block=1 AND lot=1

[1 John Street, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

No time for rabbit holes this week; I decided just to use the numbering system for the WPA tax photographs to find a property: block=1 AND lot=1. The building looks like a warehouse of some sort, with the Manhattan Bridge looming overhead.

The area around 1 John Street is now known as Dumbo, or DUMBO: Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. Today no. 1 is a whole ’nother building that went up in 2016. Condos are now availble from $4,950,000 to $9,500,000.

Typing those prices leaves me almost nauseated — literally so.

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An assiduous reader sussed out this building’s identity, “a six-story factory at the foot of Adams Street”: it was part of the Arbuckle Brothers Company, purveyors of coffee and sugar, founded by John Arbuckle (1839–1912). From Wikipedia:

In 1921, the New York City location of Arbuckle Brothers in Dumbo, Brooklyn, was more than 12 city blocks with its own railroad and port facilities. The company stayed in family’s hands until 1929. Arbuckle’s company closed in 1935. It was sold and combined with Maxwell House, which would later join General Foods.

And a surprising detail:

The Yuban brand (sometimes Yule brand) was Arbuckle’s name for his personal mix of fresh coffees for Christmas gifts. According to General Mills advertisements in the 1960s, Yuban was an abbreviation of Yuletide Banquet.

More surprising still: coffee bearing the Arbuckle name is once again on the market.

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