Wow what a lot of memories.....it is amazing how many breweries there once were in the NYC area, how many beers were brewed here. It is funny, today we have the 'craft beer' movement, but many of the beers we are mentioning were still made the way they were back in Europe. My maternal great grandfather was from Germany and he worked for Schaefer here in NY (timeframe would be late 19th century I would guess, my grandfather was born in 1880 I believe), and both my mother's parents worked for schaefer, it is where they met around 1920 or so. Rheingold was still the beer of the NY Mets when I was a kid, I hear it may be making something of a comeback (though like a lot of once great beers, like Schaeffer, I suspect it was bought by a bulk bottler like Heillman, and will be swill).
Miss Rheingold was interesting. A friend of my father where he worked had a sister who had been Miss Rheingold, she ended up married to the guy who founder Peterson publishing (Hot Rod magazine among others).
And since we were speaking of the Polo grounds and the subway, had to bring up another piece of family history. My mother and father were dating in 1951, both lived in the Bronx and used to take the subway downtown together each day. On the day of the Dodger-Giants playoff, they dared each other from the time they got on the subway to play hooky and go to the game....and that is what they did, called in 'sick', got tickets (different era!), and were there for Thompson's famous shot heard around the world (my mom was ecstatic, since she was a Giants fan, my dad just smiled, figuring the Yankees were gonna win another one (I was the one of those sad children, brought up in a house divided, my dad grew up in the Bronx (used to sneak into Yankee stadium as a kid during the depression), my mom was a Giants fan
