The Alsdorfs: A Trailblazing African-American Family in Newburgh

On a cold winter night in 1915, an exciting new entertainment venue opened in Newburgh – Alsdorf Hall, across from Washington’s Headquarters.  Brothers Simon and Ulysses Alsdorf built this music academy and dance hall and “anyone who was anyone” made sure to pass through its big arched doorway.  The music and civil rights legacy that got the brothers to that level of success is a story more entertaining than all the songs and dances they composed and taught to generations of Newburghers. 

The Newburgh Historical Society will begin its popular “Collections and Cocktails Series” for 2024 with the story of Newburgh’s Alsdorf Family.  At 7 pm on Thursday, February 22, in the parlors of the old Crawford House at 189 Montgomery Street, City Historian, Mary McTamaney will introduce visitors to the Alsdorf legacy and will display both scrapbooks that the brothers compiled of their activities in Newburgh and also the massive American Flag that once flew over their Liberty Street home and school. Two years before he died in 1952, the last brother, Ulysses, closed his music academy and gave the flag he cherished to the historical society for posterity.