We continue our reporting on the missing treasure of gangster Dutch Schultz, who brewed beer during prohibition in Yonkers, and illegally ran the brew under the streets of the city for years before someone uncovered the scam.
Dutch buried a 2 foot by 3 foot treasure chest filled with gold, diamonds, cash and bonds as a getaway bundle of funds if he had to leave town at a moments notice. That value of the chest and it contents is now estimated between $50 Million-$150 Million. Dutch was gunned down in 1935 and many are wondering what happened to the chest and where was it buried?
Thanks to my good friend Mary Hoar for finding this story in the Yonkers Historical Society Newsletter, Volume 4, Issue 4, Winter 1995, which was reprinted from the Yonkers Historical Society Bulletin, 1979
Titled “When a Hotel Crowned Park Hill,” by Charles R. Shakeshaft, who writes,
“One of the most majestic views in Yonkers is the one seen from Leslie Sutherland Park which towers over the intersection of South Broadway and McLean Avenue on the Western Slope of Park Hill. From here one can view the Hudson River and its Palisades and reflect that on this historic once stood a 230-room hotel.
“Named the Hendrick Hudson Hotel, this luxurious hostelry resembeled in its architecture the fames Chateau Frontenac in Quebec. It was built at the turn of the century by the American Real Estate Company, the developer of Park Hill. Along with the hotel, plans called for the purchase of the old Dunwoodie Golf and Country Club.
“All this was changed however, when on the hotel’s opening night Sunday, March 31, 1901, a fire started and the huge building burned to the ground in what must have been a spectacular blaze that could have been seen for miles around.
“The hotel was built on solid rock and at the time of its demise a large elevator shaft had been drilled over forty eight feet straight down to connect with a 150-foot tunnel, so that guest might be transported to the Park Hill Station of the Putnam Division’s railroad line at the foot of the cliff.
“The charred remains of the hotel including many stone arches stood for years and were known as the Park Hill “Ruins.” In 1923 a proposal for another hotel on the site failed to materialize.
“The year 1929 saw the City of Yonkers buying the eight odd acres as a possible site for a South Yonkers High School. The project became the subject of a lively controversy and was finally abandoned.
“Many years later a proposal was made for garden apartments on the site but that plan was also failed. The old elevator shaft was finally filled in after its plank cover had become rotted and was deemed to be a dangerous situation.
“The tunnel, or “cave” became a scene of many stories. One such tale had it that the Bronx Beer Baron, Arthur “Dutch Schultz” Flegenheimer, stored kegs of beer in the cave for shipment to “speakeasys” during the prohibition era.
“For a good many generations children played around the cave and it became a place of mystery and intrigue until it was finally sealed. In 1946 the City of Yonkers made the entire area into Leslie Sutherland Park. Park Hill finally had a park! ” writes Shakeshaft.
A recent PBS documentary “Secrets of the Dead-Gangster Gold” aired on PBS and tried to find out where gangster Dutch Schultz had buried a treasure chest of diamonds, gold, cash and bonds. “It is widely believed that notorious Bronx-based gangster and bootlegger Dutch Schultz buried a fortune estimated to be worth more than $50 million somewhere in New York’s Catskill Mountains prior to his death in 1935. Schultz was gunned down and died without revealing where the treasure was buried, spawning a mystery that has endured for nearly a century,” writes PBS.
One of the locations in the documentary was in Yonkers, at the site of the Hendrick Hudson Hotel. Shakeshaft’s story confirms the PBS rumor. If the Dutchman’s treasure chest still exists, it could be in South Yonkers. This reporter is doubtful that the chest was left in its hidden place after Schultz was gunned down in 1935, and while his wife, Frances Flegenheimer did not get it, one of Dutch’s confidants probably did.
Once the spring comes, we will report on the cave and do some digging. If you know the area, send us an email at dmurphy@risingmediagroup.com. We have also been unable to find a photo of the Hendrick Hudson Hotel and would love to print one.
The long held tale was that Schultz buried the chest in the Catskills, in Phoenicia NY, a town that he spent time with. The PBS documentary mentions Phoenicia and a house in Bronxville NY, on the campus of Concordia College, as two other possible locations.
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