Store Front display of HandGuns in NYC

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WALKERs210

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There is a Mini-Series on Cina Max called “The Knick” which is about a hospital In NYC time frame 1900. One of the doctors is an African-American that is going thru his own he!! He was leaving his hotel/rooming house and I spotted something that made me back up and pause the screens. There in NYC was a window full of pistols and lettering for AMMUNITION. What caught my eye was what appeared to be a Pepper Box right in the center of the display along
with around 5 revolvers in a row at the top. Surprised me because even in the 60's where you could buy rifles at Wools Worth 5&10 but they didn’t have a window display. Made the mistake of deleting the program so I can’t go back to look at the window again for more detail.
 
Old films and TV can be a great "museum" of how places used to be in past times...

On the early 1960s there was a TV series based on a Jules Dassin movie of the same title called "The Naked City." It was actually filmed in NYC, as they had TV & film production there at the time.
In one episode a scene takes place in a gunshop. Another episode has a scene take place in an old Army Navy Surplus store which featured all sorts of militaria including working Garand rifles and other firearms.
Sorta hard to imagine that happening in... "The Naked City," ;) today......
 
As a kid in NYC, there were many surplus stores in Manhattan that had barrels of surplus rifles, Modell's on Broadway even had dump tables filled with 'em.

The streets surrounding the old police headquarters on Centre St. had many gun shops, too.
 
The streets surrounding the old police headquarters on Centre St. had many gun shops, too.
Click to expand...

screen-capture-27.jpg

The guy with the camera hanging off the fire escape is the famous crime photographer "Weegee" (Arthur Fellig), who lived upstairs in that building. His nickname is a phonetic spelling of the "Ouija Board" because of his almost supernatural ability to be at a crime scene before the police.

http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2011/03/guns-of-centre-market.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jovino_Gun_Shop
 
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toivo said:
screen-capture-27.jpg

The guy with the camera hanging off the fire escape is the famous crime photographer "Weegee" (Arthur Fellig), who lived upstairs in that building. His nickname is a phonetic spelling of the "Ouija Board" because of his almost supernatural ability to be at a crime scene before the police.

http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2011/03/guns-of-centre-market.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jovino_Gun_Shop
Click to expand...

Ha!
Toivo; Were you aware that Arthur Fellig (Weegee) published a book of his photos under the title "The Naked City?" That title was ... "stolen" by Mark Hellinger & Jules Dassin for the film I mentioned above. I have a copy of that collection in my library. :D
 
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Several of Weegee's photos are here http://www.lifelounge.com.au/photography/news/weegee.aspx#gallerytop Also put Arthur Fellig "The Naked City" on Google Images search. Interesting photos.

Are there any (inside the store) vintage photos of those "barrels of surplus rifles" . Or vintage photos of the inside of a gun store? I have seen ads and heard stories here and elsewhere about what was it like before the 1968 Gun Control Act. Would like to see some photos too.
.
 
Are there any (inside the store) vintage photos of those "barrels of surplus rifles
Click to expand...
Don't have photos but I do remember in the mid to late 60's WoolsWorth dept store 5&10 had tons of K98's and others in their basement. Cost for your choice was around $30.00 each. I worked all year to get that much money.
 
It absolutely shocked me when going through my grandmother's house in 2000. She was a packrat and kept nearly everything. What was shocking was finding all the catalogs where you could order 1911s and 38 revolvers for less than $10.
 
Giving my age away, but I remember when you could order just about any firearm and have it sent thru the US Mail. Heck I remember an advertisement where you could buy a brand new JEEP still in the crate for $50.00 I could not remember when NYC started there clam down of firearms, guess it was after 1900. In the mini series it is set in 1900, the thing that caught my eye was what looked like a very large Pepper Box.
 
Midwest said:
Several of Weegee's photos are here http://www.lifelounge.com.au/photography/news/weegee.aspx#gallerytop Also put Arthur Fellig "The Naked City" on Google Images search. Interesting photos.

Are there any (inside the store) vintage photos of those "barrels of surplus rifles" . Or vintage photos of the inside of a gun store? I have seen ads and heard stories here and elsewhere about what was it like before the 1968 Gun Control Act. Would like to see some photos too.
.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, no photos. There was a surplus store, Kaufman's, with two locations in Manhattan. One was demolished because it was on a street that was under the footprint of the World trade Center. That one, I recall, at one time had barrels of Martini Cadets .310 for $11. Model's had a dump table filled with cosmoline covered 6.5 Carcanos at $12.

On the high end you had Abercrombie & Fitch, which was a sporting goods dept store on Madison Ave. They had an entire floor of just guns.

Unfortunately, you had to be 18 years old to buy, which I wasn't at the time. Not that I could have afforded anything in Abercrombie's.

Later, Beretta had a showroom in Manhattan also.
 
toivo said:
screen-capture-27.jpg

The guy with the camera hanging off the fire escape is the famous crime photographer "Weegee" (Arthur Fellig), who lived upstairs in that building. His nickname is a phonetic spelling of the "Ouija Board" because of his almost supernatural ability to be at a crime scene before the police.

http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2011/03/guns-of-centre-market.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jovino_Gun_Shop
Click to expand...
I have a similar ability. To quote another rider, "I always seem to arrive at my motorcycle crash sites 10 minutes before the ambulance." lol
 
Slightly off topic, but..... K98s for $30 in the 1960s. A few years back, I got to wondering how did I go to the movies in 1958-1960 (movie, popcorn, candy, soda & a monster magazine at the newstand) on a $2 allowance or have a decent Gilbert telescope fo $10. Found an inflation calculater. $10 1960 = $75 2010. K98s for $30 ea. would be like getting a K98 for $225 today.
 
I was born in '46 and grew up in NYC. First rifle I bought when I turned 18 was bought on canal street and carried home on the subway wrapped in brown paper. Ammo was in my pocket. It was an Enfield in .303
 
K98s for $30 in the 1960s
Click to expand...
About the same time frame I bought a Japaneses Arisaka from a man that had junk piled every where. I paid $3.00 for it. The bore was stopped up with mud or some other crap, I got it cleaned out and bore looked good. Now you have to remember in 60 I was 12yrs old so any improvement was good. I sanded the steel down and painted it a gold color. Had no idea what bluing was and no way to do it if I did. In 66 just before I went over seas I sold it to a kid in our neighbor hood for $5.00. After I came home in late 69 I have been trying to buy that rifle back with no luck. The kid grew up and became a gunsmith, he told me that rifle had taken a couple deer.
 
Seems that when I had my ffl back in the prk it was against the law to have a handgun or picture thereof visible from the street. Those olf fotos a NY are cute.
 
bubba in ca said:
... it was against the law to have a handgun or picture thereof visible from the street. …
Click to expand...

Walking through Times Square a year or two ago, I saw an advertisement for the Hatfields and McCoys TV mini-series on a LED billboard, had to be twenty or thirty stories tall, depicting an 1860 Colt. I thought it ironic that such an ad appeared in New York City, the very bastion of anti-gun folk. As for me, I was out shooting mine the very next day! :)
 
I remember in 1964 or 65 going into the local Laverters/Rexall drug store in Bangor Maine and seeing old wooden flower barrels full of Carcanos and 303 SMLE's for about $8.00 - $10.00 with a pile of ammo sitting next to them in the "sporting goods/camping" area of the store. My father said I could have one if I paid for it myself. Always found that my .22 ammo habit and comic book collection ate up my available cash somehow.:eek: Sorry no pictures!
 
I read recently about someone from New York City who shot on his high school rifle team.

He would take his rifle from home to school on the subway, give it to the principal when he arrived at school, pick it up after class to take to practice or a match, and take it home on the subway.

Imagine today a student handing a principal a rifle.
 
I belonged to a rifle club in Queens when I was 12. Used to take my rifle to and from on the bus. Once was approached by a police officer who asked me what was in the case. Said a rifle. He asked if I had a permit for it. I replied there is no permit for rifles. He said OK, have a nice night.
 
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