A prisoner of Gowanus

[58 2nd Avenue, Gowanus, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

I thought of the old KENTILE FLOORS sign and found myself once again in Gowanus. It’s a Brooklyn neighborhood that I’ve visited many times in these pages. I am a prisoner not of 2nd Avenue but of Gowanus.

In Brooklynite memory, the KENTILE FLOORS sign that stood atop the Kentile, Inc. building is a beloved landmark, though the Kentile name is now associated with mesothelioma. There’s no trace of the sign in the WPA tax photographs, but I did find this coffee shop, whose address for some reason is listed as that of the now-defunct manufacturer.

Life, September 1, 1952. Click for a larger view.]

If you click the tax photograph for the larger view and look closely, you’ll see the name Gowanus Coffee Shop on the window. Notice too the Schaefer Beer sign in the window: this (former?) coffee shop must have had a liquor license. And notice not just one but two Bell Telephone signs: signs of civilization. It’s not easy to ignore the figure standing in the doorway. Whoever she is, she is not amused. I imagine her speaking in comic-strip Brooklynese: “Whaddaya gonna do, just stan’ there all day takin’ my pitcher?”

[Click for a larger view.]

Today 58 2nd Avenue is home to the Achim Importing Co. and is unrecognizable as its former self.

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

R. Bozzo

[406 Third Avenue, Gowanus, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

Those were some mean streets in Gowanus. But the restaurant on the corner abided. From 1913 to 1951, Ralph Bozzo ran that restaurant/coffeehouse. I puzzled over the name on the awning until I searched Brooklyn Newsstand for this Third Avenue address.

In 1940, Ralph and Jennie Bozzo were living with three daughters at 153 86th Street, in the Fort Hamilton section of Brooklyn — quite a contrast to the mean streets of Gowanus. Ralph is the only Bozzo in the 1940 Brooklyn telephone directory.

In the news: In September 1915, George Bozzo, eighteen, most likely Ralph’s son, was fined $10 for violating a liquor tax law at the Third Avenue address. In August 1918, Dominick Bozzo, also at that address, most likely another son, went off to fight in the Great War. I’ll guess that the family was living upstairs. Is this Dominick Bozzo the one Dominick Bozzo (1894–1985) listed in the Social Security Death Index? Perhaps. In 1940 a Dominick Bozzo lived in Manhattan and ran a fruit and vegetable store on Madison Avenue. But that Dominick, whose age as given in the 1940 census (forty-five) fits, was born in Italy. George isn’t listed in the SSDI, and no sons are mentioned in Ralph’s obituary. Some mysteries are meant to remain mysteries.

It appears that Ralph wasn’t easily gulled, or mulcted. From a 1920 news item, mostly about Leroy W. Ross, the Brooklyn DA, urging residents to visit saloons, order drinks, and report those who served them. This bit at the end is about phony Revenue agents scamming those selling liquor:

[“Urges Citizens to Buy Drinks: Ross Then Would Have Public Report Success to Dry Forces.” Brooklyn Citizen, November 19, 1920. Click for a larger view.]

And here’s an obituary:

[The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 28, 1951. Click for a larger view.]

Today, 406 is home to Halyards, which describes itself as “your neighborhood cocktail bar and oasis among the gritty Gowanus industrial streets.” I think they mean mean streets, or formerly mean.

I had planned to post nothing more than a Hopperesque street scene this morning, but pulling on one thread — in this case, the street address — opened up a rabbit hole, as well as a mixed metaphor.

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

Laundry day

Back to laundry — namely, the laundry that was hanging when a tax photograph was taken one day in Gowanus.

[561 Union Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

An alert reader noticed the human presence in the photograph: there’s someone at the top left window, and there appears to be someone below waving to the camera. I’ve tinkered with the contrast and added an outline for visibility.


[Click any image for a larger view.]

Here’s another view of the scene:

[557 Union Street. Click for a larger view.]

The likely residents of 561 Union Street when these photographs were taken: the Guadagno family, Gerard, Mary, and their daughters Rose, Nancy, and Gertrude. Under Industry in the 1940 census (distinguished from Occupation), Gerard and Mary are listed as “Groceries.”

[Click for a much larger view.]

And lookit: there was a grocery store just a few doors down the block:

[571 Union Street. Click for a larger view.]

