The greatest historic house/community center that you’ve never heard of is back after a renovation and ready to host cultural events.
Poppenhusen Institute will present A Jazz and Blues Concert and Luncheon with The Paul Shapiro Trio on Sunday, May 18, at 1 pm.
It’s a long time away, but the same College Point establishment will also offer a Tina Turner tribute entitled “A Summer Garden Concert: The Girls Next Door” on Sunday, June 29, at 3 pm.
Sounds great, but what is this place with a funny name?
The venue
In 1868, Conrad Poppenhusen built a four-story building to be used for vocational education, recreation, and cultural at 114-04 14th Rd. These days, the Poppenhusen Institute hosts such programs as karate, piano lessons, workshops, historical exhibits, and concerts. However, it’s been stifled recently due to a major renovation that began a few years ago and included the erection of a scaffolding that surrounded the building.
The makeover is scheduled for completion in 2029, but most of the scaffolding will be removed by next week. In other words, Poppenhusen Institute is ready for The Paul Shapiro Trio on May 18.
Shapiro, who has been called a “Legendary Sax Man” by Billboard and “Exuberant” by The New Yorker, will perform music by Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, and other Jazz and Blues greats with Cilla Owens on vocals and Dan Rosengard on keyboard.
Tickets cost $20 and include a light lunch. Please purchase in advance.
On June 29, tickets for the Tina Turner tribute cost $15.
Both concerts will be held inside in case of rain
This is sounding better and better. Plus, College Point has some nice delis and restaurants. But who is this Conrad Poppenhusen guy?
The benefactor
Born in Hamburg in 1818, he was a whalebone purchaser in Germany. A huge fire destroyed large parts of his native city in 1842, forcing him and his wife, Bertha Marie Henrietta Karker, to immigrate to Manhattan.
He remained in the whalebone business at first. But in 1852, he got a license to use Charles Goodyear’s process to vulcanize rubber. Then, he started manufacturing everything from caster wheels to brushes in his Manhattan factory, Enterprise Rubber Works. With business booming two years later, he moved his operation to College Point, which was a rural peninsula in northeastern Queens at the time. His factory workers, most of whom were German immigrants as well, followed him. (In the mid-19th century, College Point was known as “Little Heidelberg” because of its large German population.)
Poppenhusen made a lot of money and he was extremely generous, becoming the leader of a de facto corporate town. First, he drained the marshes. Then, he paved the roads, planted trees, constructed a railroad station, installed sewers, and laid water and gas lines. He even donated money for a church and the Poppenhusen Institute, which he also endowed.
Built in 1868, the Poppenhusen Institute housed the first free kindergarten in the United States (established in 1870) as well as a vocational high school, courthouse, jail (two vacant cells are still there), bank, library and a grand ballroom. It was designated a New York City landmark in 1970 and made the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
As for Poppenhusen, he also built a villa-style mansion with 56 rooms on about six acres on the highest hill in the village, which is now 121st Street at 12th Avenue. He retired in 1871, and unfortunately for him – and College Point — his sons quickly squandered the family fortune. He declared bankruptcy before his death in 1885, and the mansion no longer exists, but luckily Poppenhusen Institute does.
Top photo: The Paul Shapiro Trio;
bottom photo: Poppenhusen Institute