Beauty Demolished - Barrett Triangle

   I spent the first three years of my life living in an apartment on Stuyvesant Place.  I went to Curtis for high school.  For much of my life between the St. George Library, Borough Hall and Brighton Heights Reformed Church, I've spent a lot of time in St. George.  One of the most resonant images of that neighborhood for me isn't any of the places I've listed above, but, instead, the statue standing behind the bus shelter.  Until today I don't think I ever knew the area it stood in was called Barrett Triangle.  I vaguely remember reading the inscription on the plinth and seeing the name "Clarence Barrett" but I had no clue to who he was or what made him commendable.

   According to the always useful NYC Parks website, Clarence Barrett was born in Rahway but brought to the Island as a child.  He studied landscape architecture and served as an officer in the Civil War.  He fought during the siege of Mobile and the siege of Richmond.  After the war he became a notable landscape architect and sanitation engineer.  Eventually he entered public service, serving as Police Commissioner and then Superintendent of the Poor.

   In 1915, nine years after his death, this heroic statue (crafted by Sherry Edmindson Fry) was unveiled.  It was presented to the city by his widow.  Do rich, public servants do that anymore?  

   Originally, as you can see in the old-timey pictures below, the noble warrior pointed southish not northish and stood several feet away from where he now stands vigil.  He was also the centerpiece of an attractive bit of hedge-surrounded greenery that served as an additional part of the original entrance to the St. George Library.  I don't remember when the dull, gray addition was pasted on to the building, obscuring the grand doorway and obliterating the stairs, but I have vague childhood memories the stairs (which may be totally made up and I'm just remembering pictures).

   The NYC Parks' page states that in 1945 the statue was moved to its present position and the water fountain on its backside disconnected.  I'm assuming that's when the shelter was built.  As a Curtis alum I admit the shelter is memory-scape but I really wish they'd never replaced the original Barrett Triangle.

     Closeups of the statue.  Pretty cool, huh?

  .

Crime Scene: Mariner's Harbor, 1921

   So, in doing research for an upcoming post called "Banksapalooza!", I discovered a ninety year old crime in Mariner's Harbor.  That quaint little bank building pictured above was one the center of a six-hundred thousand dollar defalcation.  That's around eight million dollars in today's debased currency.
   The bank, the Mariner Harbor National Bank (being called a national bank simply means it's chartered under federal regulations not state ones), was once a thriving local bank.  According to the articles I read in the New York Times, in 1921, the establishment had more than 2,000 depositors.  I don't know if that's good or bad, but it sounds like the bank was fairly substantial.
   I won't go into super detail, but the head cashier (bank controller), Sylvanus Bedell, got himself involved in the machinations of a wealthy schemer.  From there he found himself making all sorts of investments, described by the Times as wildcat schemes.
   Bedell's first and biggest crime involved the Johnson Shipyard Corporation of Staten Island and it's president, Robert Magruder and his son, Donald D. Magruder.  One of the furthest afield was a $10,000 investment by an Atlanta based engineering firm in order to buy the yacht Taro for deep-sea diving experiments.  They failed and the money was lost.  He also helped a florist from Staten Island invest $65,000 of the bank's money in projects that failed.
  Mr. Bedell testified in 1923 that he had first gone wrong when he helped the senior Magruder convince the federal government his firm was on a firm financial standing in order to be awarded shipbuilding contracts in 1917.  Mr. Bedell said it all started when he bought ten shares in Johnson Shipbuilding and was later made treasurer of the company at $25 a week (about $425 today).  By 1920 he was being paid $200 a week (over $2,000 today).  Over time he cashed about $500,000 worth of checks of bad checks for Magruder.  Magruder claimed the firm would make good the money when the federal payments came through.  Unfortunately, a bank auditor discovered a problem.  From there it all started to come out and poor Sylvanus Bedell found himself arrested and penniless.

Some Filler - Bay Street - 1931 vs. TODAY

   I've been trying to get better at posting stuff, but my usual bugaboo, laziness, has too often got the better of me.  I am working on a post about Staten Island's North Shore Norwegians.  I'm just waiting to hear back from several people I've e-mailed.  Hopefully, it'll mean pictures and details about another community that was once much more substantial that it is today.
   My dream after that is to work on one about the Germans of the North Shore.  Perhaps, more than any other ethnic group whose time has come and gone on Staten Island, the Germans built and molded much of old Staten Island.  If you've got any information about them I'd love to hear from you.

