COUNTRY STORE INTERIOR
2553 Sage Place, Spuyten Duyvil
OCTOBER 11, 1935. ABBOTT FILE 12

Sage Place ran parallel to Ewen Avenue and shared its rural character. The store at no. 2553 was approximately a century old but was closed at the time of Abbott's visit. In the 1850s, Peter Tarantino established a barber shop there, which remained open until his death in the early 1930s. One of his daughters turned the shop into a luncheonette called "Ye Olde Country Store," but the store failed after only a year, a victim of the Johnson foundry's closing and the depression. The building then became a carpentry shop for Mr. J. Hansen, the husband of another Tarantino daughter.

Abbott photographed the store's exterior and interior. The exterior view, which was discarded from the project, shows the shop windows blocked with newspapers and the sign for the defunct luncheonette; a young couple, perhaps the Hansens, stand in the doorway. The interior view shows the store's original beaded wooden sealing board and hand-planed oak floors. The potbelly stove, wall clock, and wire-back chairs date from the turn of the century, while the advertisements for meat products are from the short-lived luncheonette. The light streaming in from the windows casts a warm glow over the objects in the store, lending the illusion of stability and order to the scene.

In the 1960s, the buildings on Sage Place were cleared, and the street, like Ewen Avenue, disappeared.

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