That is a grocery store, not just a candy store (candy, newspapers, tobacco). The Salada Tea signage and the prices posted in the windows signify grocery store. And the word Grocery appears on the (Coca-Cola) privilege sign. I can imagine Gowanusites buying bread, milk, canned soup, tea, and coffee. Main staples.

Could the white garments hanging on the line be grocer’s aprons? They look much too substantial to be sleeveless T-shirts. Here’s a tax photograph with a grocer’s apron. I think that’s what we’re seeing at 561 Union.

[Click for a larger view.]

I was going to leave it at that, but I thought (once again) of Robert Caro’s mantra, “Turn every page.” Here that’d mean “Look up that grocery store address in the census.” And there it is. And in one of the 571 apartments, more Guadagnos: Arnold, Catherine, and their children Arnold, Marie, and Lorraine, all much younger than the family at 561. A Guadagno son and his family, I would guess.

[Click for a much larger view.]

Grocer’s aprons or no, I think that the grocery store was a Guadagno enterprise.

Thanks, Brian, for all your attention to this Gowanus scene.

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

Mind the gap

[561 Union Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

Look past the wooden fence and the laundry hung out to dry: there’s a house back there. A recent real-estate listing ($2.695 million) tells the story of a property with “so much charm that even the pickiest Parisienne will melt.” At the time of this photograph though? Maybe not so much.

This is the sixth Gowanus photograph I’ve posted. I’m moving to an island in the Bronx next week.

*

September 12: An alert reader noticed the work of laundry:


[Click either image for a larger view.]

There’s someone at the window. But maybe also someone standing and waving to the camera?

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

“Machinery”

[John Cowhey & Sons, 440 Van Brunt Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

A recent Zippy strip featured a Mrs. Gowanus, which made me think of the Gowanus Canal, and I ended up wandering around the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. Thus I found myself at the corner of Van Brunt and Beard Streets.

I chose this photograph for the quotation marks around “MACHINERY,” which add, at least in my fevered imagination, an ominous tinge to the premises. We brought the “machinery,” boss, just like you asked. Marine equipment, anchors, chains — yikes. I think of Salvatore Bonpensiero being taken on his last boat ride: “Get the weights.”

In reality though, John Cowhey was, as far as I can tell, an upstanding Brooklynite.

[Brooklyn Times-Union, October 9, 1912.]

The following paragraph must be about a son John, as the article in which it appears says that this John and two other businessmen in the area are “fast friends”:

[“Ex-Barnacle Fighter Finds Waterproofing Skyscrapers Like Painting Ship Hulls.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, August 25, 1929.]

Here’s another Cowhey son:

[The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 2, 1937.]

A story that would be a bit scarier if the subhead didn’t give it away:

[The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 20, 1931.]

And a photograph accompanying the article:

[The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 20, 1931. Click for a larger view.]

Brooklyn Newsstand turns up several articles about a lurid story with the Cowhey name: in February 1884, an Annie and John Cowhey, sister and brother, were accused of killing their father Denis Cowhey and their sister and brother-in-law Catharine (Kate) and Thomas Collier (or Collyer — it’s spelled both ways, sometimes in the same article). The three died from arsenic added to soup and hash. Given the absence of any reference to the well-known Cowhey & Sons in articles about the murders, I’ll guess that this John Cowhey has no connection to 440 Van Brunt. And for what it’s worth, he is described as a former stone-cutter who tended bar. The Cowhey siblings were never prosecuted.

The most interesting detail about this case: a young woman matching a description of Annie Cowhey purchased two boxes of Rough on Rats poison, one before Denis Cowhey’s death, the other before the Colliers’ deaths. But Catharine Collier was deemed the likely killer: she did not want her father to remarry and, after killing him, was believed to have become desperate.

[The Delineator, January 1905.]

I have begun to realize that it’s impossible to just find a nifty photograph, post it, and be done.

The 440 location is now a private residence, with six bedrooms, six bathrooms, and 9,149 square feet. Pretty severe looking, if you ask me, or Google Maps.

Related reading
More OCA posts with photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives

Transit Diner (?)

[342 Third Avenue, Gowanus, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

Just one more Gowanus corner, taking its place in these pages with Ralph Bozzo’s restaurant, Nick’s Diner, and an empty building clad in scaffolding.

A list of Brooklyn diners of the past has a diner at 344 Third Avenue from 1938 to 1950. In 1936 a liquor license was granted to an establishment at 342. In 1959 a license was granted to the Transit Diner at this address. Was 342 the Transit Diner all along? Reply hazy, try again, says the Magic 8 Ball.