   So here are some pictures of Bay Street past and present.  I haven't taken the camera out so I'm reduced to going back to the Google Street View shots.  In deference to complaints I've gotten about the slow load time I just clipped them.  Unfortunately, whatever I do with them, they stink.  Still, I find them interesting.  Bay Street has always been a sort of odd mix of commercial and residential.  Clearly it's been that way for a long time.  It's a shame it's so shoddy and decrepit looking these days.

310 Bay Street - 1931 - Today an empty lot

Even eighty odd years ago, Bay Street had auto shops

corner of Bay and Clinton Streets - 1931 - Today, ABCO Refrigeration occupies the place of both old wooden buildings

   The middle building has a sign showing it to be "PHILIP KAPLAN - New & Secondhand Plumbing Material"  That line of white objects along its side is a great big, bunch of bathtubs.

494 Bay Street - 1931 - Replaced by a dull building that's housed a string of clubs and bars over the years

     Not only is the long vanished house a loss, look at how 498 Bay (left side of picture) has changed.  Awnings, transom, masonry detail above the entrance, all gone and  just sort of uglified.

Edward I. Koch - R.I.P.

   Mayor Ed Koch is gone and with him someone who seemed at times like he'd live as long as the city of New York stood.  The first time I ever heard of Ed Koch was when he ran for mayor in 1977.  I was really too young to pay much attention to him or understand what was going on in the city.  Not until his second term, starting in 1981, did I see him as someone other than the man always blurting out, "How'm I doin?".  By then, aside from seeing his pure joy at representing this city to the world, I was able start understanding the things he had done to help address the financial crisis that had nearly murdered the city.  By then, even my staunchly Republican parents had become fans of his.  Aside from a neighbor who ran for state senator, the only Democrat my father ever voted for was Ed Koch.  

   If you're not a native New Yorker you owe it to yourself to read about the man and his accomplishments.  His greatest one was proving that New York City, contrary to many's beliefs, was indeed governable.  I'm glad he didn't become governor (though we would have been saved the sanctimony of Mario Cuomo) and began the recovery of New York from the disasters of the sixties and seventies.  His strenuous efforts also laid the groundwork for the later successes of Giuliani.

   Ed Koch wasn't perfect.  He, Police Commissioner Ben Ward and the NYPD of the mid-eighties were unable to staunch the blood from rising crime rates.  He couldn't stem the flood of homeless people on the city's streets.  For all the fiscal stability he helped bring (along with the Gov. Carey, the MAC and the municipal unions) to New York City, the city took on a rotten sheen that was only washed away by the collapsing crime rates of the nineties and the development of the past two decades.

   I will miss Ed Koch.  Even as my love for this city dwindles (skyrocketing taxes, endless development, etc.), and as Bloomberg acts the fool (soda, fats, smoking and, really, he wants to make Kissel and Conyingham Avenues a bike route?), and a cast of ultra-liberal Democratic party hacks wait in the wings to replace him, reading about Koch reminds me of better times and how a mayor ought to act.  Unlike today's mayor, he walked the streets, met regularly with the public (and listened to what they said), and reflected the sheer excitement of being a citizen of this great and wondrous city.

Swedes of Staten Island

   While I'm a Wasp on my father's side, on my mother's I'm of  mixed Scandinavian blood only two generations off the boats.  My maternal grandmother's father was Swede Finn with a Norwegian mother.  My maternal grandfather was Norwegian and Danish.  He was raised in Sweden where his father had moved the family in search of a better life.
   I grew up with only a few stories about the old countries and fewer examples of their cultures.  Most of what I got consisted of my grandfather telling how great Sweden's social safety net was (even though he'd never move there because he didn't like paying taxes) or my grandmother telling me about seeing tomtegubbens.
   The only time I ever heard Swedish spoke was when my grandparents argued.  My grandmother got a Norwegian-American newspaper but I never looked at it beyond its blue viking ship logo.
   Once upon a time, though, Staten Island was practically overrun with all sorts of Scandinavians.  Mostly Norwegians and mostly in Port Richmond.  The churches they founded still remain (most notably Zion Lutheran and Salem Evangelical Free) as do the two Sons of Norway lodges.
   Swedes were here in much lower numbers.  Still, like their Norwegian brethren, a little of their legacy remains.  The most explicitly Swedish thing, the Swedish Home for the Aged over in Sunnyside, was only shut down in the past three or four years.  It didn't have enough residents to remain in operation.

 Its centerpiece, a house once owned by the Vanderbilts, was torn down in the face of a request for landmark status from the preservationists.  It might have survived if some sort of reasonable accommodation had been made with the new owners but that approach appears anathema to the preservationists.

   The most concrete remnant of their duration here is St. Paul's/St. Luke's Lutheran Church on Decker and Catherine in Port Richmond.  According to Leng and Davis, the congregation got its start on March 15, 1905 and met in the Odd Fellows Hall in Port Richmond or the original Norwegian Our Savior on Nicholas Avenue before building its own church on Decker and Catherine Avenues.  The present building was opened in 1911.  Among its early pastors were Augustus Olson, Nester Johansen and A.J. Ostlin.

 Today it's got a small, faltering congregation, many of whom are of Swedish heritage.  I own a copy of one of the church's last Swedish Bibles.  I was allowed to take it because no one can read it anymore (including me).

 
   Recently I learned of another surviving symbol of the Swedes sojourn on the Island.  My aunt told me my grandfather belonged to something called Svea Lodge of the Swedish society, the Order of Vasa.  They met in the building now used by the Alzheimer's Association.

 
   A little research in my prized Leng and Davis books told me that not only had Svea Lodge met there but they had actually built the building.  I wonder if under the marquees their something indicating the building's initial function.

 UPDATE:  Well, I'm all red faced.  I always thought my maternal grandmother's mom was Norwegian.  Wrong!  Turns out she was just another Swede Finn.  And my grandfather was raised in Sweden by his grandmother.  That's why, when my grandparents argued, it was in Swedish.  It's probably the only time I ever heard it spoken in their house.

Exciting News!

   In 1930, William T. Davis and Charles W. Leng, co-founders of the Staten Island Institute of Arts & Sciences, published their five volume "Staten Island and Its People: A History 1609-1929".  For anyone interested in the past of this borough this is an incredibly important work.  Until now I've been forced to copy notes out of the library copies at CSI.  My ability to simply leaf through to my heart's content has been limited at best.

   Last year I went to an estate sale in hopes of buying a set but was confronted by a price that was above my limits.  Now, however, a more attainable set has appeared on my horizons.  At present they are being prepared to wing their way down from the Great White North (well, at least Nova Scotia) into my living room and onto my bookshelves.  To say I'm excited is way too much of an understatement.

   I hope it means a return to regular posting for this site.  I've hit a bit of a wall regarding new stuff.  Mostly it's because of my recurring laziness and not making myself go to the St. George Library.  With these in my hands I should have a surfeit of new material to write about.  Here's hoping.

Long Live Stasis!

   Well, looks like it's all done for another four years and I can stop obsessing about things I really can't do much about and I'm pretty grateful for that.  Now I can get back to blogging about Staten Island, S&S and trying to write more.  Woo hoo!

Hurricane Sandy

  Fortunately, my wife and I survived Hurricane Sandy with power intact.  Though less than half a mile from the waterfront we live 186' above sea level.  If we ever flood the world's done for.

   My sister-in-law, her husband and their four boys (all under 8) are at present living with us, refugees from their blacked out New Jersey home.  Around us, where power was out mostly due to the great number of downed trees, is slowly being restored.  We feel inordinately blessed and secure.  I hope and pray anyone whose suffered is able to find assistance.

  So right now I'm cooking for eight, reading crime books and watching to see what we can do to help once the immediate problems (broken gas lines, downed power cables) are addressed.  I know my church has power and will be doing all it can.  I actually trust the local politicians (from Staten Island, not citywide, ie. the mayor) to work hard to ensure the borough's not forgotten in the shadows of New Jersey and Manhattan.

  It's going to be be a rough time and I suspect many of the destroyed houses will not be rebuilt.  I also don't trust a mayor whose idea of an appropriate response to such devastation is to hold the NYC Marathon to do well by the borough.  As NYC is a cesspit of corruption, I also don't hold out a lot of hope for FEMA money to be spent well if the city gets it hands on it.  

   These look to be parlous times for my beloved Rock.  When the bridges were all closed Monday I was reminded I live on a island and can be trapped here.  Coupled with the strain on resources caused by population (and the mayor wants another million people to come here), constricted transportation corridors and crumbling infrastructure, I can really see the day coming, sooner rather than later, when pack up and leave.  I don't even know if I'll be sad on that day.

