NOTE: At this time, the Bronx was greener and more "suburban" than it became 60 years later. As the city's subway system expanded, a lot of families moved uptown to the Bronx from Manhattan for more spacious (and affordable) apartments or homes, close to good schools, nice parks, swimming pools, and other amenities. The commute to midtown or downtown Manhattan would take an hour or less.
By the 1930s, Teddy had progressed to a dairy store in a busier section of the Bronx, at 2294 Morris Avenue, close to Eastchester Avenue. His store was convenient for people to stop in on their way home from work or at any time they needed milk, cheese, eggs, and staple items.
In 1937, Teddy had moved his store to 679 Fox Street in the Bronx, not far from Southern Boulevard. He was alone behind the counter at 9:30 on the winter evening of December 16, 1937, when three armed men charged in. The villains hit Teddy with the butt end of a pistol and stole $50, scramming to rob two other stores on the same evening. Grandpa Teddy must have been shook up, to say the least, as well as unhappy about losing that much hard-earned money during the Great Depression.
In 1942, Teddy's store location again changed. This time he set up shop at 640 East 180th Street, an even busier and better neighborhood for retail traffic. As before, the entrance was at street level in one section of an apartment building.
Grandpa Teddy did well with that busier location and in 1955, he sold the store to his assistant, who viewed it as a "gold mine." Well, it was certainly hard work with long hours, if not an actual gold mine. It had taken the combined efforts of his wife, three children, and other relatives to operate Teddy's dairy stores over the years.
I learned about these store locations from family documents and Bronx city directories. The story about Teddy being robbed came from the New York Times, which published a small item about the three small businesses all hit by armed robbers on one chilly December evening in 1937.
Thinking of Grandpa's entrepreneurial efforts, as the #52Ancestors prompt for this week is "family business."
