Another Brooklyn candy store

[4223 Fort Hamilton Parkway, Brooklyn, New York, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

As I said to a friend in an e-mail recently, I’m living part-time in a candy store of the imagination. No relation to a Coney Island of the mind.

The location: the corner of 43rd Street and Fort Hamilton Parkway. The bulding went up in 1930. There was still a candy store in the 1960s. My clearest memory: buying pumpkin seeds. They came in a bright-red box, packaged like candy. Our barber, Nello, was a couple of doors down on 43rd Street. My brother thinks that’s a barber pole to the left of the hydrant. Was Nello cutting hair at that address c. 1939–1941? He was a pretty old guy by the time we were getting haircuts.

If you click to enlarge, then squint a little, you can make out the Coca-Cola signs (known as “privilege signs”) and what looks like a barber pole, all long gone. Now occupying the street-level space at 4223: Fort Hamilton Glass & Mirror. Several years of Google Maps photographs show nothing more than a row of roll-up storefront doors for the little businesses on 43rd Street.

Thanks, Brian.

Three more candy stores
4417 New Utrecht Avenue : 4319 13th Avenue : 94 Nassau Street