Go See the Sights

   Reading SI Live this morning I came across this great bit of news. Tomorrow numerous historic Island places will be open for tours.  It's part of a citywide event sponsored by the Historic House Trust of New York City.
   While the usual suspects (Alice Austen, Snug Harbor, Conference House, etc) will be open, so will places like Port Richmond Reform Church and Christ Church on Franklin Avenue.  Fortunately the tours will continue on Sunday.  So, while I have to work tomorrow, I can go the following day.  Go check some of these places out.  Maybe I'll see you there.

From Farms to City - Museum of the City of New York

   For the next several months, the Museum of the City of New York, located at 1220 Fifth Avenue and 103rd St in Manhattan, will present  an exhibit dedicated to Staten Island.  Called "From Farm to City: 1661 to 2012", the exhibit will run from Sept. 13 to January 21.  Curated by Liz McEnaney and presented in association with the usual Island suspects (SI Historical Society, Richmondtown and the SI Museum), it looks to be an examination of the Island's evolution from rural to suburban and ultimately heavily urbanized environment over the past three and half centuries.
   I'm really looking forward to seeing what insights a non-Islander makes into our hermetic little borough.  Too often the focus of Staten Island historians seems to be on the big touchstones (Alice Austen, Farm Colony, Richmondtown, Conference House, etc.) again and again and again.  Fresh eyes are bound to see things we ourselves don't notice.
   The museum has also set up an exciting extra: interactive maps.  They've presented all the various historical maps of the Island going back to 1750.  You can look at a modern day map and then overlay the historical one of you choice and see how things have changed (just like I've been doing for sometime now).  Where I'm particularly jealous is where they've made complete composites of all the separate pages from the various maps.  Absolutely amazing and I'm so grateful to the Museum for doing this and making it available for all to see.
 

Fox Hills' Magnificent Past

   Fox Hills, a portion of Clifton, was once a prosperous place of large homes, a golf course and open fields.  In 1860, according to the NY Times, a great convocation of Republicans gathered at Clifton Park's Pagoda to hear speeches by George Curtis and Horace Greeley in support of ratifying the presidential nomination, Abraham Lincoln.  I'm not exactly sure where the Pagoda was but my research leads me to believe it's described as being at "the head of Simonson Avenue" which means at either Bay Street and Greenfield Avenue or where Osgood and Greenfield would theoretically intersect.

   Today  it's seen mostly as an appendix to the neighborhood of Park Hill and suffers from the same poor reputation.  Driving through, it should be clear that even after residential development did away with its open spaces it was still a comfortable middle-class place of comfortable and attractive homes.

The estate of Mr. J. D. Dix over the ages

   The house slowly lost its open surroundings and looks to have been demolished sometime between 1951 and 1971.  That's the date, and I offer no guarantee  as to its accuracy (the C of O is dated March, 1975), given by NYC's online records for the thirty-unit apartment building built where it once stood.  The one reference I found to Mr. Dix was about his house being used in the 1850's as the meeting place of the founders of the late First Presbyterian Church.  

   Fox Hills was originally the name of one Lewis Henry Meyer's estate.  Later a golf course sat where the bulk of the Fox Hills and Park Hills apartment complexes now loom.  The course was originally laid out by the Staten Island Cricket Club in 1899.  When the club went bankrupt about a year later the Fox Hills Golf Club was founded by men described by the NY Times as "enthusiasts" in order to save the links for golfing.  Unfortunately the plan only lasted until 1935 when the Depression killed the club closed.
   According to NYC Park's page on the playground at Sobel Court, an army hospital was built along Vanderbilt Avenue in 1918 that operated until 1922.  It was reopened as a hospital and POW camp during WW II and after the war converted to veterans housing.  In the fifties the military closed the site for good.
 

The Fox Hills Base from somewhere around Van Duzer or Targee Street I'd guess.

   Today the only clear reminder of the area's golfing past is Fairway Avenue.  The club house stood about where Osgood and Fairway Avenues meet.  About where it stood is now occupied by the Ukrainian Church and houses.

    left - Fox Hills Golf Course Club House     right - Fairway and Osgood Avenues (from Google)

   So there's an initial taste of the wonders of old Fox Hills.  So far I haven't been able to find any of the houses in the foreground of the base picture but I'm sure some are still extant.  Maybe by the time I do my next post on the area I'll have found them.  Here's hoping!

