SUITS PRESSED

[1441 Broadway, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

The white arrow (barely visible) on the address sign points to the large building, the Bricken Textile Building. The New York Times noted its January 20, 1930 opening. The building still stands. What I like in this photograph though is the small stuff: those clashing planes of signage. I can decipher almost everything in front of LIQUOR:

[SUITS PRESSED / while you wait / FRENCH DRY CLEANING / SKILLFUL TAILORING / We guarantee to / (?) CLOTHES / (?) SPECIAL PROCESS / CURTAINS & DRAPES / for home office (?) / QUALITY DRY CLEANED / BERGER SERVICE / 151. Click for a larger view.]

Aha: Berger Service Cleaning & Dyeing Corp. has listings and advertisements for Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens locations in the 1940 telephone directories. And there’s 151, at 151 West 41st Street. “E. of Broadway,” says an advertisement that runs across the tops of three columns in the Manhattan directory.

[Click for a larger view.]

[Click for a larger view.]

Alas, there is no tax photograph for 151, at least not that I can find, and no tax photographs of adjacent addresses. So this glimpse of the sign is the only glimpse I’ve got.

Yelp lists one address for Berger Service Cleaning & Dye Corporation — 4 W. 63rd Street — with three reviews, the most recent from 2018. Google Maps has the same address, with the most recent review from last month. In other words, there’s still a Berger in Manhattan, apparently in an apartment building.

As for other details in the photograph:

The light-colored car says RADIO — it must be a cab, no doubt yellow. The van alongside it: METROPOLITAN NEWS CO., a distribution service for newspapers and magazines. Robert B. Cohen acquired the company in 1985. Cohen also ran the Hudson County News Company, precursor of the now-ubiquitous Hudson News outlets. Which brings us back to the present.

*

December 26: A reader suggests that the words below “CURTAINS & DRAPES” might be “for home office.” Thanks, reader. And then there’s a third word. What? Related reading
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard)

[Hudson County: a county in northern New Jersey. My dad grew up there, which brings us back to the past.]