A & P, GREAT ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC TEA COMPANY
246 Third Avenue between East 20th and 21st Streets
MARCH 16, 1936. ABBOTT FILE 77

On the ground floor of a tenement one block east of Gramercy Park was this A&P grocery store. Although Abbott's black-and-white photograph could not show it, the storefront was painted red, with a black-and-gold-lettered sign bearing the company's famous logo. Begun on Vesey Street in 1859 as a tea and coffee importer, the Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company grew into the largest chain store in the world. In 1937, there were 119 A&P's in Manhattan and 15,500 stores nationwide with annual gross sales of $1 billion.

As the window indicates, most of the store's products were nationally advertised brands. That singer Kate Smith promoted A&P's coffee illustrates the modern advertising concept of enlisting celebrities to sell products. The chain store's vast economies of scale and its use of advertising dealt a fatal blow to the small local grocer. A comparison of this storefront with Abbott's photographs of ethnic groceries--such as italian cheese and bread stores a Kosher chicken market--documents a fundamental change in modern American life.

Although A&P originated in New York City, the supermarket concept fully developed in the post-World War II suburbs. Today the Third Avenue tenement storefront is a plumbing supply outlet.

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