Myrtle Ave. Drug Co.

[137 Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

Whoever owned this building knew something about monetizing: it looks like a miniature Times Square, minus the LEDs. If you look closely, you can see that windows on the second, third, and fourth floors have been bricked over. Perhaps an even larger billboard once covered those windows. Jeez — let there be light.

My look at this address tells me that it housed a drug store for a long time. Advertisements in Brooklyn newspapers tout a number of patent medicines available at 137 Myrtle:

1907: Elixir Kosine, a cure for epilepsy and fits in children, “absolutely free from alcohol, cocaine, morphine or opiates.”

1907: “Orrine Destroys Desire for Drink.”

1912: AM-OR-OU, “the recognized stomach tonic of the age.”

1928: “Goitre Treated At Home.”

“Hank’s” might be Henry Rickards Hanks, purveryor of Dr. Hanks’s Neuralgia & Nerve Mixture. The name Shepard was well-established in patent medicines and much else when this photograph was taken:

[Journal of Applied Chemistry (1869).]

Like Shepard’s Compound Wahoo Bitters, this downtown Brooklyn address is now non-existent. The name Myrtle, now uncommon, is one I always associate with a beautiful John Ashbery poem.

[The Tablet, June 3, 1933.]

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More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard)