squawk box to tell us to get under our desks. I remember my late mother telling me later that the pilot(s) had seen the flag on top of my school and others and was trying to crash in Prospect Park but couldn’t make it. She must have been freaked. A plane crash a block from your daughter’s school?
My late uncle Mike was NYPD SWAT and so he came to school to get me and then to the nursery school to retrieve my sister. They would not release us into the street to walk home, of course. As I recall, he walked me home basically with his hands over my eyes. Was the body of one of the planes in the middle of Flatbush Avenue for several days? There was wreckage everywhere for a very long time, and I imagine there were body parts in the beginning, but I never saw any blood that I remember. Firetrucks, ambulances, sanitation trucks.
I’d like to observe that as a result of this crash in the midst of the Urban Renewal movement, given the devastation to the neighborhood, there was a call to raze thousands of brownstones and put up “projects,” the same buildings we now rejoice to see imploded in a big bang. Park Slope (which in those days included what is now called Prospect Heights) was not a well-to-do neighborhood. Irish-Italian working class with the highest concentration of Irish bars in America occurring along Flatbush from the Bridge to the Park. There were always, however, fancy people in the buildings along Prospect Park West and Eastern Parkway, and along 8th Avenue, which we called “Doctor’s Row.” These people banded against the Urban Renewal projects and instead created the first Historic District in New York City, a most enlightened result. Hats off to the late Evelyn Ortner, with whom I studied in the country’s first Master’s program in Historic Preservation at Columbia University and later at St. Ann’s in Brooklyn (now grown to St. Ann’s Warehouse) and all her partners in this effort.
Rest in peace, every one.

— Janine Nichols

This was worldwide headline news.
I remember this even though I hadn’t yet lived in the city of New York at the time!
It wasn’t long after this that I started flying on commercial airliners back and forth from New York City to Bangor, Maine.
We just can’t spend our lives living in fear.
— Perley J. Thibodeau

I was an intern at Kings County Hospital that tragic day. We received word two planes had crashed over Brooklyn. We sent out medical staff and ambulances to the site. In the ER we discharged patients to floors and cleared out the ER. We set up dozens of clean beds with IV Bottles hooked up and ready to administer, The medical staff was greatly saddened and upset when we were told there was no one coming to our hospital. As I recall the lone survivor was taken to Methodist Hospital.
We all felt helpless. The docs and nurses ,when they came back, commented how unprepared they felt because of a lack of planning and equipment. Thankfully now much has changed in preparedness. Lessons learned.
— Louis Cardi, MD

I lived in Atlanta and this touched me as a ten year old in 1960- I was almost the same age as Steven. I am a videographer and made this tribute video of the crash which I shared with members of the Baltz family.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaVywv17Q4c
thanks for the articles and look forward to reading more. as for “season to be jolly” this is more to the fragility of life and the hearts that reached out to Steven Baltz.
— mike brown

 

My father is a retired NYC Fire Department employee. He was a fireman on Staten Island at the time of this crash. He assisted in the recovery of bodies from the TWA plane. To this day he talks about this crash and vividly recalls how horrific it was.
— Greg Z.

The day of the crash

it is one of those events that you’ll remember as long as you live, i was in the kitchen visiting and talking with my grandfather at his home on 18 street ,about a mile from the accident site, we were stunned by the sound of the crash, it sounded like a bomb and to tell the truth being that those were the days of the deepest cold war when everybody was building atomic shelters, i thought it was an atomic bomb.on one hand we were relieved when we found out later that it wasn’t but still we were saddened by the loss of life both on air and on the ground.
— turiddhu

My family’s dear friend Herman Muller was killed in that crash. He lost the joy of his life and so did we.
He was an exciting man. On summer vacations he got my dad to help saw and chop wood for the fire of our annual big cook out of bean hole beans. During the rest of the year we’d occasionally visit his family in Hackensack, where he had built a tower in the back yard for no particular reason other than the joy of it..
I believe Herman was an ex CCC guy, and his ourdoorsy tendencies were infections. He was a great influence on our lives.
Saul Berkowitz
— Saul Berkowitz

I was in the 3rd grade at Crompond Elementary School in Yorktown Hgts., NY. The crash was announced over the loud speaker system. I remember Wendell Hoffman said his father was supposed to be on board a plane that morning. He was really scared and we were really scared for him. And my Grandpa Pete lived only a few blocks from the crash, he ran over right after it happened. He recalled that it was a terrible thing to see. Buon Natale, Nonno. Chicken Little didn’t seem so little after that crash.
As it turned out Wendell’s dad missed the plane………….
— Jeff in RI

