ELBEE CHEMISTS, Bellerose 1999

March 2019 marks Forgotten New York’s 20th anniversary. To mark the occasion, I’ve re-scanned about 150 key images from the early days of FNY from 35MM prints. In the early days, when people including me were accessing FNY with dial-up modems, I had to save photos really small — in some cases, just 4″ across. I couldn’t find all those early photos — I think I foolishly discarded some along the way — but all month, and into April, I’ll be picking out some and showing the newly scanned versions.

Elbee Chemists was a drug store located at Union Turnpike and 249th Street. I had been aware of the neon sign before I began work on FNY since I had pedaled past it on my bicycle beginning in 1993 when I moved to Flushing. The sign glowed red and green, and also featured the old “Rx” abbreviation. This symbol originated in medieval manuscripts as an abbreviation of the late Latin verb recipere. The monks or scribes often used abbreviations for words that were used often and in this case, recipere means recipe, or list of ingredients. It also employed the British word for drugstore, “chemists.”

The sign disappeared around 2002 when the store closed; the space is now home to Bellerose Famous Pizza.

The sign’s ghost is still employed in the world of Grand Theft Auto video game devotees:

Elbee Chemists is a drug store situated on Prawn Island. These chemists were closed down for unknown reasons. However, over the years this store has been linked to various real life places, forming a myth about the actual inspiration of the drug store until one such theory that described the store to be similar to the drug store named Ronald’s featured in Michael Jackson‘s song Billie Jean and that the store may also be a set of another one of his songs, named Thriller. Moreover, the chemists are situated along with many other infamous myth locations, such as the Abandoned Park and the Milligan Hotel. Like many other buildings on Prawn Island, Elbee Chemist’s texture is taken from a real life abandoned building, except that it was originally in Queens, New York, and not Miami. [GTA Myths]

Check out the ForgottenBook, take a look at the gift shop, and as always, “comment…as you see fit.”

3/5/19