Evolution of Our Ethnic Community in New York City

In June 1944 the Bohemian National Hall hosted the third annual convention of the American Slav Congress of Greater New York, to support F. D. Roosevelt to run for the 4th presidential term. However, by this time most of the social activities were relocated to the Sokol Hall. During World War II the Sokol Hall witnessed visits and addresses by president Beneš and of the son of TG Masaryk, the foreign minister of the exile government in London, Jan Masaryk. Speakers at Sokol in later years included the Czechoslovak ambassador to the United States Juraj Slávik and the Czechoslovak ambassador to the United Nations, Jan Papánek. Jan Masaryk was a frequent visitor to New York, warmly accepted by the New York socialites. He regularly resided at the Carlyle hotel, at the 76th and Madison and occasionally he played at the piano in the hotel lobby.

Pilots who after escape from Czechoslovakia served during WWII in the British Royal Air Force repeatedly visited the Sokol Hall, while enjoying a brief respite from the war activities.

Compared to the World War I, during World War II there seemed to be less enthusiasm in the shrinking ethnic community. War economy contributed to relocation of many families. Young people started to frequent institutions of higher education. Club rooms at the Bohemian National Hall, once very crowded, were rented as studios. The movie annex at the East 74th Street was leased to a private operation in the 1940s. Later, the Light Opera of Manhattan moved in, from 1975 till 1986. This theater happened to be one of the prominent NY scenes: Lisa Minelli had a debut there, starting her career.

Although the communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948 brought to New York a new wave of emigrants, this time mostly skilled professionals, their numbers could never replace losses in the community induced by gradual dispersion.

Another radical change to the Upper East Side and its inhabitants was brought about in 1947 when the former meat packing district around the E 42nd Street was assigned to the United Nations. Rapid gentrification and new construction in former Bohemian locations raised rental fees, the property prices and forced much of our ethnic community to leave for less expensive locations, especially the district of Queens, Astoria. In 1964 the BBLA was sued in a NY court for nonpayment of wages to a part time employee. The BBLA president Henry Jochman strived to rent the space in the building to various tenants but he was limited by new NY fire regulations, prohibiting the use of the ballroom, stairs and elevators: there was no money for required reconstruction.

In 1967 at the time of the hundred year centennial of Sokol NY there were still several ethnic restaurants at the Upper East Side: Zlata Praha at the First Avenue, Ruč Restaurant at 312 East 72nd Street, and Vašata at 393 E 75th Street.

Vašata offered roast loin of pork or svíčková for $4.25, fillet mignon for $5.95. Tatra Travel Bureau in a contemporary advertisement claimed to have been 35 years in existence. Most of the social meetings, Czechoslovak Independence Day and Masaryk day celebrations, were staged at the Sokol Hall. At these social events, an active role had an aging former legionnaire and a long time Sokol member, Dr. Steinbach, a physician friend of the Masaryk family.

In the meantime the Bohemian National Hall was gradually falling in disrepair, missing an adequate income for the necessary upkeep. Even then, Bohemian National Hall was sporadically used for various cultural and political activities. The Council for Free Czechoslovakia, an organization of political exiles aiming at resisting communist oppression, founded in 1949 by prominent politicians – Zenkl, Lettrich, Ripka, Majer, Peroutka, Hlavatý, Papánek, Feierabend, Ingr and others – was reunited in 1974 and then, under the presidency of Mojmír Povolný and with vice chairman Martin Kvetko, it regularly met at the Bohemian National Hall. In 1990 this organization acquired a new name: Czech and Slovak Solidarity Council.

The Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Sciences (SVU) established in 1958 and representing Czech and Slovak intellectuals outside of the communist dominated country, also periodically used the Bohemian National Hall. As late as in May 1999 the SVU New York organized a Mothers’ Day celebration with reading of the Czech and Slovak poetry. After the year 2000, the American Fund for Czechoslovak refugees, established by Jan Papánek in 1948 and administered by Vojtech Jeřábek and Jan Hird Pokorný, moved its office and archive from Broadway to the Bohemian National Hall.

In the 1990s the Czechoslovak American Puppet Theater directed by Vít Hořejš staged multiple performances at a theater stage located on the ground floor of the Bohemian National Hall.

The fateful struggle to preserve Bohemian National Hall as our ethnic heritage continued. In 1979 the president of BBLA Jochman, under pressure from 30 elderly board members, decided to sell the entire property. This act was stopped when Alex Čech of the Czechoslovak Sportsmen Association, became the president of the BBLA.

The following years marked a dramatic sequence regarding potential loss of the Bohemian National Hall. In 1984 there were problems with the contract of the theater, renting the E 74th Street annex. Legal expenses further eroded the financial base of the BBLA. In 1987 a plan to rent most of the Bohemian National Hall for the next fifty years failed because of the collapse of financial markets. The annex at E 74th Street was sold for 1.5 million dollars.