I was sitting in a freshman class at Brooklyn College when this happened. I will never forget the sound that echoed across the borough.
— Debbie Garson

I was 9 at the time, living in Mass., and due to go with my mother and brother to visit my grandfather in Florida soon after the crash. I was glued to the news, and put up such a scream about air travel that my parents cancelled the flight and booked train tickets. During that ride between Boston and St. Petersburg I saw rural trackside poverty that changed my life.
Took me 10 years of flying to be comfortable in turbulence.
— Fraidy Cat

My late father, Ernest L. Gayle, was a top administrator of what was then the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA), and offered expert testimony at the inquiry which determined the cause of the crash. The day the planes collided was my sixth birthday, and I remember hearing the news on the kitchen radio in my childhood home. I will remember it always.
— debategirl1mom

I was attending St. Saviour’s High School, about 12 streets away when that plane crashed, and we could feel it in our classroom.
The nuns had us pray for the people on the plane and sent us home early. Streets were blocked off, acrid smoke mixed with the rain, and although we were told only that there was a crash and there may be survivors, we couldn’t imagine anyone surviving that impact.
It took years for me to gather enough courage to get on a plane after that, but have flown many times since. However I am always thankful upon landing and tell the pilots and crew how much I appreciate their skill and efforts.
Marjorie
— Marjorie Riley Nagin

 

My father, returning from a business trip, was booked on the United flight. He and his co-worker were running through O’Hare to catch the flight. They passed a gate where another flight was scheduled to depart for New York. My Dad, figuring they were likely to miss the United flight, said they should just wait and take the other flight. That’s what they did.
I was a child then and I remember hearing the news and the anxious hours. My mother, his company, our whole family, thought he was dead. When he surfaced, there was such overwhelming relief. My parents are gone now and this series of articles is helping me to flesh out my memories and to realize how much this must have affected my father. It wasn’t until I read this article that I realized that my Dad died sixteen years later of cancer almost to the day (December 18, 1976) that this accident happened.
— Marilyn Miller

40 years from now there’s going to be a story like this about 9/11, though probably much bigger/widely read .And then all of us who’ were old enough to know what was going on will remember …just like these folks.
— Joe

 

 

 

I remember 12/16 /1960.
That crash took place during a bad snow storm that had started that AM. The geniuses at our Junior High in Queens literally threw us out of school at 1PM because they felt the buses that picked us up at 3PM wouldn’t make it.
None of us had boots and few had gloves or hats as the severity of the storm was a surprise.
My friends and I walked just about a mile to get home.
It was miserable.
Just one of the many reasons I hated Junior High.
When we got home the story about the collision was on all the TV stations.
— Frank Leja

I remember the collision — it transfixed the City much like 9/11 later did. The tabloids ran the story on their front pages for days. The television news media was just coming into its own in the City and covered the event and ensuing stories afterwards. One young passenger survived the crash and lived for a couple of weeks capturing the public’s sympathy.
But goodness knows — if 50 years ago that plane had fallen into any other nabe in NYC we wouldn’t be seeing this extensive write-up in Park Slope-centric CR today.
And it’s axiomatic that Park Slope (as is the case with any urban nabe) had to first decline before it could be gentrified and thus ultimately find itself home to the bulk of the NYT’s CR reporters.
That said, at the time, the plane crash seemed but another example of the decline Brooklyn seemed to be undergoing. By ‘58 the Dodgers had left and white flight was accelerating from areas like Fort Green, Brownsville, Crown Hts., East NY etc. Abraham & Straus was on its last legs as the downtown commercial center around Fulton Street went into a long-term decay. Heck, even the Heights was “in trouble”,
What a difference 50 years makes.
— George

My family lived @ 180 sterling Pl at the time of the crash. My mom thought the boiler (apt heat) had blown up. Took my brother and sister & hid under the bed. Quite a day for the Addotta family and all who lived near > One of my closest friends.. helped carry the bodies to the near make shift morgue… The Plaza Bowling Alley ! He has Never flown in a plane… .NEVER !! & never will because of this day. Says the smell still haunts him.” You never really leave a place you love… part of it you take with you, leaving a part of you behind…” : ((
I LOVE NEW YORK xoxoxox
— Joyce

 REST IN PIECE TO THOSE WHO LOST THEIR LIVES <3