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.
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