Got grapes?

[528 Sheepshead Bay Road, Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

Just a short walk in from the beach, and you could get all the grapes you want. My first guess was that A. Cafiero supplied grapes to grocery stores. But then why have a sign touting low prices, and boxes of grapes on the sidewalk? Maybe these grapes went to home vintners. (My Brooklyn grandfather made his own wine during Prohibition.)

I found one trace of the grapes in Google Books, which holds a volume of a trade journal listing seven shipments of grapes to an A. Cafiero, all from Buenos Aires. For example:

[Fruit Trade Journal and Produce Record (1927). Why was a bank getting a shipment of grapes?]

I wish they all could be California grapes.

Bonus points for the laundry, the possible lurker at the second-floor window, the hatted pedestrians, and whatever is in the WPA man’s hand. Paperwork related to the work of photography, or a receipt for grapes? It must be paperwork, with a printed form similar to those used by census takers. I suspect that the WPA men are filling in address numbers and block and lot codes as they go.

Today this address forms part of a parking lot.

Related posts
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard)