John A Schwarz Furniture

The postcard above depicts the John A. Schwarz, Inc. furniture store at One Fulton Avenue, probably not long after their opening at that location in 1949.  Actually the history of this firm begins long before that.  Karen E. Wagner at My Old NY Just Ain't What She Used to Be blog has some great information about the original John A Schwarz and his furniture business. He was born in NY in the 1850s to German immigrants and clerked in a furniture store before he opened his own store in 1876 at 838-840 Broadway in Brooklyn. By the 1920s, his three sons opened an additional three locations, two more in Brooklyn and one in Jamaica.  By the 1940s, they sold off their stores in NYC to another firm and moved out to Long Island where in 1949, they opened the store you see above as their only store.  (A few years later they also opened a store in Centereach).

John A Schwarz furniture was a mainstay business in Hempstead for the next three decades.  Their building offered full frontage on Hempstead Turnpike/ Fulton Ave with large showcase windows to display their wares.  The building also offered plenty of floor space and lots of parking.

In the 1970s, John A Schwarz felt the squeeze from competing firms, coupled with a downturn in the economy, and on Sunday February 1, 1981, after 105 years in business, they closed their doors for good.

Shortly thereafter the site became home to the Nassau School for Medical and Dental Assistants.  For a while, the local offices of Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy was also located there.  Today, the building is called Nassau Plaza and houses medical offices, including an OB/GYN office affiliated with Winthrop University Hospital.  The presence of Winthrop is ironic, because it happens to be very near the original site of Nassau Hospital, forerunner to Winthrop.  Nassau Hospital opened on an estate at that location as western Long Island's first full service hospital in 1897 before moving to Mineola in 1900. I guess you can say they've come full circle.

Below is a "now" shot of the picture above.

Munson L.I., a Forgotten Hamlet

The photo of the magnificent estate at left comes from the May 5th, 1917 edition of the NY Sun announcing the sale of the home to Mr. & Mrs Wilford L. Wright, president of the Savage Arms Company. The seller was Harry Munson, who had lived in the home for over 20 years. The 20 acre property was located on the north side of Hempstead Turnpike between Nassau Blvd and Cherry Valley Ave, where the Compare Foods Shopping Center is now located, and extended all the way back to the Garden City border.

Harry Munson (pictured at left) was a decorated Civil War veteran who made a fortune in advertising in New York City. Some estimated that he had a 50% market share in Manhattan's billboard posting business. In 1896, he retired and purchased the home above in a tiny village then called Washington Square, centered around the corner of the Hempstead-Jamaica Plank road (Hempstead Tpke) and John St (Nassau Blvd). Upon moving out to Long Island, Washington Square then became known as Munson in honor of the area's newest resident. Despite the fact that Harry Munson was a successful businessman and decorated Civil War hero, it is surprising to consider that local residents were so eager to change the name to honor a newcomer. After all, with his purchase, Munson initially intended occupy his country seat only on a part time basis as a Summer retreat. Perhaps we can offer the following theory:

In 1892, Washington Square in Manhattan gained national recognition when a memorial arch was erected to celebrate the centennial of President George Washington's inauguration. The existing, permanent memorial arch was completed in 1895. This created too much confusion for tiny Washington Square, Long Island, and shortly thereafter locals began looking for a suitable replacement name for their village. When Munson came on to the scene and purchased the area's most prominent home and property, he was a natural candidate to be given the honor of the village's namesake.

In 1947, Wilford L. Wright died. Five years later the home was sold to the Ethical Cultural Society (later called the Ethical Humanist Society of Long Island), who then used the building as their headquarters until they built a new headquarters on Old Country Road in Garden City. The photo at left comes from the EHSLI website and shows the building as it looked in the 1950s. As a testament to the size of the home the Ethical Cultural Society converted the rooms of the house into a Platform room with a capacity of 100 people, a study, lounge, kitchen, office, caretaker's room and six Sunday School classrooms.

A survey of local newspapers such as the Hempstead Inquirer and the Hempstead Sentinel from the early 1900s shows that local news from Munson was covered much more extensively than other neighboring locales such as West Hempstead, Lakeview and Franklin Square. Munson had it's own hotel, a general store, a blacksmith, various other businesses and even its own baseball team. Over time though, Munson slowly lost its identity because it got crowded out by the expansion of West Hempstead from the east and Franklin Square from the west. Only an echo of Munson exists in the name of the Franklin Square & 'Munson' Fire Dept., and Munson Ave., south of Hempstead Turnpike, just east of Nassau Blvd. Below is a photo of the location of the Munson/ Wright home as it looks today.

LIRR - West Hempstead to Mineola Line

The terrific photo below (taken by Max Hubacher) is a scene from a "railfan" excursion train that ran on October 26, 1952. It depicts an old steam engine crossing Hempstead Turnpike on a sunny fall afternoon, looking west toward Broad St.

The LIRR West Hempstead line dates back to 1893 and used to run all the way up to Mineola. (Most of the right of way still exists and can still be seen by following the LIPA electric lines along the ROW) The original engines were all steam, until Oct. 1926, when the LIRR electrified the line. In addition to commuter service, the LIRR also ran freight trains that hauled, among other things, produce from the numerous Long Island farms to points west. (Can you imagine getting stuck waiting for a freight train to pass on Hempstead Turnpike?) At the time the photo was shot, the LIRR was still running freight trains along the line, and did so until 1956 when the operation became unprofitable. Commuter service along that portion had already ended sometime in the '30s, and by the 60's the tracks were torn up, leaving the West Hempstead station as the terminus of the current line.

To get the "now" shot, I lined up the telephone pole holding up the lines along the LIRR ROW on the left side of the "then" shot. I'm not sure if it's the same pole, but it still must be pretty close.

Two interesting points of note about the 'then' picture. 1) Looks like Hempstead Turnpike was still a dirt road. 2) In the backgound you will notice a sign the says 'Jacoves'. Jacoves was a liquor store that only recently closed up, three years ago or so.