A couple of interesting things going on with this view of Brooklyn’s Broadway just west of Havemeyer Street: here the elevated train veers off Broadway to ascend a ramp onto the Williamsburg Bridge, but behind the billboard is a stub end of a former elevated extension to the waterfront at Kent Avenue, where there had been a ferry. That portion of the el had been torn down by 1940, leaving it the only portion of Broadway with full sunshine.
Also, there’s a former bank at the corner of Broadway and Havemeyer Street now home to an Echo Drug store and a legal services office. Its former status as a bank is clear, since its old neon Chase Manhattan Bank sign is still on the roof. Chemical later absorbed Chase and Manufacturers Hanover and the bank is now JP Morgan Chase.
10/10/15