[Outside 5117 4th Avenue, Sunset Park, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]
He appears in yesterday’s post. I didn’t want him to be overlooked.
An outtake shows a shoe-repair shop at no. 5117, offering “Ladies and Gents Shoe Shine Inside.” An earlier photograph, I’d assume, before a radio-repair shop took over the premises. Sitting across from what was once shoes , perhaps this kid was looking to capitalize on people’s remembrance of shines past. Or perhaps he was just counting on foot traffic from the subway entrance and exit.
I can’t write this post without pointing to Duke Ellington’s beautiful rendition of Saul Chaplin and Sammy Cahn’s “Shoe Shine Boy.” With Lawrence Brown (trombone), Barney Bigard (clarinet), and a vocal by Ivie Anderson. Is it really ninety years old? It is.
Related posts
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard)
Monday, August 17, 2026
A shoe shine boy
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Also noticed "Dugout" shoe shine parlor, across the street
ReplyDeleteHmm — I see this one, but I’m not seeing the one you mean.
ReplyDeleteHere’s the shoe shine parlor (displaced by a record store?):
ReplyDeletehttps://1940s.nyc/map/photo/nynyma_rec0040_3_00798_0040a#22/40.64549041/-74.01486714
And a reader points out that the boy sitting between the barber shop and the diner might also be hoping to shine some shoes.