Recently updated
Much more about Joseph Magnasco’s family history.
The scene of the crimes
A Gowanus restaurant, scene of a robbery and a gangland slaying.
Transit Diner (?)
A Gowanus corner.
Gowanus scaffolding
When I saw this photograph, I thought “That’s all of New York now.”
Nick’s Diner
A Gowanus location.
R. Bozzo
From 1913 to 1951, Ralph Bozzo ran this restaurant/coffeehouse.
Delicatessen, or food store?
Right next to one another on Fort Hamilton Parkway.
A Boro Park five-and-ten
On !3th Avenue.
Grim, grey, unaffordable
Parts of a Brooklyn block.
La casa dei Roventini
Johnny Roventini lived here. Down the block, I was an infant.
Winckler’s
Just some candy store, you say? Just some luncheonette? Not so. At one time this establishment had its own matchbooks: Winckler & Meyer / Homemade Ice Cream / & Ices / Luncheonette.
Sam’s, not Sam’s
An Italian-American grocery store.
Daylight and shadows
The Daylight Cafeteria, at New Utrecht and 62nd. This photograph is here because I like the cafeteria’s name, and because the arrangement of lines and surfaces makes me think of the paintings of Charles Sheeler.
63rd Street Super Market
A corner in Bensonhurst.
An unattended carriage
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, people used to leave carriages unattended in front of stores. This tax photograph features the fourth unattended carriage to appear in these pages.
Unique Diner
Just down the avenue from O.B. Rude Drug Co., the Unique Diner.
Recently updated
A 1922 ad for mail-order pharamaceuticals from O.B. Rude Drug Co.
O.B. Rude Drug Co.
A Norwegian pharmacy in Brooklyn.
“It’s toasted”
O & K Toasted Sandwich Shop, 103 Graham Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941.
Buono’s Groc.
A privilege sign, a Bell Telephone sign, an awning, a horse, an unattended child, neighborhood loafers (blocking the entrance to the upstairs apartments), a bicycle with an old-fashioned kickstand, trolley tracks, cobblestones, tattered movie posters (Don Ameche, Alice Faye, and Carmen Miranda starred in the 1941 film That Night in Rio), laundry hanging on a line, and a mysterious figure at a second-story window.
“Machinery”
A recent Zippy strip featured a Mrs. Gowanus, which made me think of the Gowanus Canal, and I ended up wandering around the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. Thus I found myself at the corner of Van Brunt and Beard Streets.
Culver × 8
Last Sunday the Ghost of Brooklyn Past visited the Culver Paper Co. in Boro Park. This Sunday the Ghost walks the environs of the Culver Line in Boro Park.
Got twine?
Here, under the El tracks, is the Culver Paper Co.
SHELL
A Brooklyn gas station, c. 1939–1941.
Bocce
Under the El tracks in Brooklyn.
Why a duck?
A house, a candy store, a duck selling gasoline.
Two or more grocery stores
One unknown, one a Roulston’s, side by siide in Brooklyn, c. 1939–1940.
Church Ave. Poultry Co.
My mom once told me in passing that as a girl she would walk with her grandmother to Thirteenth Avenue (“the Avenue,” the shopping street) to buy a chicken. In other words, to pick out a chicken while it was still in possession of its life. I think I’ve found the spot.
Blatt’s 4 - 8 & 19¢ Store
In Boro Park, on 13th Avenue, c. 1939–1941.
Reconditioned Can Co.
A Brooklyn tax photograph.