Post and Jewett - the Rector Street Interceptor

   According to some random website I found, a sewer interceptor is one that "in a combined system, control(s) the flow of sewage to the treatment plant. In a storm, they allow some of the sewage to flow directly into a receiving stream, thus keeping it from overflowing onto the streets. Also used in separate systems to collect the flows from main and trunk sewers and carry them to treatment points."  Apparently, there's one referred to as the "Rector Street Interceptor" that flows under the intersection of Jewett and Post Avenues.  In 1955 the NYC Dept. of Public Works took some nice shots of the intersection.

Eastern Corners

Southwestern Corner

   It's fascinating to see that while still a commercial hub, it pales in comparison to what it used to be.  It was actually busy enough to warrant its own NYC crossing guard.  Can you imagine that today?
   There are some pictures I have of adjacent buildings that have been converted from storefronts to apartments.  I imagine the death brought to Richmond Avenue (in Port Richmond) by the Plaza contributed to the death of such small shopping districts all over the North Shore in the late sixties and early seventies.

Doctor Elliott's Amazing House - Delafield Place

  I've written a little bit about Dr. Samuel Mackenzie Elliott before.  What I've never written about ('cause I didn't realize what it was) was his home which still stands on Delafield Place opposite Walker Park.

 According to the late Dorothy Valentine Smith in "Staten Island: Gateway to New York", he came here in 1836 when he bought several acres of land.  Over time he became one of the nation's preeminent oculists, attracting such prominent patients as Gen. Winfield Scott and Francis Parkman.  He also constructed between twenty and thirty beautiful homes.  Some, which I've written about, still remain, including the one next to his own large home.

   Several of his wealthy patients found themselves attracted to Staten Island's beauty and nearness to Manhattan and remained as residents.  Among these were the Shaws, known to most folks, unfortunately, only from "Glory".  Another was writer George William Curtis who famously said "God might have made a more beautiful place than Staten Island, but He never did".  

   These people formed the heart of the liberal, Unitarian community that made up an important part of the Island's culture in the mid to late 19th century.  The Shaws lived in a huge house that once occupied the corner of Davis Avenue and the Terrace.  Mr. Curtis' house, still standing in very good order, is at the corner of Henderson and Bard Avenues.  

   Doctor Elliott, while an ardent abolitionist and ally of people like the Shaws and Curtis, was no Unitarian.  On his property he built a small Episcopalian chapel and secured it a rector.  Over time it became too small for the congregation and the existing St. Mary's church was built as a replacement.

   Here we see Dr. Elliot's own home on the usual 1874 map.  The property stretched down to the waterfront.  The house actually faced in that direction, its present entrance on Delafield Place being  the original rear.  One only has to see the mighty Doric columned doorway to see that.  I would love to see what the front grounds looked like in their original state.  

    By 1917 the whole neighborhood was changed.  Part of the Delafield Estate had been given over to the Staten Island Cricket and Tennis Grounds.  The Neptune and Hesper Rowing Association's cove in the Kill van Kull the has been filled in, the railroad's been built (the old Livingston mansion turned into a station) and the Richmond Light and RR Co. built a powerhouse over it.  The big estates are starting to be broken up.           

   I've frequented the Livingston neighborhood for my entire life.  My mother grew up on Henderson between Davis and Bard and I spent my summers there with my grandmother.  Walker Park was place my mother took me and my sister to all the time.  I never realized the size and importance to the Island's history of this house tucked away behind tall trees and thick hedges on Delafield Place .  Only attending an estate sale there recently did I discover the great entrance hidden at its "rear".  Inside it is a great, sprawling place that must have once been afforded a stunning view of the Kull and the green shores of New Jersey.
   The owners, now retired and looking to sell the house, are hoping to sell it to someone who will pamper it and maintain it as it deserves.  I hope so too.                         

Jon Lord - RIP

There are so many things about Deep Purple I love.  Jon Lord's organ playing was easily one of the most important and distinctive parts of the band's sound.  Rest in peace.

Forest Avenue

   Sorry I've been so lax here for the longest time.  I'm going to try to get back in the saddle and all that jazz and start writing/posting again.  Here's an appetizer - Forest Avenue, 1917 from Greenwood Avenue all the way west to Bement Avenue.

   It's a pretty amazing transformation over the past century.  In the east there's the south extent of Sailors' Snug Harbor.  Hart Boulevard running north from Forest served essentially as an entrance road.  Now it's lined with houses.

