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🏘️ Croton Local History
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applied to real estate, and I was sure it would work. I went to Cincinnati, where I had a brother, Clifford B. Harmon, and an uncle, Charles E Wood. I told of my new idea, and they liked it. My brother had a thousand dollars, my uncle had a thousand,
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and I had a thousand. I had already decided upon the best tract to buy, so we pooled our money and bought it. And we had it laid out in lots, built wooden sidewalks and had the necessary papers prepared.” “One advertisement in the Cincinnati
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newspaper brought enough buyers to sell out the entire property,” wrote the Times . “With the success of the idea thus proved, the firm of Wood, Harmon & Company expanded rapidly, putting offices in Pittsburgh, Boston and various other Eastern
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cities. It was in Boston that Mr. Harmon interested capitalists, who invested $50,000 then and millions later, backing the establishment of the firm’s first New York office in 1898. In the years just after 1900 more than $4 million was spent for
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building sites in Brooklyn that were sold on small partial payments. The great expansion of population following the subway extensions prove the wisdom of Mr. Harmon’s choice of territory. Developments of a similar character were carried out in 36
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other cities east of the Mississippi River.” Share this: Print (Opens in new window) Print Email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Share on X (Opens in new window) X Share on Pinterest
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(Opens in new window) Pinterest Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn Like Loading... Related Published March 8, 2013 March 25, 2016
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This vintage post card of the Nikko Inn is interesting for several reasons. Given the high cost of color printing at beginning of the 20th century, the fact that this is printed in black-and-white indicates that it was probably a local production—not
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a card issued by a major publisher. The back side confirms this because there is no publisher’s imprint, just a name, “Edward H. Sommers”, hand-stamped in the upper left corner above the handwritten note. This is where it gets interesting. Although
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the note appears to be handwritten, it was actually printed on the back of every copy, so all you had to do to spread the word about the Nikko Inn—the “most picturesque Japanese Garden, situated at Harmon-on-the-Hudson”—was write a name after “Dear”,
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address it, and put on a stamp. Who was behind this clever bit of promotion? Probably the person whose name is stamped on the back. Edward H. Sommers was managing the Nikko Inn prior to 1917. As we reported in a previous post , Sommers “placed Tumble
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In, near Peekskill, . . . on a profitable basis,” and “previously . . . had operated Nikko Inn at Harmon. . . .” Coming soon: A different Nikko Inn proprietor gets busted for serving highballs during Prohibition and later brags about being the real
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author of the popular song, “I Found a Million Dollar Baby (in a Five and Ten Cent Store).” Share this: Print (Opens in new window) Print Email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Share on X
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(Opens in new window) X Share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest Share on Tumblr (Opens in new window) Tumblr Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn Like Loading... Related Tagged Nikko Inn speakeasies Published March 10, 2013
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Advertisement from Automobile Blue Book , 1917 “Nikko Inn, in Harmon-on-Hudson, Must Close for Two Months,” read the headline of a short article in the New York Times , on May 20, 1925. “Ten restaurants, saloons and speakeasies were ordered closed
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yesterday by Judge John C. Knox in the Federal Padlock Court. The Nikko Inn, a Japanese roadhouse and tea room in Harmon-on-Hudson, was padlocked for two months. Roy Kojima is the proprietor, and the inn is the first place run by Japanese to be
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closed in padlock proceedings. The musical program at the inn has been broadcast by radio stations. Federal agents testified they bought highballs for $1 each.” Covering the same story, the Mount Vernon Daily Argus noted that “Kojima protested,
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denying that any liquor was sold in his place.” Both local legend and contemporary newspaper accounts leave no doubt that despite Mr. Kojima’s denial, the Nikko Inn was, in fact, a “speakeasy” during Prohibition. It must have been quite a romantic
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and exotic place in those days—a rustic Japanese tea house, perched over a beautiful river, accessible only to locals or adventurous New Yorkers. Luckily, one of those New Yorkers was Karl Kingsley Kitchen, a journalist who wrote for the New York
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World, Photoplay Magazine, New York Sun and other papers. He was a bon vivant , famous enough in his day that there is a cocktail named after him in the classic Savoy Cocktail Book (in the section titled “Cocktails Suitable for a Prohibition
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Country”). In 1931 Kitchen stopped by the Nikko for some “skiyaki” and Roy Kojima was still in charge. The two started to chat and Kitchen wrote about it in his October 6 column in the New York Sun . So let’s mix ourselves a “Karl K. Kitchen”, savor
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our illegal drinks, and enjoy this vignette of Harmon history, published 81 years ago. “When I stopped at Nikko Inn, near Harmon-on-the-Hudson, last Sunday for a dish of skiyaki Roy Kojima, its Japanese proprietor, surprised me by telling me that he
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was the real author of “The Million-Dollar Baby,” one of the popular song hits of the day. “Yes, I wrote it five or six years ago,” the stocky little Japanese restaurateur confided, producing a well-worn scrapbook filled with clippings of his poems.
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And sure enough there was a clipping from a local newspaper published in 1926 with the stanzas and with “Prince” Roy’s name above them. While the words of the song reveal a considerable variation from these stanzas, the idea of meeting the
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million-dollar baby in the five-and-ten-cent store is decidedly similar. “Perhaps two great minds have the same great thought,” said Roy when he replaced his scrapbook with a much more interesting dish of skiyaki, which, if you don’t know, is the
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national dish of Japan—a melange of meats and fresh vegetables cooked over a charcoal fire. “Then again, perhaps some song writer from New York heard my Million-Dollar-Baby song here. My three-piece orchestra play and sing it many times. Anyhow,
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Million-Dollar Baby is my idea.” “Why don’t you sue the music publishers?” I suggested after I had tasted the delectable dish—the best skiyaki I had ever tasted, by the way. “No, no time to sue anybody,” he replied. “I’m very busy and very happy
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here. But as a fellow literary man I thought you would be interested. Besides I can write many more and many better songs than ‘Million-Dollar Baby’.” However, our conversation soon drifted from popular songs to the origin of skiyaki, which Roy, who
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hails from Tokio [sic], admitted was invented in the rival city of Kyoto many hundreds of years ago, perhaps even 900, he conceded. “In old Japan it was made with fish or game mixed with vegetables, for there was no beef,” he went on. “Skiyaki made