Little Old Canarsie
We Had A&P Stores All Over

In the early teens of this century, there were several grocery and general stores which were all privately owned. There was Bullwinkell at East 92nd Street and Canarsie Lane; Jos Krier at Flatlands Avenue at the corner of East 92nd Street; T.F. Winterberg at East 92nd Street near Avenue K; F.W. Krier at East 92nd Street and Stillwell Lane; Henry W. Butecke at East 95th Street and Avenue L and Peter Win. Fortmeyer at Avenue L and East 94th Street. On the parkway were Chas. Weinhold at Truckelmans Lane and Bunce [later Pelockes] at Rockaway Parkway and Baisley Lane and a store at the Parkway and Conklin Avenue of which was located is still there, now used as a private home.

Just at about this time, Canarsie got its first notice of a chain store coming when a young man by the name of Al Madden came down with a horse and wagon from an A&P store on Fulton Street (in the Ocean Hill section) and he would stop at your home, take an order and deliver it a few days later.

This store finally moved up in the middle of the block of East 92nd Street and was managed by my brother Win. (Wee) Denton. Another store was located at East 92nd Street and Farragut Road, which was managed by Howard Ridell and later by my brother. And the 6th store was on Rockaway Parkway near Seaview Avenue.

This store was used by most of the residents of Sands Bay, which was a colony of homes built on Spiles or big sticks, as they had no cellars or foundations to hold them up. Some of the Canarsie boys who worked and managed these stores at various times were Jackie Hand, Oliver Stoughton, Frank Downing, Baldy Bowers as well as my brother.

They finally closed these stores and for quite a few years only one big one remained on Avenue L and East 95th Street until they opened a supermarket on the Parkway during the early 1930s at a spot which was supposed to have been a movie house in 1927, and was never built, as one of the main owners passed away and the hole was filled in and used as a parking lot for the store.