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.
The Harlem Branch Y
As in Langston Hughes’s “Theme for English B.”
O.B. Rude Drug Co.
A Norwegian pharmacy in Brooklyn.
Bronx games
Shuffleboard and horseshoes.
The Oteris and Marty
Arthur Avenue: a baccalà store, and two butcher shops, one where the opening scene of Marty was filmed.
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The F.H. Knapp backstory, a possible future, and crowds watching an automaton at work.
F.H. Knapp
A NYC stationery store window, 1914.
On Arthur Avenue
Arthur Avenue Noodle & Macaroni Manufacturing.
On Arthur Avenue
Women in hats (a mother–daughter pair?), two women in aprons, a man with a cap, a window full of . . . cans of olive oil maybe?, a mystery storefront with . . . fabrics on display?, sawhorses, a sidewalk entrance to a cellar, a tough customer with a tie, improbable watering cans, and a baby carriage.
Recently updated
A Bronx candy store and the meaning of “light lunch.”
A Bronx candy store
Right across from a school.
Density and amenities
I like urban density. The southwest corner of the intersection of East Fordham Road and Jerome Avenue was full of it. And look at all the amenities: a mailbox, telephone booths, and public transportation.
Flatiron
The Flatiron Building has always been ready for its close-up.
Treehouses
Nests in a tree, two years apart.
“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.
Changeable Signs
A store for signs had better have a beautiful one.
“Wilson, That’s All”
A Times Square billboard.
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Jack Delaney’s: Now with a 1960 advertisement and a Tack Room.
Recently updated
Jack Delaney’s: Now with a menu.
Jack Delaney’s
A Greenwich Village restaurant with a horse (not a real one) and cart on the roof.
Urban density
I went browsing in the Village and found this lovely moment of urban density. I tried counting the words: close to ninety, I think. This stretch of East 14th Street is now — what else? — a Duane Reade. Three words. Duane. Reade. Pharmacy.