fbpx
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Sign up for Free Newsletter
  • Print Edition
    • Get Home Delivery
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Customer Support
    • Submit A News Tip
    • Where’s My Paper?
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial
  • Movie Night Gift Subscription
Hudson Valley One
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Log In
No Result
View All Result
Hudson Valley One
No Result
View All Result

Legs, kegs & a famous missing person: Kingston’s Barmann Brewery

by Frances Marion Platt
February 26, 2020
in Food & Drink, Local History
0
Legs, kegs & a famous missing person: Kingston’s Barmann Brewery

barmann-@

Judge Crater

If the name “Judge Crater” means anything to you, you’re probably not so young anymore. Though superseded in the popular imagination by Jimmy Hoffa after the Teamsters’ Union honcho vanished in 1975, State Supreme Court justice Joseph Force Crater was once known as the “missingest man in New York.” Last seen leaving a Midtown Manhattan restaurant in 1930, Judge Crater was the subject of a massive manhunt and media frenzy. Vaudeville comedians turned the one-liner “Judge Crater, call your office” into what today we would call a meme, and “to pull a Crater” became a slang term for disappearing.

Associated with corrupt politicians at Tammany Hall, pricey call girls and infamous mobsters, the judge is widely assumed to have been murdered, but his body was never found. And like Hoffa, a number of locations have been suggested as his final resting place, including the Coney Island site where the New York Aquarium now stands. But another candidate was in our own back yard: a subcellar reputed to lie beneath the Peter Barmann Brewery, once located at the corner of Barmann Avenue and South Clinton Avenue in Kingston, just across the tracks from the Wiltwyck Cemetery.

No human remains turned up when the old brick building was demolished sometime in the 1960s, but plenty of local lore still clings to the brewery’s history. Much of it was associated with the notorious Hudson Valley-based bootlegger/mob boss Jack “Legs” Diamond, who was widely rumored to have been a pal of Judge Crater – until, perhaps, some deal went awry.

The young Peter Barmann immigrated to Kingston from Bavaria in 1857 and learned the brewmeister’s trade from his uncle, Balthazer Schwalbach, who ran the Jacob’s Valley Lager Bier Brewery on Union Avenue (now Broadway). Barmann took over the business upon Schwalbach’s death in 1881, began a bottling operation in 1884 and had such success with it that he relocated the renamed Barmann Brewery to the site just south of Greenkill Avenue a year later. The company increased production of Jacob’s Valley Lager Beer, Thuringer Hofbrau, ale and porters each year, approaching 17,000 barrels annually by the turn of the century.

Peter Barmann died in 1908 and Peter Jr. and his wife Susan took over, but the enactment of Prohibition in 1920 forced such businesses underground – sometimes literally. It was Legs Diamond who bailed out the brewery financially, transporting its products to his speakeasies in New York, Albany and Troy. (The Barmanns were not in control of the family brewery at that time, according to a relative.) His smuggling operation was particularly ingenious: Brewery employees reportedly hired plumbers to go down into Kingston’s sewer system late at night and install a pipeline of rubber hose that led from the brewery’s basement, right under the streets of Midtown to an innocent-looking warehouse on Bruyn Avenue, where the brews were bottled or kegged for shipment.

That era ended in 1931, when a spectacular raid by the Internal Revenue Service’s elite Flying Squadron yielded what the newspapers of the day called a “Million Dollar Seizure” and the arrest of several of Legs Diamond’s cronies. The brewery never regained its financial footing even after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933; it was bought out by the Jacob Ruppert Brewing Company and had ceased operations by 1941.

But Barmann Brewery memorabilia continues to turn up on the local yard sale circuit, and an avid collector/amateur historian named Thierry Croizer maintains a fascinating webpage about his finds at www.angelfire.com/ny5/brewerianakingston/barmann.html. According to Croizer, nothing remains of the brewery building but some fragments of the foundation. But you might want to go for a stroll in the area known to Kingston old-timers as Barmann Park once the weather turns nice. Give a thought to the memory of those larger-than-life Prohibition Era characters, Legs Diamond and Judge Crater; then, just for the heck of it, pull out your cell phone and call the office.

