The carriage’s in the midst of all

Sorry, Yeats.

[369 Columbia Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

Just one more look at Columbia Street, and one more unattended carriage. The unattended carriage has become an unexpected motif in these WPA tax photographs. The Unattended Carriage : that could have been the title of an Edward Gorey volume.

My eye went from the carriage to the store at no. 369: Maria Mazzella Grocery.

The name Mazzella had a long history at this address. On May 12, 1924, The Brooklyn Eagle reported a marriage license issued to Natalina Mazzella (1904–1996), then living at no. 369, and Robert Nocera (1900–1980), then living at 5 Luquer Street, just down the block and around the corner. They are reported living at no. 369 in the 1930 census, which also has Mary and John Mazzella living at this address, a widowed mother, fifty-five, born in Italy, and her son, twenty-nine, born in New York. Robert and John are both listed as “loader,” “wharf” — in other words, they were longshoremen. I think it’s safe to assume that Mary is the Maria on the awning in this tax photograph. But there’s no grocery store with that name yet.

The 1940 census has only Mary and John at no. 369, now sixty-six and thirty-seven, and now Mary is identified as a grocery-store owner. The 1930 census shows a grocery-store owner already at no. 367, Nicholas DeMonte. Was there a single store that changed hands and, somehow, its street address? No, there’s another store at no. 367 in the tax photographs, Nick’s Italian-American Grocery, with its own detail-laden tax photograph.

A 1941 full-page Brooklyn Eagle advertisement for Doublemint Gum lists Maria Mazzella’s store as a purveyor: “You hit the nail on the head, Brooklyn! Doublemint Gum gives you real chewing satisfaction.” In the 1950 census, Mary and John, now seventy-five and fifty, remain at this address. Mary, in a third census, is not yet a naturalized citizen. John is now identified as “salesmans,” “wholesale barsup” (bar supplies?), and there’s no grocery store attached to Mary’s name. But Nicholas DeMonte, his name recorded as Nick Domonte, is still at no. 367, now listed as the proprietor of a candy store.

I will assume that someone had come for the carriage by then.

[Click for a larger view.]

Sources: Brooklyn Newstand, Find a Grave, and census records via Steve Morse. My starting point, as always, is Julien Boilen’s Street View of 1940s New York. I was able to turn up nothing about Sal Laundry.

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