The History of the Valley Candle Company

A couple years ago, I posted an item about how the television series "Miami Vice," in 1985, was allowed to blow up up an old business on Columbia Street called the Valley Candle Company.

I didn't know much about the company when I wrote that post. Since then, however, I've been contacted by a descendent of the company's founder. That was Saverio DellaValle, pictured below. (Hence, the name of the business.) Saverio came to Brooklyn from Naples in 1905. He made religious candles and delivered them to the churches in NYC. An open-minded businessman, he also made candles for the religious Jewish holidays. There were family stories that, while he was making candles, Saverio ran a still running in the factory during Prohibition. There's an enterprising gent!

The family sold the business in the '70s.

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A Memory of Brooklyn's Happy Hour Movie Theatre

Over the years, I've heard a remembrance here and there of the Happy Hour Movie Theatre, or of two movie theatres that lined Columbia Street that that Brooklyn thoroughfare was a bustling shopping district (the other was the Luna, currently being replaced by a condo tower). But this is the most detailed account I've ever been sent: 

The Happy Hour movie theatre was located at 225 Columbia Street. During the 50s & 60s every kid in the neighborhood was there every weekend. They had a section in front for all unescorted kids so that the adults could watch the movie in peace. For your 40 cents admission you got a double feature, shorts, cartoons and coming attractions. At 6:00 they would let the parents go in for free because they were just picking up their kids. They always showed a current film with an older one. I remember in the mid 1960s they showed "Beach Blanket Bingo" along with "Against All Flags" with Errol Flynn. Izzy's candy store was next door to the theatre so everyone would pool theie extra money and buy a bag of penny candy and bring it into the theater. Just before it closed down the theatre was not in the best shape. I remember that you had to walk along the walls in the bathrooms because the ceilings leaked in the center of the room. It was still the best way to spend your weeking. I miss it.

The Happy Hour was built in 1915. It was a small theatre. It closed in 1966 and was demolished in 1972. Wish I had a photo of the place. Anyone out there have one?

The Ghosts of Columbia Street: Parade Day

Not much information to go along with this lovely image of Columbia Street, between Kane and Degraw Streets, circa 1955. I'm guessing it's an Independence Day parade, judging by the many flags, the bright sun and the summer clothing. The barber shop in the background is 133 Columbia Street. The building doesn't exist anymore.

As with all the previous photos in this series, they belong to Freebird Books of Columbia Street.

The Ghosts of Columbia Street: Rayco Machine Co.

Here, in the latest of the wonderful stash of old Columbia Street images recently claimed from obscurity by Freebird Books, is a shot of the Rayco Machine Company, a player in the area's now bygone industrial past. It stood at the northeast corner of Columbia and Baltic Street, and there's not a sign of the company or the building today. (All photos are the property of Freebird Books.)

But Rayco is not what's interesting about this photo. What is is the gigantic ad for the Guido Funeral Home of the side of the building. This business is still a going concern, and operates on the corner of Carroll and Union Streets inside the historic John Rankin mansion. There it is below (photo courtesy of Carroll Gardens Patch.) There's a long, long history to that building, which I really should tell one of these days.

The Ghosts of Columbia Street: Eddie's Bar

Here's the latest shot from a cache of old 1960s photos of the Columbia Street, Brooklyn, area recently uncovered by Freebird Books. (All photos seen are the property of Freebird.) This photo depicts the southeast corner of Columbia and Congress Streets, as seen from the north (above) and from the west (below).

We can conclude by this time that Columbia was once a street of many bars. Previous photos depicted Otto's Scandinavian Bar and La Gondola Bar. Here we see Eddie's Bar (right across the street from Van Vorhees playground) and another bar/restaurant, the White Horse Bar, just two door down. The building that held Eddie's has since been demolished; there's an empty lot there today.

