German-American Shooting Society Clubhouse
12 St Marks Place | East Village | built 1889
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1888
German-American Shooting Society marches from the Bowery to dedicate its new St. Marks Place headquarters
The society, which counts about 1,400 members in 24 companies, has met at the Germania Assembly Rooms on the Bowery. On the night its new clubhouse opens, the companies gather there one last time, then march together, escorted by sister societies, to St. Marks Place. A newspaper account says the building was hung with German and American colors for the occasion.
- 1888
The clubhouse fits a saloon, restaurant, bowling alley and small shooting gallery under one roof
Inside the new headquarters, the basement holds a bowling alley and a small shooting gallery, while the ground floor has a saloon, a big restaurant and an assembly room. Company and lodge rooms fill the second through fourth floors, and the top floor is an apartment for the caretaker. The real target practice happens elsewhere: member companies shoot at Creedmoor in Queens and at a range in Ridgewood.
“…a small shooting gallery in the basement ... a bowling alley (also in the basement), a saloon, a large restaurant, and an assembly room on the first floor…”
- 1888
William Frohne gives the clubhouse a German Renaissance front with a terra-cotta target and rifles
Architect William C. Frohne, a Lower East Side resident whose first major commission this appears to be, clads the building in limestone, yellow brick and terra cotta under a steep mansard roof. The terra cotta comes from the Stephens, Leach & Conkling company of Philadelphia. On the fourth story, a panel pictures a target and two crossed rifles beside the motto Einigkeit macht stark, meaning unity makes strong.
“…target with crossed rifles and the motto "EINIGKEIT - MACHT - STARK" (Unity Makes [You] STRONG). It bears the signature of Professor…”
- 1920
The Shooting Society sells its clubhouse, and a Polish community center and a Ukrainian culture center follow
The society keeps the building until 1920, when it sells to Anna Brindell, who owns it until 1930. From 1943 the St. Marks Community Center, a Polish community group, occupies it and sells it in 1962. During the 1960s it houses a Ukrainian culture center, and the owner of record in 2001 had bought it in 1992.
- 1987
St. Mark's Bookshop crosses the street into the old clubhouse
St. Mark's Bookshop, opened in 1977 at 13 St. Marks Place by Bob Contant and Terry McCoy, moves across the street to number 12 in 1987. The shop was known for critical theory, small-press poetry, graphic design and film studies. Cooper Union later lured the owners to a cheaper space on Third Avenue, and the store closed in 2016.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1990
Henrick Kohan opens the New York Yoga Center in the clubhouse, starting a long run of yoga studios
Local yoga teacher Henrick Kohan asks the building's owner, Charles Fitzgerald, in 1990 about a studio here, well before yoga's popular boom, and gets the go-ahead. His New York Yoga Center runs until 2003. Gesundheit Yoga then takes the space, followed by Yoga to the People and, after that studio closed during the pandemic, St. Mark's Yoga.
Source: Village Preservation
- 1995
@Cafe opens as one of New York's first internet cafes, charging $5 per half hour at the computers
Glenn McGinnis, Nicolas Barnes and Chris Townsend open @Cafe, one of New York's first dedicated internet cafes, a 2,500-square-foot space with a full bar and kitchen and the slogan Eat, Drink, 'Net. Computer time is billed at $5 per half hour, and the T1 line it leases costs $9,000 a month. The hacker Phiber Optik is among its early patrons, and the WELL holds its ten-year anniversary party there. The cafe never breaks even and closes in 1996.
“…opened its doors on Tuesday, April 25, 1995 ... Founded at 12 St. Marks Place on the site of the original location of St. Mark's Bookshop…”
Source: Wikipedia
- 2001
The Landmarks Preservation Commission designates the clubhouse, a rare survivor from Kleindeutschland
After an April 24, 2001 hearing at which two witnesses speak in favor, including a representative of the Historic Districts Council, and no one opposes, the Commission designates the clubhouse on June 26. The owner and the Friends of Terra Cotta have written in support. The report calls the building a rare survivor from the years when German institutional buildings crowded Kleindeutschland.
- 2024
Village Works, a bookstore and gallery of Village culture, moves into the clubhouse with coffee written into its lease
Village Works, which began in February 2021 at First Avenue and East 3rd Street, saw its short lease run out and found a new home when the clubhouse's owners, Charles and Kathy Fitzgerald, lost a commercial tenant and sought an independent bookstore. By March 2024 it is selling books, prints and zines and running art shows here. The lease requires selling organic coffee, to help the store survive.
Source: Village Preservation
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