German immigrant Henry C. Bohack opened his first grocery in 1887 and over the years Bohack developed into one of the first powerhouse grocery store chains. Grand Union, Key Food and all the rest were to follow. When the Depression arrived in late 1929, Bohack responded by actually opening more stores to provide employment. The founder passed away in 1931.
Bohack was recognizable by the distinctive “B” in the logo. A building now used as a warehouse in the triangle formed by Flushing Avenue and Troutman Street still has those B’s emblazoned on the sides of the building. As this photo from the 1930s demonstrates, this building once housed a Bohack’s restaurant.
Bohack’s prospered until 1974 when the chain went bankrupt. After an attempted merger with Shop-Rite failed, Bohack’s disappeared into the history books in 1977. Occasionally, though, an old awning or sign is taken down and the Big B is in evidence briefly once more.
The former Bohack restaurant really is a handsome building in buff brick. It’s hampered by its location on Flushing Avenue, which on the Brooklyn-Queens border is dominated by auto repair shops and auto glass wholesalers, making it a mini version of the Iron Triangle (or what’s left of it) in Corona across 126th Street (Seaver Way) from Citifield.
Bohack once had a large distribution complex at the Flushing-Metropolitan Avenue crossroads, and many of the brick buildings of the complex remain. “Bohack warehouse” can still be seen on this building at Troutman and Flushing.
Check out the ForgottenBook, take a look at the gift shop, and as always, “comment…as you see fit.”
9/15/20
10 comments
Kevin – have you heard any of the rumors about how one of the Bohack sons was an habitual gambler and lost much of the Bohack wealth to betting?
Francis Lewis:
Have you seen Dr. Martin abend recently? I hope Mrs. Lewis is feeling better. Send her my regards.
Just guessing, but I suspect you lived on Francis Lewis Blvd.
I lived there in my early years at 90-27.
More urban myth BS. Henry C. Bohack had no children. After his death on Sept. 18, 1931, Bohack was owned by his wife, his four nephews and their cousins. Bohack’s
financial difficulties dated from the 1970s.
Up the road a bit on the corner of Metropolitan Avenue and 60th Street stood a Bohack store. The photo was taken in 1940. Down 60th street I can see the house that I grew up in. i was born in 1946 but have no memory of the store although an old school friend who is the same age as me says that he remembers it
The H.C. Bohack Company was acquired by Charles Bluhdorn back in the 1960s, who eventually bought Paramount Pictures and incorporated it into his Gulf+Western Industries, the crew that Mel Brooks called “engulf+devour” …
The Stop & Shop Supermarket at Northern Blvd. and Marathon Parkway was originally a Bohack’s when it opened new in the mid-1960s. I remember it well.
I recall how in the early 1970s a cousin of mine turned stockbroker convinced my dad to buy stock in the combined Bohacks/Packers/Hills supermarket corporation. It was obviously a merger of three fading supermarket chains desperate to turn things around that figured bulking up in size would equate to success. Fortunately, dad didn’t put too much money into the stock, but whatever he did ante up was lost.
You had covered this building previously — in your traversal of Metropolitan Avenue — that seemed to, perhaps, contain company offices. You posted that entry in 2015; within a couple of years it was gone. A Google car captured it for posterity, or at least until Google no longer displays it: Metropolitan Avenue Bohack Company Offices?
A little bit of hipster history…
Some time between 2006 to 2008ish, the second floor of this building was the first location of the infamous House of Yes, a party venue that is still around today down on Jefferson St. I was there many times and there was as much shenanigans as you can imagine – brass bands, hip hop shows, circus trapeze, theater performances, etc. It all ended when a giant foam mask got caught on fire by the toaster in the kitchen, and then entire place went in flames. The core group packed up and moved to a new location down Maujer St.
There is also a little restaurant with the entrance at the sharp corner for the past decade, but it was shut down finally in the pandemic.
The rooftop always have a ton of pigeons and it was majestic to look at. They are still around today.