Arbeiter Hall, West Side

Down the street 2 blocks and over one from my house is Douglas Park.  A boring, highly fenced, flat, green space with a couple basketball hoops and some playground equipment.  This is a snip from Google Maps street view. (Update - In 2016 most of the fence came down and more cement and wood chips were added around the playground equipment.)

Below is a snip from the 1895 Sanborn Fire Map showing this corner and what was here then.  A large building, a summer house, and a bandstand, set in a garden.

Here is what the building looked like.  It was built in 1880.  Arbeiter means Working man in German, and this area of the West Side was settled primarily by Germans when it first was platted.  Albert Baxter reports that it cost $20,000 to build.  Charles Hauser, who built my house, probably attended a lot of functions in this building.  The house seen at the far left is still standing in the next block.  This picture is courtesy of The Grand Rapids Historical Commission website, who copied it from the Grand Rapids Public Library's collection.

It was probably torn down in 1918, as it does not appear in the 1919 City Directory.  Maybe from anti-German sentiment from the war?