@ Mc Donough Street © Vincenzo Aiosa
Bushwick
Broadway Sleep Mart – Furniture Manufacturing – Bushwick, Brooklyn
Saturated & Grayscaled – Split & Stacked © Frenzo
This sign looks pre-1950s © Vincenzo Aiosa
Above the lower left window you can see the word ‘furniture’ in turn-of-the-century fonts © Vincenzo Aiosa
NY Companies Index – CLICK FOR LINK
NY Companies Index – CLICK FOR LINK
Vincenzo took the shots above on Park Avenue just south of Broadway with his iPhone. So this is my theory. From the look of the fonts and the weathering, the signs written on the brick between the windows are clearly very early 20th-century (c.1910). My guess is the sign for Broadway Sleep Mart can be anywhere from 1930’s to 1940’s. I’m going to assume that the proprietors conducted their business at the Park Avenue location for several decades and then outgrew their space and moved up the street on Broadway. The public records above show the address at 835 Broadway with an incorporation of 1956 – up the street a bit in a larger space, now a laundromat. Vincenzo also points out that the Park Avenue location may have been maintained as a warehouse. I’m also inferring from these records that in 1962, they changed the name of the store.
George Hummel – The Ridgewood Furniture & Carpet House – Bushwick, Brooklyn
1497-1603 – 1900’s telephone numbers © Vincenzo Aiosa
George Hummel, Sr. (1851-1911) an acclaimed furniture & cabinet maker, was the son of stone mason David Hummel, a German immigrant who settled in Cincinnati, OH in 1841 according to Constance Lee Menefee, “with optimism and a trade.” There he started the Hummel Building Company. Menefee further states:
At that time Cincinnati was on the crest of a building and expansion boom….David Hummel died in 1894, leaving the business in the capable hands of his three sons: George, Frank and William. Each had been trained as an apprentice to a stone mason, blacksmith or carpenter and each worked at the stone yard and had supervised construction.¹
According to Digging Cincinnati:
In 1893, George Hummel, Sr. was the first to build his home at 3423 Whitfield Avenue. This home remained in his family until his wife, Ella, passed away in 1947. This home, designed by Samuel Hannaford & Sons, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.²
George Hummel House – Cincinnati, OH – Courtesy of Wikipedia
Hemley Supply Company Revisited & The Fickle Finger of Fate – Bushwick, Brooklyn
© Ellen Hemley
© Ellen Hemley
Often Vincenzo or I will snap a hand-painted sign and a whole history will reveal itself. Sometimes the past is a bit more elusive and the juxtaposing hints belie the writing on the wall. Last year I posted Vincenzo’s images of the Hemley Supply Company thinking it was a sheet metal supply. Earlier this week I received this e-mail from Debbie Hemley:
Hi Frank,
I came across your book today and was thrilled to find it. What a wonderful collection of images and great thing to document!
My father’s old warehouse for mattresses and bedding supplies, in the Williamsburgh section of Brooklyn had that type of painted ad and none of us had been down there in almost twenty years. We’re all in Massachusetts now. Earlier this year my sister went to the location at 300 Meserole Street and we were thrilled to discover that the painted ad was still there and hadn’t faded! Attaching photos that she took.
Loved too to learn that you’re a long-term survivor of AIDS. I’m a long-term survivor of Leukemia and there’s something so unique and transforming about longterm survivorship–that not everyone quite gets.
All best,
Debbie Hemley
As fate has it, not only did Debbie’s e-mail solve another mystery, but it confirms the transformative nature of survival. Why some of us die after diagnosis and treatment and why some of us endure will still remain a mystery.
- The Loyal Order by Debbie Hemley – Hippocampus Magazine
Fletcher’s Castoria – In Use for Over 30 Years – Bushwick, Brooklyn
Circa early 1900s © Frank H. Jump
1871 – The Centaur Company is formed by Charles H. Fletcher at 80 Varick Street, New York, New York to manufacture Pitcher’s Castoria after purchasing the rights and formula from Dr. Pitcher. It was renamed Fletcher’s Castoria. He partnered with with Joseph B. Rose who had, in the same year, purchased forumla for Centaur Liniment. They had financial backing from Demas Barnes [he was later U.S. Congressman from New York 1867-1869]. – Centaur Company
