Fred Blumlein fondly recalls Bulls Head Hotel, his great-grandfather's hotel and auto and wagon shed, which was located on the corner of Glen Cove Road and Northern Boulevard in Bulls Head (later North Roslyn and now Greenvale):
On the 1905 and 1906 courses of the Vanderbilt Cup Races
Greenvale’s Bulls Head Hotel, located smack-dab on the corner of that tough turn, played an important role in the 1905 race. Aloysius Huwer, proprietor of the hotel (and the writer’s great-grandfather), rented his “Auto & Wagon Shed,” to race driver and car owner, Walter C. White. White and his mechanics bunked in the Hotel and used Huwer’s Shed to ready his steam-driven racer for the event. White’s machine was the only steam racer ever to be driven in the Vanderbilt Cup Races. He received an “A” for trying, but had to abandon his car in the fifth lap because of engine and tire troubles.
During the 1906 race, the Bulls Head Hotel and Auto & Wagon Shed became the base camp for the Pope-Toledo car group. They were the last race team to use the site during the races.
The Auto & Wagon Shed that once housed the Vanderbilt Cup racing cars and an icehouse were destroyed by fire in 1923.
The move from the intersection
Regarding the below 1936 photo with the police officer standing on the corner, take a look at the long row of first-floor windows of the hotel that is facing us. These windows enclosed the hotel’s old front porch and, in 1932, housed the first post office in Greenvale. In later years, one of the building’s storefronts facing Northern Blvd. housed Dr. Cavoti’s original Greenvale Pharmacy, the first drug store in the hamlet. That pharmacy still operates today as the Greenvale Pharmacy near the original Bulls Head Hotel location and under different management.
New York Times, May 1986
The demolition of the Huwer's buildings
In 1999, the then developer/owner of these properties gave permission to the Roslyn Fire Department to practice venting (cutting through) its roof to allow practice smoke to escape from the house. Interestingly, this was the house that Aloysius Huwer, a veteran of the Civil War, built and moved into in the late teens after he sold the hotel and its corner property.
The bull at Bulls Head Hotel
An interesting family story was told by my grandmother, Louisa Huwer Blumlein, Aloysius’ daughter. When her father was offered to buy the land directly across Northern Blvd. where Ben’s restaurant exists today, he said, and I paraphrase, “what do I want more property for?”
Today: The original site of Bulls Head Hotel
The location is the home of the Long Island flagship store of Charles Krypell Jewlery.
2 Comments
I need to correct the information, today I when for my second vaccine, but whe I registeo on vsafe said first dose, but today was my second vaccine
It is simply tragic that all the history of Greenvale is smothered in shops of cement and glass . So difficult to see what replaces the old rural homes