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The Ghosts of Columbia Street: La Gondola Bar

As I mentioned in a past yesterday, I was recently contracted by the owner of Freebird Books, a fine indy used book store on Columbia Street. He recently lucked into a cache of old photos of the Columbia Street area, circa 1966, when the neighborhood still shows signed of its former life as a waterfront street, and a Scandinavian, Italian and Puerto Rican stronghold. 

I posted an old photo of Otto's Scandinavian Bar, at Columbia and Kane, yesterday. Here is a shot of La Gondola Bar, where sat directly opposite Otto's, to the north. Below is another view of the bar, and below that is a look at the building today, which most recently housed a sushi joint. (All of the photos are the property of Freebird.) It has been a bad-luck corner for the past few decades, with businesses coming and going quickly.  The building is remarkably the same, right down to the double entrance.

The Ghosts of Columbia Street Past: Otto's

I was recently contracted by the owner of Freebird Books, a fine indy used book store on Columbia Street, near Kane. He told me he had recently given given a cache of old photos by a neighbor on nearby Tiffany Place who was moving out. The photos and negatives were of the Columbia Street area, and date from roughly the 1960s, when the neighborhood was on its way down but had not yet been utterly killed by the long 1970s Columbia Street sewer dig. Many of the buildings that are now vacant, or have been converted to apartments or torn down, can be seen with stores in their ground-floor spaces. Quite a number of bars and restaurants, too.

You can see all the photos that have been scanned so far at Freebird's Flickr page. (Both of these photos are the property of Freebird.) There will be more to come. Here's one of Otto's Scandinavian Bar, at the southeast corner of Columbia and Kane. I have posted a photo of Otto's before on Lost City, but this is a new view. Below is a view of the space today. The restaurant that opened in the space last year recently closed. 

The Clock on Columbia Street

I've written about the large standing clock that used to adorn Columbia Street in Brooklyn before, but this photograph—the best I've seen to date—is the first I've posted on the blog. 

To recap, the intersection of Columbia Street and Union Street used to be one of the great commercial centers of South Brooklyn. Stores and pushcarts lined the streets. There were two movies theatres and plenty of bars and restaurants. The first Thom McAn shoe store and the original Citibank were located in the area. Then Robert Moses dug the BQE, cutting the neighborhood off from the rest of Brooklyn. The Brooklyn docks slowly died. And a big sewer dig throughout the '70s, designed to hurt the Mob, causes numerous buildings' foundations to crumble. The area died and has yet to fully recover today. 

One landmark oldtimers remember well is the clock. It stood outside a jewelry store run by Robert Corn on Columbia between Union and President Streets. It became an unofficial meeting place, as in "I'll meet you under the clock," and legend has it mobsters would convene there to hatch their criminal exploits. 

When the businesses began to leave and the buildings topple, the clock was uprooted and removed sometime in the 1970s. Nobody knows where it went, but some believe it still exists somewhere in somebody's basement or attic. 

I've never been able to find out anything about Robert Corn of his business. One would think he has ancestors out there somewhere who know something about that clock.

Sokol Bros. Sign to Be Saved

A local tipster informed me the other day that the great old sign to the Sokol Bros. Furniture Store—the Columbia Street institution that was torn down recently—will be saved.

When I saw said sign on a scrap heap of rubble recently, I feared it would be junked. I asked a workman about its fate, but he had no idea. My informant tells me that, once the apartment building that is replaced the store is built, the sign will be hung in the interior courtyard. Apparently, the preservation of the sign was part of the deal the owner of Sokol made with the developer.

Sokol Bros. Sign on the Ash Heap

The old Sokol Bros. Furniture building on Columbia Street in Brooklyn is all but demolished. Just a few bits of brick and the frames of a couple roller shutters left.

I peered in and what did I see laying atop the rubble but the old Sokol Bros. sign, which hung outside the furniture stores for half a century. I asked a worked what was going to be done with the sign. Would it be saved or tossed? He had no idea.

Faded Wrigley's Ad on Columbia Street Vanishing

Back in 2008, L&M Equities purchased the old buildings at the corner of Columbia and Warren in Cobble Hill West, and quickly tore them down. The idea was to erect a new apartment building. But for whatever reason, the plot stood vacant for the next three years.

