This photograph, from the NYC Municipal Archives taken for the 1940s Tax Department photos, shows 49-20 Vernon Blvd at 50th Avenue on an ordinary weekday. A Borden’s Ice Cream luncheonette anchors the corner. Striped awning. Fedoras. A shoe repair shop next door. Overhead, trolley wires crisscross the intersection in every direction. This was the southern terminus of the Vernon Boulevard trolley line.
The trolley stopped running eight years after this photo was taken. The luncheonette closed. Today, that corner is a ground-floor retail space waiting for its next tenant, with apartments above it. Instead of a neighborhood focused on industry, we’re a neighborhood where people live.
Photo courtesy NYC Municipal Archives.
