GOODNIGHT MOON
Goodnight Moon has sold more than 50 million copies — it sells briskly today, nearly 7 decades after its initial publication. The book seems like it could be from England, or maybe even New England, but its origins are in a small farmhouse on 71st Street and York Avenue. (The house can be seen today in Greenwich Village, where it was moved in 1967.) “Cobble Court” was where author Margaret Wise Brown wrote Goodnight Moon. She drew on its interior for inspiration.
BLOOMINGDALE'S
The first Bloomingdale's goes back to the Civil War era and the Lower East Side. Immigrant Benjamin Bloomingdale and his son Lyman Bloomingdale founded it in 1861 as Bloomingdale’s Hoopskirts, with a focus on the then-trendy hoop skirt. Lyman and his brother Joseph had a sharp eye for growth opportunities and opened a second location in midtown — Bloomingdale’s Great East Side Bazaar — in 1872. Along the way, they pioneered the notion of a department store. In 1886 they established Bloomingdale’s at 59th and Lexington Avenue, the flagship headquarters the company retains to this day, along with 57 other locations.
BOAR’S HEAD PROVISION COMPANY
Boar’s Head has a national reach, showing up on grocery shelves and in deli cases all over. It sells over a billion dollars every year, but it began with humble Brooklyn roots. Frank Brunckhorst began distributing under the brand name in 1905, selling cold cuts and hot dogs in an effort to add more quality to Brooklynite plates. By 1933 Brunckhorst and his partners had launched their first small manufacturing plant in Brooklyn. (More than a century later the same families are still running the business, which advises you to “Compromise Elsewhere.”)
Source: “Made In NYC,” by Ethan Wolff, March 2024, City Guide New York
Contributed by Bobbie Roggemann
To be continued. Stay tuned for more.