That was OK by me, because the demolition had revealed an old advertisement  by that onetime king of outdoor signage, the O.J. Gude Company. It was an ad for Wrigley's gum, with the discernible slogan, "The Flavor Lasts."

Now, however, the cinder blocks have started to climb. And the gum ad is fast disappearing. A shame. Still, I'm glad they didn't go to the bother to paint over the ad. It's fun to imagine the surprise that will await New Yorkers when this crappy new building is inevitably torn down in 30 or 40 years time. The flavor lasts—and so do the faded ads.

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Accardi Hardware, Oldest Business on Columbia Street, Closes

Many changes are coming to Columbia Street in Brooklyn lately. Yesterday, I reported that the one-time bustling commercial lane had lost one of its longstanding businesses, the 62-year-old Sokol Bros. Furniture Store. And a building near DeGraw that has operated as a slaughterhouse since for nearly a century, recently shut its doors, owing to Gowanus Canal-related construction that unsettled its foundation. Now it seems that Columbia has been robbed of another—perhaps its last—survivor from the old days: Accardi Hardware and Industrial Supply.

Accardi held down the fort at 157 Columbia—between DeGraw and Kane—for decades, when the street, commercially speaking, was little more than a ghost town. I could never find out much about the place, just that it was family owned and had been there forever. (It was actually established in 1915, making it by far the oldest extant business on Columbia.) They had a billboard down on Van Brunt Street (see below) advertising their presence, so I imagine they got a lot of business from Red Hook outfits.

I'm not sure what happened, but Accardi is gone. It's been replace by Red Hook Flooring and Area Rug World.  Area Rug World was founded in 2008.

Sokol Bros. Furniture Goes the Way of All Old Buildings: Apartments

Due to the numerous calamities that have befallen Columbia Street during the last 50 years—the big sewer dig of the 1970s; the erection of the BQE; the extension of the Brooklyn docks between DeGraw and Atlantic; all of which knocked out dozens of old Columbia Street buildings and businesses—there are precious few mercantile remnants of the thriving business district that once was.

One of the last survivors was the Sokol Bros. Furniture store, which took up three former brownstones on Columbia between President and Carroll Streets. The business was founded in 1950, making it a relative latecomer to the strip, which was by then already in decline. Michael Sokol took the reins from his father and uncle in 1976 and ran the shop until last fall, when he sold it for $3.3 million.

Lately, the place has been gutted and scaffolding has been erected. Construction is constant. The building will be converted into luxury apartments and three stories will be added to the edifice, making it easily the tallest, largest structure on Columbia Street (which is not protected by any sort of landmarking).

One of the one good things about such repurposings as this is you briefly get to see what the old building once looked like, as they tear away at the walls. Sokol Bros. has been covered up with an awful overlay of cream-colored bricks for years. Underneath somewhere are some ancient red-brick houses. Walking by today, I peeked inside and could see where old brick walls and a fireplace were revealed.

Sokol Bros. was a funny place. Though I bought a couch there once, and Michael was always on the premises, I never saw much business going on inside. It was the sort of family-owned, bare-bones, no-frilled, frozen-in-time furniture business that you used to see a lot of in Brooklyn. Every neighborhood had one or two. The furniture styles were always a few seasons behind the times, but the prices were good. The sprawling office in the back, walled by large wooden-framed windows, was left very much as it must have been in 1950. I would sometimes go in to ask Michael questions about how the old neighborhood used to be. He was one of the few remaining local experts.

Part of the store's appeal was the grand old, hollowed-out neon sign that adorned it. (See below.) It must have been something in the days when the Sokols bothered to fill the large metal letters with neon tubing—something I never saw. It hasn't lit up in decades.

I can't tell if the sign is still there. The scaffolding obscures the view.

