To me one of the most interesting parts of doing genealogy research is the human interest stories we find behind the facts. After Bill Cole’s presentation in January, I started going through some photographs of my mother’s family. I remember looking through them before and wondering why my Aunt Gertrude would have a photograph taken in front of a property for sale sign. I do know that my Aunt was born in 1902 and died in 1923. Looking at this photograph I would guess that the picture was taken between 1920 to 1923.
Looking closer at the sign I noted that the sign listed the realtor, ended up searching the Internet to see if I could fine information on the realtor, Herman Ringe and this revealed part of a story. Ringe was known to the community as a very civic minded person. The Internet revealed a wonderful article about Herman Ringe by the Newtown Historical Society website ( https://www.newtownhistorical.org/maspeth-history/the-legacy-of-herman-ringe ) Mr. Ringe was very active in his community were he was raised. The area was known as Metropolitan because it was between Fresh Pond Road and Flushing Avenue on both sides of Metropolitan Avenue. Besides growing up in this area his family owned a General Store in the community on the same street as his Real Estate Office.
Herman Ringe first worked in the Queens Tax Office as a clerk and later as secretary to chief clerk to the highway department. In his obituary he was praised as a business man as well as a civic leader. Although this and other articles pointed to the importance of the realtor and the area, it still did not answer my original question as to why my Aunt had her photographed in front of this sign.
Therefore I decided to continued my investigation by trying to find out who owned the property around the time of the photograph. One of the thoughts that I had was who would have taken the photograph. Was it my Grandfather, Gottlieb Ohnmacht who owned two bakeries at the time. That thought lead me to do a property search to determine who had purchased the property as listed on the sign. I tried both New York City Public Library and Library of Congress Digital Map collections. The Sanborn maps were designed to be large scale maps that showed insurance agencies the fire hazards related to where the buildings were located. They often depicted the structure showing size and shape of buildings and surrounding property and streets. Sanborn designed maps for over twelve thousand cities in United States, Canada and Mexico.
Sanborn Fire maps are good resources when doing property searches. They usually have street indexes which lead to plate numbers. Knowing that the photograph was probably taken between 1920 -23. I found a map that showed the specific area. The Atlas 137A of Queens V. 3, 1914 Plate No. 57 [Map bounded by Metropolitan Ave., Fresh Pond Rd., Grove, Prospect Ave.] showed a wagon shed and other structures. One can also see the paper road, Vincent Street designated with dashes as it meets Metropolitan Ave.
Unfortunately I haven’t located a more recent Sanborn Map depicting this area around the early 1920’s. In my next part I will discuss other resources that I checked to locate the name of the property owner around this time.
Photograph of map taken from:
Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, The New York Public Library. (1884 - 1936). Queens V. 3, Plate No. 57 [Map bounded by Metropolitan Ave., Fresh Pond Rd., Grove, Prospect Ave.] Retrieved from https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/90df2048-fd72-05a8-e040-e00a18065fd4
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