Frankel's Discount Clothing

A few years ago, this store in industrial Sunset Park, Brooklyn caught my eye. Then I saw an article that the elderly owner, 3rd generation owner Marty Frankel, would soon be closing the store and retiring to New Jersey. I filed it away as a possible entry for my "Before It's Gone" series, but forgot about it.

A few weeks ago, I happened to pass by and saw a bunch of construction workers around it. I figured they were preparing to demolish it, so that weekend I made my way out to capture it. To my surprise, I discovered that it was still open for business; those construction workers were apparently just shopping. 

Finishing up the initial sketch, a man waved me in. It was the 4th generation owner Erik Frankel. The store had closed in 2017, but Erik re-opened it two years later. It seems to be surviving pretty well in spite of the pandemic and competition from Amazon.

Frankel's was founded 1890. It was originally located across the street in a building that was demolished to make way for the Gowanus Expressway. It served longshoremen when Brooklyn had a thriving waterfront. It also did a brisk business selling condoms to foreign sailors in port from countries were contraception was illegal. After the shipping business died out in Brooklyn in the 1960s, the store transitioned to selling clothes and shoes for construction workers, ironworkers, and other laborers.

Initial pencil drawing, done from across the street, beneath the Gowanus Expressway.

Inks over the initial drawing, with the typography done with markers.

Laying in the color, mostly with watercolor pencil, and watercolor wash for the sky. You may notice a typo in the signage. It was my fault and I fixed it in Photoshop for the final posted image!

This feature on Marty Frankel, written when the store was about to shutter, is well worth a read: 

Jeremiah's Vanishing New York

On the re-opening of the store: 

www.star-revue.com: Sunset Park's Frankel's Plans a Reboot

To give them some business:

https://www.frankelsny.com/

Livery Sale and Feed Fake Out

This looks like some cool relic of Brooklyn's industrial past, right? Or one of those types of businesses that you didn't think still existed in the city. But after drawing this for an hour on a cold winter afternoon, I found out that it's actually just leftover set dressing from a film shoot for "Boardwalk Empire!" I still like the way it looks, though.

Louis Valentino Jr. Pump House

This is part of a pump house, located in Bush Terminal Park in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. It's across from this pier and near this abandoned caboose.

My Google-Fu is pretty good, so usually I can draw things and figure out what they are later. Not this time. I know this is the Louis Valentino Jr. Pump House, and is a FDNY facility. But I don't know exactly what it's pumping. I think maybe it's connected to the fire hydrant system, or maybe the sprinkler system of the nearby warehouses? I know from previous sketching that the thing to the left of the large pipe is called a test header. But I don't know what the overall function of the building is.

Louis Valentino Jr. was a firefighter who died in the line of duty in 1996. There are a lot of things in Brooklyn named after him, but Google doesn't turn up any reference to this building. It's a mystery to me.

LaFarge Brooklyn

The LaFarge Cement plant in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. As it happens, this was the second time I've drawn a LaFarge facility. Last year, I drew this one, located in New Jersey, seen from the shore of Staten Island.

Bush Terminal Caboose

An abandoned caboose at Bush Terminal Park. Bush Terminal was once part of the Industry City complex in Sunset Park, and was a major transfer point for freight, with ships unloading at the Bay Ridge Channel onto rail cars. There is now a park hidden away behind the industrial waterfront. Who knows how long this caboose has stood there? And is it actually still in use somehow? There are wires running from a nearby antenna to it. Maybe it's a secret NSA site or something.

Bush Terminal Piers Park

Go to Sunset Park in Brooklyn. Walk past the auto body shops and the Halal live poultry shops and dash across the traffic underneath the Gowanus Expressway. Go past the old industrial factories and warehouses that have been renovated into studios for artists and craftsmen. Keep going past the old industrial factories and warehouses on First Ave. that have not been gentrified. Businesses like United Store Fixtures and Aviv Judaica Imports. You'll see a sign on a gate for Bush Terminal Piers Park. Go through the gate and down the road past yet more old industrial buildings, and there you'll find a park. It's not the world's greatest park, but it's nice because no one's there and there are great views of Lower Manhattan, including the new World Trade Center Building and the Statue of Liberty. On the other side of the fence, you'll see the ruins of old piers, like this one.