[100-05 Queens Boulevard, Forest Hills, Queens, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]
Right across from Ex-Lax/Cosmetics/Luncheon, we have, or had, Ham n Eggery, “Glorifying the American Dish.” That motto is a takeoff on the name of the 1929 Florenz Ziegfeld extravaganza Glorifying the American Girl . Which reminds me that our friend Margie King Barab was friends with Dorothy Wegman Raphaelson, one of the last two surviving Ziegfeld girls.
But back to the restaurant. The magazine Men’s Wear made brief mention of Ham n Eggery in 1940:
there’s a new place on Queens Boulevard called the “Ham’n Eggery” which does a sensational job with Va. ham and a couple of eggs.If you click for the much larger view, you’ll notice many details: the lone patron rehearsing for an Edward Hopper painting, the sign announcing a closing (WILL BE CLOSED OM: for vacation?) “Air Cooled,” the candy-store signage, Bell Telephone, Bilt-Rite (which explains Parson T’s: tires), the subway entrance and bus stop sign, and best of all, those eggs running joyfully to the pan. Whee!
Today the Ham n Eggery building houses a Dunkin’.
Thanks, Brian.
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comments: 6
Great one
What does PA RS ON TS in the upper windows mean?
Since Bilt-Rite was a tire brand, I think PARSON T’S must mean tires.
when i moved to nh in 1989, i remember seeing "air conditioned" signs in the windows of the stores downtown. coming from tx where one expected things to be air conditioned those signs were amazing to see. back then a/c was mainly avoided except for a few days in the summer when it would be 99 degrees and 85% humidity only to be broken by storms coming in from the mountains. most at that time considered a/c to be a waste of money. even in duluth, mn in 2000's many places did not have a/c. i was there for a week taking a class at the umn-duluth.
kirsten
ps i thought there was a reason that the foundation area had bricks with vents in them.
kirsten
Kirsten, you made me remember an Arthur Miller piece about life before air conditioning: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1998/06/22/before-air-conditioning.
Can you explain the vents? I once photographed such vents on what was once a Woolworth in Brookline, MA. Elaine thinks they might have something to do with a furnace in the basement.
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