10th Street VFW Post Closes After 50 Years In The Slope
It’s quite possible that you’ve walked by the faded entrance to VFW Post #9485 hundreds of times, and never known what it was. For over 50 years, the hall, nestled below the elevated F train station on the corner of 4th Avenue and 10th Street, was a gathering place for veterans of foreign wars, but according to a recent New York Observer article, VFW Post #9485 has quietly closed its doors.
“Our membership is declining,” State Commander Mike Pascal explained to the Observer. “The majority of our membership is World War II veterans, and they’re dying.”
Although the organization’s roots can be traced to the Spanish American War, Veterans of Foreign War groups really took off after World War I, with almost 200,000 members joining by 1936 to help military veterans obtain benefits in the aftermath of war. Credited with such things as the GI Bill and the development of the national cemetery system, today’s VFW members total almost 2 million.
VFW Post #9485, named after Private Gerald F. Connelly, a Brooklyn native who was killed in the Philippines on April 27, 1945, was an offshoot of Sergeant H. W. Steneck Post #601 (located on 59th Street), which closed in 2004 and dates back to 1964.
“We were a spinoff of a World War I Post,” said Post Commander Anthony Nappi in a February interview. “The guys who broke off of Steneck Post were at that point in time considered the young guys. They were the World War II guys.”
Sadly, not much is known about VFW Post #9485’s swan song. The Observer notes that their charter has never officially been cancelled, but they’re no longer listed in the VFW registry. Are there any members, or family of members, who know more about the closure?
