L. EDDY

[2868 Stillwell Avenue, Coney Island, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

I went looking for the Coney Island tattoo parlor on view in The Tattooed Stranger (dir. Edward Montagne, 1950) and had no luck. But my search did turn up this location.

Okay, it doesn’t say LEDDY. But it’s close. Let me have my fun.

I can turn up nothing on L. Eddy Signs. An 1899 Brooklyn newspaper has a Lester Eddy among the guests at a gathering at a college art instructor’s residence. That’s suggestive. A 1919 Brooklyn newspaper has Mr. and Mrs. Lester Eddy at a Coney Island address celebrating their second anniversary and the sixteenth birthdays of Mrs. Eddy’s twins from an earlier marriage. The 1940 telephone directory has a Lester Eddy living at this Stillwell Avenue address. Judging from the apparent age of the sign, perhaps he had already traded in his brushes and stencils for a life renting rooms to tourists come to enjoy Coney Island. Click for a much larger view to see what I mean.


Today where no. 2868 and other numbers once stood there’s a massive apartment complex.

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