 

 

Tags: egmembers
Join the family! Grab a free month of HV1 from the folks who have brought you substantive local news since 1972. We made it 50 years thanks to support from readers like you. Help us keep real journalism alive.
- Geddy Sveikauskas, Publisher
Previous Post

Change in clerks: Cosenza officially out, McDonough moves up

Next Post

New York Vape Club to open in New Paltz on April 1

Frances Marion Platt

Frances Marion Platt has been a feature writer (and copyeditor) for Ulster Publishing since 1994, under both her own name and the nom de plume Zhemyna Jurate. Her reporting beats include Gardiner and Rosendale, the arts and a bit of local history. In 2011 she took up Syd M’s mantle as film reviewer for Alm@nac Weekly, and she hopes to return to doing more of that as HV1 recovers from the shock of COVID-19. A Queens native, Platt moved to New Paltz in 1971 to earn a BA in English and minor in Linguistics at SUNY. Her first writing/editing gig was with the Ulster County Artist magazine. In the 1980s she was assistant editor of The Independent Film and Video Monthly for five years, attended Heartwood Owner/Builder School, designed and built a timberframe house in Gardiner. Her son Evan Pallor was born in 1995. Alternating with her journalism career, she spent many years doing development work – mainly grantwriting – for a variety of not-for-profit organizations, including six years at Scenic Hudson. She currently lives in Kingston.

Related Posts

Hudson Valley hardware: Generations of tools and paint
Business

Hudson Valley hardware: Generations of tools and paint

March 25, 2023
Chili challenge in New Paltz will feature locally-sourced ingredients
Community

Chili challenge in New Paltz will feature locally-sourced ingredients

March 16, 2023
A glimpse into New Paltz’s past reveals how much and how little things have changed in 100 years
Columns

A glimpse into New Paltz’s past reveals how much and how little things have changed in 100 years

February 27, 2023
Historical Society of Woodstock presents Woodstock Art Colony Kids
Art & Music

Historical Society of Woodstock presents Woodstock Art Colony Kids

February 24, 2023
Mexican Kitchen chef brings Cocina Mexicana menu to New Paltz’s Smash Shack
Business

Mexican Kitchen chef brings Cocina Mexicana menu to New Paltz’s Smash Shack

February 24, 2023
Kingston history museums plan exciting programming for the spring
Local History

Kingston history museums plan exciting programming for the spring

February 23, 2023
Next Post

New York Vape Club to open in New Paltz on April 1

Trending News

  • Missing hiker found dead at Mohonk Preserve 8.2k views
  • Tinkerers rally to save embattled P&T Surplus in Kingston 6.7k views
  • Dead body discovered near Kingston park 1k views
  • Newcomer wins seat on the Saugerties Village Board  880 views
  • Unwarranted video surveillance: Town of Ulster weighs security and privacy concerns 826 views
  • After many concessions, Lazy River gets the nod in Gardiner 675 views

Weather

Kingston
◉
30°
Clear
6:47 am7:15 pm EDT
Feels like: 30°F
Wind: 1mph SSE
Humidity: 78%
Pressure: 30.08"Hg
UV index: 0
TueWedThu
50/28°F
55/27°F
45/27°F
Weather forecast Kingston, New York ▸

Subscribe

Independent. Local. Substantive. Subscribe now.

×
You have free article(s) remaining. Subscribe for unlimited access.
View Subscription Offers Sign In
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Sign up for Free Newsletter
  • Print Edition
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Contact
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Free HV1 Trial
  • Movie Night Gift Subscription

© 2022 Ulster Publishing

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Schools
    • Business
    • Sports
    • Crime
    • Politics & Government
  • What’s Happening
    • Calendar Of Events
    • Featured Events
      • Art
      • Books
      • Kids
      • Lifestyle & Wellness
      • Food & Drink
      • Music
      • Nature
      • Stage & Screen
  • Opinions
    • Letters
    • Columns
    • Editorials
  • Local
    • Special Sections
    • Local History
  • Marketplace
    • All Classified Ads
    • Help Wanted
    • Post a Classified Ad
  • Obituaries
  • Podcast
  • Subscribe & Support
  • Contact Us
    • Customer Support
    • Advertise
    • Submit A News Tip
  • Print Edition
    • Read ePaper Online
    • Newsstand Locations
    • Where’s My Paper
  • HV1 Magazines
  • Manage HV1 Account
  • Log In
  • Free HV1 Trial

© 2022 Ulster Publishing