RUBEL BROTHERS Coal and Ice

Kevin Walsh

11 years ago

BY GARY FONVILLE
Forgotten NY correspondent

Remember video stores, record shops, beeper outlets, shoe repair shops and ice cream/ fountain soda stands? These types of businesses once were ubiquitous in NYC. However, due to changes in technology and consumer demand, these types of businesses could no longer be supported. Rubel Coal & Ice Corp. was no different. In its heyday, Rubel was very prosperous because coal and ice were two commodities that were in great demand. The company erected its headquarters on the NE corner of Fulton Street and Waverly Avenue in Brooklyn, with facilities strategically placed around the city.

Fulton Street and Waverly Avenue

Junius Street and Glenmore Avenue, East New York

Due to environmental concerns, coal has been virtually replaced with natural gas and oil in NYC. Coal and oil was used to heat commercial properties, schools and homes. On a personal note, my home in its existence, built around 1905, has been heated with three types of fuel over the years. In proper order it was coal, oil and natural gas. In fact, the coal chute still exists today. How many FNY fans remember getting coal deliveries to their homes or schools that slid down a chute from a dirty truck into the basement?

Jamaica Avenue and 184th Street, east Jamaica

Ice was another matter that contributed to the company’s dwindling sales. People kept food cold by purchasing blocks of ice to put in heavily insulated wooden iceboxes. In some of the larger brownstones in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, ice was delivered through a small door that was actually the rear of the wall-installed icebox. This made it possible that an ice delivery person did not have to enter the home! Mechanical refrigeration rendered iceboxes functionally obsolete in a relatively short time. No longer would a person have to get an ice delivery and/or worry about the dripping water that the melting ice produced. And it didn’t help the ice business that large retailers such as Rex Cole were bombarding NYC with ads that promoted this new -fangled technology. Fortunately many of those Rex Cole signs are still around.

The company was started by Samuel Rubel (1881-1949), who sold ice and coal from a horse drawn wagon in the East New York section of Brooklyn. As the coal and ice business floundered, he invested in the Ebling Brewery of the Bronx. He was said to be worth $8,000,000 at the time of his death – quite a considerable sum for that era.

6/6/14