More Bozzo

[1232 Madison Avenue, Carnegie Hill, Manhattan, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

Looking into the history of 406 Third Avenue in Brooklyn, a restaurant/coffeehouse owned by Ralph Bozzo, led me to a Dominick Bozzo, perhaps a son. In 1918 a Brooklyn newspaper has a Dominick Bozzo at the 406 address going off to the Great War. The 1940 Manhattan telephone directory has Bozzo Dominick frts veg at 1232 Madison Avenue. And the 1940 census has just one Dominick Bozzo, forty-five years old, living with his wife Anna on East 91st Street in Manhattan, less than half a mile away. His occupation: proprietor of a fruit and vegetable store. The Social Security Death Index lists just one Dominick Bozzo (1894–1985).

[Click either image for a larger view.]

One far from minor complication: Anna Bozzo, who gave the census info, reported her husband as having been born in Italy. But if he was Ralph and Jennie Bozzo’s son, he would have been born in the States, right? Ralph Bozzo, who came to the States as a child, was already in the restaurant business in Brooklyn by 1895.

But now I can hear the WPA fellow in the photograph saying, “Look, don’t worry about this stuff — just write about the picture already.”

Okay.

I think what we see in this picture is a combination fruit and vegetable store and butcher shop, something like a proto-supermarket. A. Steigerwald is listed in the 1940 Manhattan directory as mts, an abbreviation I couldn’t find in compendia of directory abbreviations. Monuments? Searching for steigerwald and this address in Google Books turned up the 1950 Meat Packing Cycolpedia. So mts is meats (duh). If you look closely at the photograph, you’ll see a tattered awning below the Steigerwald name. Perhaps that awning names the frts veg side of things. The streetside crates certainly suggest produce for sale.

Another detail about 1232: the Poe scholar Thomas Ollive Mabbott (1898-1968) once lived there, presumably in one of the apartments above the store. I found Mabbott’s name at this address in The British Numismatic Journal (1938). In the 1940 Manhattan directory, Mabbott, identified as prof, and his wife Maureen are living at 56 E. 87th Street. Each address is less than a mile and a half from Hunter College, where Professor Mabbott taught for many years.

One more thing: in recent years 1232 housed one of three Madison Avenue locations for the 3 Guys restaurants. On every visit to New York, Elaine and I would have lunch at the 1381 Madison Avenue 3 Guys with our friends Seymour and Margie Barab. Before looking into this tax photograph, I never knew there was more than one 3 Guys.

[1232 again. Google Maps, December 2017. Click for a larger view.]

Sometime after August 2018, the 1232 3 Guys disappeared, and a fourteen-story building replaced the building in the tax photograph. The 1381 3 Guys closed in March 2023. The restaurant at 960 Madison appears to still be going.

I followed my advice to walk every block and noticed something remarkable: when this tax photograph was taken, this one block of Madison Avenue held five small grocery stores. At least one was offering meats, poultry, seafood, dairy products, groceries, and produce. In other words, everything.

And now I recall what Marty Piletti (Ernest Borgnine) says in the movie Marty, when he thinks about taking over his boss’s butcher shop:

“Of course, you gotta worry about the supermarkets. There’s two in the neighborhood now, and there’s an A&P comin’ in — at least that’s the rumor.”

And:

“Well, there’s lots of things I could do with the shop. I could organize my own supermarket — get a bunch of neighborhood merchants together. That’s what a lot of them are doin’.”

Perhaps Bozzo and Steigerwald went in together to fight the competition.

*

Speaking of fights, see also this post about one philosophy professor beating up another at 1232 Madison.

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