Frank's Dept. Store Sign Getting an Adjustment

The classic old Frank's Dept. Store sign on Union Street near Hicks in Brooklyn, which has remained even though Frank's has gone the way of the woolly mammoth, was taken down this morning.

The sign is not being removed for good. It is in need of repair. Apparently the top part of it broke off, causing rain to leak into the store. This sign is old after all.

Frank's decamped a few years backed, after having been on the block since 1937. Brooklyn General, a yarn and knitting shop, moved in, but elected to keep the sign where it was. Frank's also once occupied the shop to the right, not the site of a restaurant.

Neither Snow Nor Rain...But Jury Duty?! Fuhgeddaboudit!

My Post Office branch on Columbia Street in Brooklyn. I like the sense of civic duty! But I dislike the, well, lack of sense of city duty.

Fultummy's Goes Belly Up

After a month or more of not being open for business, but not exactly being out of business, Fultummy's, the erratic sandwich place on Columbia Street, has official gone bust. The non-commital "Sorry, We're Closed" sign has been replaced by a real estate sign.

Jalopy Theatre Takes Over Old Moonshine Bar Space

The Moonshine Bar is in good hands.

Last month came the worrisome news that the Columbia Street bar—which contains an interior and an old wooden backbar that has been used by one tavern or another since 1934 (and probably before that)—was closing. The fate of the space and its beautiful old bar (and its rare working cigarette machine) were in question.

For weeks, there was obscure talk around the neighborhood that the new owners of the address would reopen it as a bar. But nobody knew anything about these mysterious new proprietors. Turns out they lived right next door. The people behind The Jalopy Theatre, the improbably successful music venue (at least in my opinion; it's so out of the way, I don't know where their crowds come from), will reopen the Moonshine at the Jalopy Tavern. It says "bar and grill," so I guess there will be food. No word on an opening date.

UPDATE: This, from the owner: the bar will remain. The cigarette machine left with the previous owner.

The Fate of Fultummy's

Fultummy's, the erratic but strangely endearing sandwich joint on Columbia Street in Brooklyn, appears to have sliced its last loaf. It's been closed for nearly a month, with a hard-to-interpret sign on the door reading "Sorry. We are closed." What? For good? For the day?

On the restaurant's blog, the owners last posted on July 20, saying they would reopen on July 27. My hopes aren't high. The place was addled from the first, never strictly keeping to its posted hours, always closing at the drop of the hat to "improve the menu," forgetting to fire up the stove on some days. They never really got their act together. It would be a shame if they closed, however. The sandwiches were good. The fries, too. And the iced coffee was the best in the vicinity. Also loved the free wi-fi.

This address, by the way, is the first home of the old Brooklyn bakery Monteleone's.

Moonshine Bar to Close

A reader tipped us off to the sad news that the Moonshine Bar on Columbia Street near Hamilton in Brooklyn is closing. According to their Facebook page, the place only has two weeks left.

It's a good bar, with a nice beer selection and friendly bartenders. They used to have free peanuts in the shell until the health department made them stop. And there was once a policy where you could bring your own meat and cook it on their grill out back. Moonshine also has one of the only working cigarette machines in the City.

But the thing that made me love the bar was the bar itself. It was the original, ornate back bar from when the place opened as a saloon shortly after Prohibition. The space had been closed for a couple decades when the owners of Moonshine resurrected the interior. As it stands, it's the only extant bar space remaining from Columbia Street's old days as a commercial strip. Columbia used to be lined with bars a century ago. This is the only connection remaining to that boozy past.

New Bike Shop on Van Brunt

The area around Columbia Street, west of Carroll Gardens, has needed a bike shop ever since the one on Union Street near Hick decamped for Court Street. Not it has one.

This sweet little shop opened last week in the ground-floor space of a lonely tenement on Van Brunt between President and Union Streets. (There are no other buildings on either side of it.) It's the first business in that building since forever.

It's run by a father and son. It's called Dog Day Cyclery. I'm happy to have them in the nabe. I was getting tired of trekking to Court Street every time I had a flat.