KRASNER’S PHARMACY, Bedford-Stuyvesant

by Kevin Walsh

Vinyl signs that had been installed on a drugstore on the corner of Ralph Avenue and Park Place have recently been removed, revealing a pair of signs from different eras: the original vinyl Krasner’s Pharmacy ad and hand-drawn signs for the following owner, Gulshan Pharmacy.

 

Interestingly both older signs are missing the usual vessel-with-a-pestle motif older drugstore signs usually contain. Both Krasner’s and Gulshan had been there for a few decades, I can pretty much say for sure.

Photos: Gary Fonville

10/15/15

 

 

11 comments

Ian M. October 15, 2015 - 10:00 am

Do you have any idea when these signs are from? I ask because I Googled Krasner’s and nothing came up. And it occurred to me how many things have been lost to time – Krasner’s might’ve been a well-respected establishment for decades, but today there’s no trace of it online and I wonder if anyone even remembers it.

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David Krasner May 6, 2021 - 9:43 am

It was my father’s drug store. I was raised there, lived above the store.

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Michael Giaquinto October 16, 2015 - 8:26 am

My mother grew up across the street from Krasner’s in the 1940s. Her most vivid memory of the pharmacy is that the proprietor used to tend to her and other neighborhood kids’ skinned knees (apparently this was common practice at NYC pharmacies during that era). Hard to imagine that happening at your local Rite Aid now.

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David Krasner May 6, 2021 - 9:43 am

That was my father’s store.

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Jeffrey H. Wasserman October 17, 2015 - 11:52 am

Changing demographics in the area may have had something to do with the change in ownership. I see that a Baptist church on Park Place just east of Ralph Avenue has Stars of David on its stained glass windows in this 2014 Google photo.

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.6719658,-73.9223131,3a,75y,75.57h,67.59t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sqEC9dTT0qee0QYkHI32bSw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

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GeorgeDunne October 17, 2015 - 5:08 pm

I have noticed through my travels that the only businesses that stand the test of time are Drug Stores and Liquor Stores, the latter not being allowed to be part of a monopoly (sole ownership) but a business cartel, according to NYS Liquor Laws.

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Gabriel March 22, 2020 - 11:56 pm

Isn’t this location in Crown Heights rather than Bed-Stuy? Or have the neighborhoods’ boundaries changed that much?

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David Krasner May 6, 2021 - 10:16 am

It’s actually Brownsville.

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Clarisa May 16, 2020 - 9:58 am

How well I remember this pharmacy. Mr. Krasner was such a pleasant man. My mother would call tell him the symptoms If we did not go to the doctor, and he would tell her to come or send one of the children to pick it up.
The only thing I hated was the long wait for the prescriptions to be filled. He knew our names. Sometimes if I was in the area getting off the bus from school. I would just stop and say hi. The time came for him to retire.
Mr. Gulshan worked with him, and he introduced us to him. He was also kind and would assist us. Mr. Gulshan
retained all of Krasner employees. I remember a young Spanish man and an Afro american. The Afro American whose name I can’t remember stayed working at the pharmacy for many many years. The wonderful memories of this place in Bedford Stuyvesant.

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David Krasner May 6, 2021 - 9:47 am

This was my father’s store. Please email me at krasnerd@aol.com and tell me all you remember!

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David Krasner May 6, 2021 - 9:41 am

This was my father’s drug store. Please, if anyone wants to email me I’m at krasnerd@aol.com.
David Krasner

Reply

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