116th and Park

[1640 and 1642 Park Avenue, East Harlem, Manhattan, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click either image for a much larger view.]

What made me look up the corner of 116th Street and Park Avenue: The Pawnbroker (dir. Sidney Lumet, 1964). Sol Nazerman, Holocaust survivor and pawnbroker, has his shop at 1642.

[Nazerman (Rod Steiger), white hair, dark sweater, is just to the right of the 95. 95 E. 116th seems to be another way of referring to 1640 Park. Click for a much larger view. ]

The rhyme is beyond uncanny: 1642, the site of Nazerman’s pawn shop, was once the home of Kamerman & Co. Plumbing Supplies. In 1920 a trade publication described Israel Kamerman as “the well-known jobber who conducts a large, up-to-date supply house at 1642 Park avenue [sic].”

The corner location that became El Radiante later became an herbs-and-spices store, a botánica, and a deli. Today the corner is the site of a seven- or nine-story condo building in progress.

In 1970, 1642 was demolished, with a low-income housing development taking its place in 2009. Here’s a 1995 photograph showing the herbs-and-spices store and the then-empty lot.

On March 12, 2014, a gas explosion destroyed 1644 and 1646. Eight people were killed; more than seventy were injured. Here is a New York Times article about the mourning that followed.

The 1644 lot still stands vacant. Since at least September 2015, a sign has been attached to the chainlink fence in front of the property. A small tree in a planter stands in front of the fence. Google Maps photographs through the years show flowers and photographs left on the fence. The artist’s renderings of what will be the new 1640 and its environs show none of that.

When you look into the history of an address, you never know what you’re going to find.

Related reading
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard)