THE New York City “candy store” is a longstanding tradition and in the guise of also selling magazines, newspapers, cigars, toys and snacks, they’re still around today. However there was a time when there were actual candy stores that sold nothing but confectionery, mainly boxed candy but also foods like ice cream on occasion. When I was a kid I remember pilgrimages on the B16 bus to Flatbush Avenue near Prospect Park, where there was this huge candy store that sold every variety you could think of, sort of like today’s Economy Candy on the Lower East Side. (Someone once sent me the name of that store but I forget it now.) I am tempted today to order fruit slice candy and chocolate covered pretzels until the angel on my shoulder wins out.
By the time I was a kid in the Swinging 60s, the Candy Wars had shaken down to two rivals: Loft’s and Barricini. The first Loft’s candy store was opened by British immigrant William Loft in 1860, with his son George Loft gradually opening more branches in NYC in the 1890s. Production was centered in Long Island City, expanding to ten office buildings and factories at Vernon Boulevard and 40th Avenue.
Barricini, meanwhile, is a bit harder to research, but a New York Times obituary in 1951 states that brothers in law Mac and Jack Barricini founded a candy store at Broadway and 158th Street in Washington Heights in 1928. The article mentions that Barricini wasn’t Mac’s given name but that “Barracini” sounded like a good name for a candy store and eventually the brothers in law adopted it as their legal surnames. By 1951 there were 45 Barricini candy shops around town.
In 1971, Loft’s was acquired by Southland Corporation, which purchased Barricini the next year and combined the two into Barricini-Loft. By 1988 all the combined shops had closed.
I got this shot from Facebook of a rather forlorn-looking Barricini at Avenue A and East 14th Street in the Super 70s, from the looks of things.
Photo– Philip Pocock
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10/2/23