[Brooklyn Times-Union, July 6, 1933. Click for a larger view.]

[Brooklyn Daily, April 6, 1959. Click for a larger view.]

The name Michael Tolopka appears in a 1941 news item:

[The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, November 11, 1941.]

I think that’s our man: a Daily News article from the same date, partially visible behind a paywall, identifies Tolopka as “lunch wagon proprietor” and identifies Russo as “his old [something-]hood pal.” If the Michael Tolopka in this news item is the one found here (1897–1944), I think neighborhood is the better fit. But child- would appear to better fit the column of newsprint.

I can imagine someone asking Mr. Russo, “How could you rob an old pal like that?” The only possible answer, no Magic 8 Ball needed: “It was easy!” But it’s not easy to imagine $1240 as a day’s receipts from this diner.

One last detail: I like the way the Pepsi-Cola sign on the truck and the Coca-Cola sign signs on the diner become one harmonious celebration of soda. A reader got it right: the Pepsi-Cola sign just looks as if it’s on the truck. Both signs are on the diner. The truck carries rock salt.

Google Maps shows something under construction at this address in June 2022. Before that it appears to have been a parking lot for Verizon employees and trucks.

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

Gowanus scaffolding

[267-269 Third Avnue, Gowanus, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

Just another Third Avenue corner, taking its place with Ralph Bozzo’s restaurant and Nick’s Diner.

When I saw this photograph, I thought that’s all of New York now. Yes, I exaggerated. But 400 miles of New York City sidewalks are now coffined in scaffolding, aka sidewalk sheds. The sheds make walking an adventure in claustrophobia. Mayor Eric Adams has a plan for their removal. For now, I recommend watching an episode of How To with John Wilson: “How to Put Up Scaffolding” (Max).

No. 267 has more recently been the address of a Super 8 providing quarters for unhoused single men. If the building is still a Super 8, Google Maps shows it losing its identifying sign between November 2020 and May 2022. And there’s no scaffolding.

Related reading
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The scene of the crimes

Last week’s photograph of a Gowanus diner led me to a story about its proprietor, Michael Tolopka, being robbed of $240 at 4th Avenue and Union Street. My friend Slywy snagged the Daily News article with more details:

[Daily News, November 11, 1941.]

Tolopka was robbed outside a bar and grill. There was only one such establishment at the intersection of 4th Avenue and Union Street: the College Restaurant.

[224 4th Avenue, Gowanus, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

Between 1930 and 1944, at least five other Brooklyn restaurants had the word college in their names, each establishment apparently independent of the others. My guess is that the name of the College Inn restaurant in Chicago’s Hotel Sherman inspired copycats.

In 1961, the College Restaurant on 4th Avenue was the scene of a crime far more spectacular than the Tolopka robbery.

[Brooklyn Daily, October 6, 1961. Click for a larger view.]

In June 1961, Joseph Magnasco (b. 1925), was among those convicted of hijacking a truckful of linen. He was shot and killed before being sentenced. A Getty-owned photograph shows a priest administering last rites to the dead Magnasco on the sidewalk. All the hijacking convictions were later reversed.

This Wikipedia article, though it doesn’t mention Magnasco, gives some context for his killing: a battle between the Gallo and Profaci crime families. A 1961 newspaper article calls Magnasco a “top level Gallo mobster.” A 1963 article identifies Magnasco as a “Gallo henchman”; another calls him a “Gallo mobster.”

And there’s a complication: Magnasco seems to have defected from the Profaci family.

[Newsday, October 5, 1961. Click for larger views.]

Magnasco’s killing appears to have gone unsolved.

Joseph Magnasco previously made the news in 1947, when he attempted to rob a railroad-station safe in Lynnbrook, Long Island. An May 19 article from the Nassau Daily Review-Star reports that “Woman Routs Thug Saving $1,600 At Railroad Station.” Magnasco attempted to take money from an open safe and fought with a female ticket agent before fleeing. A May 20 article reports that a police officer noticed a man walking along a road with a bloody handkerchief around one hand. That was Magnasco. The officer was rewarded with a day off to go fishing. Magnasco later pleaded guilty to possession of an automatic pistol. It’s not clear that he faced any other charges.

[Nassau Daily Review-Star, May 20, 1947.]

