Reconditioned Can Co.

[62 Greenpoint Avenue, Brooklyn, c. 1939-1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a larger view.]

I chose this photograph for its Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer flavor. I would imagine that the cans sent for reconditioning to the Reconditioned Can Co. were drums to hold chemicals, paints, industrial goods. I don’t think the company was working on cans of Le Sueur peas. But I could be wrong. “Can reconditioner” is an occupational title, and the work is about improving cans that hold food: hitting with a mallet to test the vacuum seal, removing dirt and rust, relabeling. So the Reconditioned Can Co. might be a food-salvage operation.

This Greenpoint building now houses apartments, some of them no doubt with canned goods.

Nearby in the Greenpoint area: Eberhard Faber, whose tax photographs don’t do the building justice. Much more impressive: the photographs in a New York Times article and Forgotten New York’s two-part — 1, 2 — tour of Greenpoint.

Related reading
More OCA posts with photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives