Jahn’s Ice Cream Parlor (former)

By Kate Fox

Though globe-bulbed chandeliers and hanging lamps with stained-glass shades cram the ceiling, just a dim light spreads across the black-and-white checkerboard tile floor at Jahn’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlour in the Richmond Hill neighborhood of Queens. It’s cool and quiet inside, with a few people sitting in booths, halfway through their sundaes and sandwiches. A closer look at the walls reveals that nearly every inch of dark, wood paneling is etched with initials, names and messages from those who have come to this spot at the intersection of Myrtle and Hillside Avenues at some point since it opened over 80 years ago. Suddenly, the room feels a little more crowded.

Jahn’s (locally pronounced as Jan’s) has been continuously operating in Richmond Hill since the early 1930s; it was one of four branches opened by founder John “Papa” Jahn in Brooklyn and Queens during the first half of the twentieth century. A German immigrant who arrived in New York in the 1880s, Jahn opened his first soda fountain in 1897 at 138th Street and Alexander Avenue in the Bronx, in the thick of a veritable boom-time for the American soda fountain. It is estimated that over 50,000 were in operation across the country by 1895 and that number doubled over the next decade.

Drinks made with soda water had been growing in popularity since the early 1800s, due to a combination of temperance advocacy, affordability (around the turn of the twentieth century, the average cost of a drink ranged between five and ten cents), and sheer novelty. Available late-nineteenth century flavors were surprisingly varied, ranging from cherry, mulberry, and raspberry–typical of most corner stands in New York City neighborhoods– to exotic options like coriander, blood orange, and crushed violets, which might appear on the menu at larger fountains. The ice cream soda as we know it today had its debut sometime in the 1870s, inspired by an earlier beverage made from sweet cream, shaved ice, syrup, and soda water. By the end of the century it was a soda fountain standard and Jahn’s in the Bronx was no exception to this trend.

The interior appearance of the first Jahn’s–tiled floor, long marble countertop, dark wood paneling, numerous and decorative light fixtures–was typical of a time when precision and flourishes of opulence went into both the preparation of a fountain soda and the environment where it was enjoyed. The look was intentionally recreated in the subsequent branches, including the location in Richmond Hill, which is the last of those four original locations in operation. (Many Jahn’s franchises opened during the latter-half of the twentieth century; one, which has been in Queen’s Jackson Heights neighborhood since 1959, is also open.

“We’d love to get it landmarked,” says Nancy Cataldi, president of the Richmond Hill Historical Society, of Jahn’s interior, “Except for a fire in the 1970s that melted some of the original lights, almost nothing has changed about it since it opened. It’s beautiful.” Among the many incredible treasures on display inside–including a nickelodeon player piano (it now runs on a quarter) and one of the original oversized Moxie advertisement bottles–are two ornate late nineteenth century soda fountains. One, made of varying shades of marble and bearing no fewer than 15 spigots and knobs, looks like a small cottage — a style popularized in the 1870s by the Tufts company. The other, a sturdy rectangular box of white marble, is marked with compartments for twelve different syrups: chocolate, pineapple, raspberry, coffee, cream, lemon, claret, strawberry, vanilla, sarsparilla, orange, and banana. There’s also a hot soda apparatus from the same era, made by James Patterson and Sons of Philadelphia, which would have kept “Papa” Jahn in business during the cold months when warm tomato bouillon was more satisfying than a chilly egg cream. Though these items are no longer use (indeed, one of the fountains is protected by a plexiglass case), their presence is central to the overall affect of the interior.The elaborate approach to nineteenth-century soda fountain business is also captured in the menu, which is peppered with advertisements (one for a mustache and lip guard), excerpts from contemporary industry manuals like Saxe’s New Guide, or Hints to Soda Dispensers, and Gibson girl-esque illustrations.

Of course, it wasn’t soda fountain concoctions, but ice cream that secured Jahn’s reputation as the destination for a Saturday-night excursion in Richmond Hill. (By the 1950s, it identified itself as “Serving the Finest in Frozen Confections”.) The appeal was certainly generated in large part by its ideal location next door to the RKO Keith movie theater. However, by 1929 the average American ate nine quarts of ice cream each year, a rate compounded by the fact that Prohibition encouraged people to drop in at the neighborhood ice cream parlor to seek the diversion and socializing formerly found in the neighborhood saloon.

Moreover, Richmond Hill was a growing community in the 1930s and Jahn’s extensive menu of imaginatively named sundaes–Joe Sent Me, The Bombshell, Flaming Desire, Pink Elephant, and the infamous Kitchen Sink, to name a few–had options for everyone. And it seemed like everyone went to Jahn’s, whether it was to celebrate after a movie, a prom, a school play, or have a birthday in the cavernous party room. (The only bit of wood not etched with initials, incidentally, is a pair of swinging saloon doors; one imagines they never stayed still long enough for anyone to leave a mark.)

In its heyday, people lined up around the block to go to Jahn’s. Its popularity lasted even after the RKO Keith theater stopped showing movies and became a bingo hall and flea market. But the crowds slowed down in the 1990s. Was it Jahn’s or the city that changed? Observers suggest it was both. Sabrina Mikit, whose family bought the ice cream parlor 17 years ago, says, “Not a week, no, not a day goes by without someone walking in and saying ‘Oh, I haven’t been here in years.’ People who just happen to be back in the neighborhood visiting, they’ll drive by and just have to come in.” Nowadays, people are just as likely to come to Jahn’s to indulge in a memory as a sundae.

[Posted by Place Matters, June 2007]