Here’s a better likeness, most likely a mug shot from a later arrest:

[Joseph Magnasco, n.d.]

There’s just one Joseph Magnasco in the 1940 census who was born in 1925. He was a fifteen-year-old resident of The Children’s Village, a home for orphans and troubled boys in Dobbs Ferry, New York. From the Children’s Village website:

1958: The Children’s Village was officially designated a Residential Treatment Center. This came as the culmination of the evolution from an orphanage to a residential school for troubled boys to a true clinical program capable of meeting the needs of seriously disturbed children.

I wonder if this Joseph — who must be the one I’m writing about — was the son of Pietro Magnasco, a Brooklyn union organizer and racketeer who was arrested for murder in January 1930 and was shot to death in May 1930. With each man, a five-month gap between arrest and murder. Pretty eerie.

On a happier note, notice the sign over the College Restaurant: the Scuola Gratuita di Italiano e di Musica. I hope I’m reading the small words correctly.

Also on a happier note, Taheni, a Mediterranean grill, now occupies the first floor at 224.

I would still like to know what Michael Tolopka was doing with $1240 in cash in his pockets.

Thanks to Brian, Slywy, Brooklyn Newsstand, and NYS Historic Newspapers.

*

A few more details: There’s just the one Joseph Magnasco in the Social Security Death Index. Find a Grave reveals an interesting detail: Magnasco served as a corporal in the Marine Corps Reserve in World War II.

A little more: I found Joseph Magnasco in the 1950 census (it’s impossible to link directly to the relevant page). He was then living in a basement apartment at 100 Garfield Place, Park Slope, Brooklyn, with Urbano DeSantis, sixty-three, a bricklayer; Christine DeSantis, forty-five, Urbano’s wife; and Angelo DeSantis, thirty, their son, a photographer. Magnasco, twenty-five, also identified as a son, is listed as unemployed but looking for work. My guess for now is that Christine is his mother, remarried. The distance from the College Restaurant to Garfield Place: three-tenths of a mile.

*

Here’s Christine Magnasco in the 1940 census, thirty-five, widowed, neither working nor looking for work, living in an apartment at 59 Lincoln Place, Park Slope. A puzzle: she’s listed as the head of a household of nine, yet she’s the only person listed at this address. Perhaps she was managing a household of several generations.

*

Just one more bit, again moving backwards: this article identifies the body found on a New Jersey farm in May 1930 as Peter Magnaro. At least that was the name on his driver’s license.

[“Brooklyn Man Is Found Slain on Jersey Farm.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, May 23, 1930. Click for a larger view.]

So: Peter Magnaro, killed in a bootlegging war, was Pietro Magnasco, husband of Christine, father of Joseph. I’m closing the case.

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

Just some diner?

[553 Union Street, Gowanus, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

No, not just some diner. It’s Frank’s Diner. Or (look closely) Frank’s Union Diner. As in, “Say, how’s about we grab a cup o’ java while they’re changin’ th’ erl?”

Many details to notice in the photograph. The most interesting one: the advertisement for a radio show with Joe Penner (1904–1941), a comedian in vaudeville, radio, and film. His work is well represented at YouTube. You just have to watch a bit to notice a resemblance to Pee-wee Herman. You don’t even have to read his Wikipedia entry.

Thanks, Brian, who pointed me to this photograph some time ago. Now I'm there, and the java is great. The Joe (Penner), not so much.

[Click for a larger view.]

*

September 16: As jjdaddyo suggested in a comment, that appears to be an electric truck. I’d say that that’s the most interesting detail in the photograph. Strange: both a bakery and an electric vehicle company were named Ward.

Related reading
More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives (Pinboard) : 557, 561, and 571 Union Street

There is no there there

[4523 3rd Avenue, Sunset Park, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

“When Commissioner Moses finds the surface of the earth too congested for one of his parkways, he lifts the road into the air and continues it on its way”: thus gushed The New York Times in 1941 on the creation of the Gowanus Parkway (later Expressway), a six-lane highway that wreaked havoc in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood. Robert Caro tells the story in The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, pages 520–525.

This building, at the southeast corner of 46th Street and 3rd Avenue, was one of many that were destroyed to make room for the parkway. The first rowhouse that followed this corner building was also destroyed: the block now begins with the rowhouse with the bow window. Look at this corner in Google Maps and you can see that it’s as if buildings have been sheared away.

I think of the kid in knickers as a silent witness to a neighborhood’s destruction.

