Brooklyn's Hitler Street

[Ian David]

By: Dr. Rafael Medoff
Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Believe it or not, there is a street in Brooklyn named in honor of the founder of the American Society for the Suppression of the Jews.

In the neighborhood of Manhattan Beach, just one block from the Brooklyn Holocaust Memorial Mall, a street sign reads: Corbin Place. The street is named after Austin Corbin, a 19th-century industrialist who built the area’s railroads and some of its major hotels – and who also publicly campaigned to "exterminate the Jews."

As president of the Long Island Railroad during the late 1800’s, Corbin built the first railroads to Manhattan Beach, Brighton Beach, and Coney Island. He also built the luxurious 358-room Manhattan Beach Hotel, a favorite summer spot for that era’s rich and famous, as well as another area hotel, the Oriental.

But there was another side to Austin Corbin. He was a close associate of Judge Henry Hilton, a figure of some prominence in the history of American anti-Semitism. In 1877, Hilton became owner of the Grand Union Hotel in upstate Saratoga Springs, one of America’s most famous resorts. He promptly instituted a policy that "no Israelites shall be permitted in the future to stop at this hotel."

One of the first to be excluded was Joseph Seligman, a prominent German Jewish banker and friend of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses Grant. Seligman had played a major role in financing the Union side in the civil war, and was later offered the position of secretary of the treasury in the Grant administration.

More:
http://www.jewishpress.com/page.do/20913/Brooklyn's_Hitler_Street.html

[rockymountaindem]

1. You should post this in GD.

[Lurking Dem]

2. I agree!