Christians, Cops, Elks & Anarchism

Christians, Cops, Elks and Anarchism. A 19th Century Meeting Hall. In 1892, anarchist leader Emma Goldman led a meeting at Military Hall in defense of her lover/comrade, Alexander Berkman, jailed after a botched attempt to assassinate industrialist Henry Clay Frick, villain of the bloody Homestead Steel Strike. A focal point for agitation on many fronts, it was Military Hall at which, after fierce debate in 1853, officers of the 8-year-old Municipal Police agreed to wear an official uniform., Shortly after opening, in 1829 it hosted the first North American service of the evangelical primitive Methodists. In 1835, the venerable St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church held its first worship service here. A humorous April 1867 NY Clipper article described that with windows open Methodist hymns competed with racy minstrel songs bellowing from the nearby Tony Pastor’s Opera House., In 1868, Military Hall also witnessed the formation of the Elks Lodge, aka the Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks, then know as the “Jolly Corks.” It remained a locus for the diverse movements fertilizing Bowery life throughout the 19th century. The building’s current façade was added to the original structure in the 1920s., -David Freeland, author of Automats, Taxi Dancers and Vaudeville