*

A reader tracked down the pharmacist: Dr. Max Korowitz, who had been at this address since 1916. In 1936, he was the subject of an article in The Brooklyn Eagle.

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More photographs from the NYC Municipal Archives : All OCA Robert Caro posts (Raindrop.io)

Nick’s Diner

[Nick’s Diner, 399–405 Third Avenue, Gowanus, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

Is it kitty-corner? Catty-corner? Cater-corner? Whichever. Nick’s Diner was diagonally across the intersection from Ralph Bozzo’s restaurant. If you click for the larger view and squint, you can see the diner’s name, along with a claim of “Home Cooking.” No need to squint to see the all-important EAT.

Today the northeast corner of Third Avenue and Sixth Street is the site of the Praxis Third Ave Shelter, providing temporary housing for adult families.

Related reading
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[Garner’s Modern English Usage: “The original phrase, in Middle English, was catre-cornered (lit., “four-cornered”) — catre deriving from the Latin quattuor.” And: “Kitty-corner is predominant in the upper half of the continental U.S., catty-corner in the lower half. The form cater-corner, the preferred form in most dictionaries, is less common but not at all rare.”]

And to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street and Hester Street

[193 Hester Street/129 Mulberry Street, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

I was looking for Chinatown when I found myself in Little Italy. I saw this corner as 193 Hester Street at 1940s.nyc. But it’s also known as 129 Mulberry Street. Hester Street is Chinatown, and Mulberry Street runs through Little Italy, so one can imagine the 129 address as granting this corner greater Italian-American cachet.

I chose this photograph for the laundry — was it a Monday? — and then noticed the Coca-Cola sign and the two youngsters walking in tandem. And that must be a restaurant on the ground floor. A pleasant photograph. And then I looked up the building’s two addresses and realized what I had hit on.

This Mulberry Street address was once the home of Umbertos Clam House, now in business at 132 Mulberry, still without an apostrophe. The 129 address is where the mobster “Crazy Joe” Gallo was shot to death in 1972, weeks after the restaurant’s opening. Here’s one New York Times article on the murder’s aftermath (gift link). I’m not interested in rehearsing the details. But I must note that the Gallo name points back to a previous tax post, about the College Restaurant in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn.

In 2023, the ground floor of 129 Mulberry is home to another restaurant, Da Gennaro. Mulberry Street remains the home of the yearly Feast of San Gennaro.

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

A golden pig

[231 4th Avenue, Gowanus, Brooklyn, c. 1939–1941. From the NYC Municipal Archives Collections. Click for a much larger view.]

I enjoyed an outstanding porketta sandwich last week, and it brought to mind somthing I hit upon a few months ago, a tax photograph of a Brooklyn pork store, Suino d’Oro. A little history:

In 1905, an “Italian provision store” that occupied this property had its stores of ham, cheese, and macaroni plundered by burglars. The culprits were later found fighting in a gutter over what had become of their loot: “What did y’ do with that cheese? Where’s all that ham that was left?”

In 1959, a newspaper advertisement has three Suino d’Oro addresses, none of them this one.

As late as 1980, a pork store with this name was sponsoring a local baseball team. There could be a connection. But some quick searching suggests that suino d’oro is common parlance in the world of pork.

Back to that sandwich: why porketta? Wkipedia explains:

In the Upper Midwest porchetta, more often spelled “porketta,” was also introduced by Italian immigrants to the iron ranges of Minnesota and Michigan. Porketta remains a popular local dish in towns such as Hibbing, Minnesota, with distributors such as Fraboni Sausage.

And whaddaya know? Fraboni’s, a third-generation Italian grocery and deli in Madison, Wisconsin, plays a part in the story of our restaurateurs.

Now about that sandwich: it’s Italian pork roast, salsa verde, provolone, spinach, and banana peppers on focaccia.

[Click for a larger view.]

Today, no. 231 is an apartment building encased in scaffolding. Brooklyn Newsstand helped me add some yesterday to this post.

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

Dr. Max Korowitz

[“Druggist Is Mayor, Judge, Boss and Prof at Times.” The Brooklyn Eagle, November 4, 1936. Click for a larger view.]

An indefatigable reader tracked down the pharmacist whose pharmacy was destroyed to make way for the Gowanus Parkway: Dr. Max Korowitz, who bought the pharmacy at 4523 3rd Avenue in 1916.

Thanks, Brian.