   The lot where the Starbucks sits at Bard and Forest (and before that, the much missed standalone Carvel Ice Cream - I like the iconic design much better than the same as everybody else storefront of present day Carvels) was the property and large home of one "H. O. Rambout".  Most noticeably, though, was the absence of much housing at all.  Most of that stretch of Forest, long a commercial hub, was tree lined and sparsely populated.  Hard to imagine - if I didn't have the picture below you might just find it impossible.

Intersection of Bard and Forest Avenues

Happy Independence Day!

   We weren't perfect then and we aren't perfect now.  Along the way from then to now a lot of blood's been shed and often in ignoble circumstances.  Nonetheless, we've done great things, overcome deep and dark flaws, and are ever moving forward bettering ourselves.  For that, thank God.  Some days I think we've still got  a long way to go, but on most I'm just grateful for the actions take over two centuries ago that officially pushed this country into existence.

Stapleton's Chinese Restaurants

   Last year I posted pictures of the Chinese restaurant that used to be up on the second floor of a building near the old Woolworth's on Water Street in Stapleton. I only went there once when I was a little kid. The places I went to as a teenager and adult were Ying Wah and Tung Bo. Now, thanks to the city's absolutely amazing gallery of tax pictures from the mid to late 80s, here they are in gloriously, grainy color.

This is the place I went to the most, first with my mom and sister (my dad hated anything that could be even vaguely label ethnic food) and later with friends.  Fairly generic as I remember but pleasant enough and nice staff.  As I older I came to appreciate their wide selection of ridiculous rum drinks in tiki head mugs.

   This seems to have been the older, more established of the two restaurants.  It was definitely a better establishment with better food.  Good memories.

Vote for $$$ for Historical Preservation and Restoration

   Vote for Rossville AME at www.partnersinpreservation.com to get this nationally important church grant dollars. Part of Historic Sandy Ground, this church was built in 1897.

  If you don't want to vote for a South Shore site, vote for Our Lady of Mount Carmel Shrine over in Rosebank.  These two sites are small, underfunded and not on the radar for the big bucks like some of the more well known institutional sites on the Island.  Any help they can get will, I imagine, be greatly appreciated.

Farewell to a Southern Gentleman - Levon Helm, RIP

  So passes the last of the Band's trio of vocalists (Richard Manuel in 1986 and Rick Danko in 1999) and the only American in such an American sounding and rooted group.  The Band is one of greatest artifacts from the sixties and produced some of the best music in that era and which stands up under the weight of time and changing tastes much better than so many more fashionable artists' work.  Taking from the pre-rock and roll sounds of America such as folk, country, blues and blue grass as well as early popular music, they embedded it in rock and made it even better.  I may never need to hear "The Weight", "Up On Cripple Creek" or "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" again, but to miss out on "Ophelia", "Chest Fever", "King Harvest" and so many others would be painful.

Glorious Broad Street - Stapleton Again

   The commercial heart of Stapleton is always assumed to be located at Canal and Water Streets along Tappen Park.  Well that's probably accurate it neglects the stores that ran from Wright Street all the way up Broad Street to Van Duzer Street.  According to my map reading skills that's about 1/2 a mile.  Add to that Broad Street from Bay to Tompkins and you get another 1/4 of a mile.  There half of the latter was pretty much residential, but still, that's about a mile's worth of stores catering to the needs and desires of Stapleton's citizens.  Once you add in the Tappen Park surrounds and Bay Street, Stapleton probably had at least as much commercial property as Port Richmond did.  Now much is gone or pretty low rent stuff.  So it goes.

291,293 and 297 Broad Street at the corner of Targee - 1931

When I was a kid the building on the left housed a canine patrol.  Its logo was a snarling dog's head.  My sister's dance school was originally in the same building on the Targee Street side.  It was called "Charing's Dance School" (or something very similar)

                                            Broad and Targee, northwest corner - 1931

Same corner today - It was an empty lot even when I was a kid in the mid seventies - I remember doing a cleanup of it when I was in the Weblos or Boy Scouts which would have been around 1977.

Broad Street, east from Gordon Street - 1931

Today - the corner store was candy store with a soda fountain when I was kid.  I only went once or twice but my mom and sister went there a bunch when she went to dance classes.

Broad, Canal and Tompkins - 1931

Today - Back in the early nineties the pizzeria (and as long as I can remember the building in the foreground has housed one) was called "Two Crusts".  I don't get why but it did make us laugh when we ordered and they picked up the phone and said it.

Bonus Picture:  Cop contemplating the world - 1931