Those Places Thursday - Ridgewood Savings Bank

My great-great grandfather Rudolph Stutzmann, who I've written about before, was an undertaker and prominent member of German-American society in the Ridgewood section of Brooklyn and Queens in the late 19th and early 20th century. He was one of the founding members and the first president of what is now known as the Ridgewood Savings Bank, which opened in 1921 - you can find branches all over Long Island, but while the original building is no longer there, the larger, more ornate one that was built in 1929, is, at the corner of Myrtle and Forest Avenues.



This is a recent photo of the original bank headquarters, and below is a copy of a story and photo (courtesy of http://www.fultonhistory.com/) from the June 19, 1929 issue of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle in which the cornerstone for the new building was laid. Rudolph is at the very center and in the front of the large photo at the top of the page, to the right of the cornerstone, holding the trowel. The headline reads, "Laying cornerstone for new $500,000 Ridgewood Savings Bank." He would be president of the bank until his death in 1946.