BREAD STORE
259 Bleeker Street
FEBRUARY 3, 1937. ABBOTT FILE 199

Bread Store, variant image

The day after photographing Cheese Store, Abbott returned to Bleecker Street to make its counterpart, Bread Store; the two photographs of family-run Italian food stores occupy facing pages in Changing New York. Anthony Zito had been in the neighborhood for many years, working out of a turn-of-the-century tenement on Bleecker Street. Although Zito's storefront was picturesque, the retail outlet represented a small portion of his profits. The heart of the business was in the basement, where bread was baked twice a day for delivery by truck to restaurants and groceries throughout the city. From the exterior, Mandaro's cheese shop and Zito's bakery appear to be comparable family businesses, but Mr. Mandaro valued his business at $5,000, while Mr. Zito valued his at $12,000.

According to a 1938 Consumers Union Report in the research file, Americans in the 1930s were increasingly willing to sacrifice the flavor of handmade bread for the prolonged moistness of twice-kneaded, machine-made bread produced by large commercial bakeries. Zito's, however, has withstood food fashions and still operates at 259 Bleecker Street, run by Anthony's son Charles and grandson Charles, Jr. Behind the counter hangs a copy of Abbott's photograph.

The narrow, crowded Bleecker Street sidewalk afforded Abbott little flexibility in composing this storefront photograph. Standing at an oblique angle, she allowed the shop window to fill the frame. The intricate geometry of Bread Store--the fancifully shaped breads, the "five-cent" signs, the basement entryway, the large wicker baskets, the white brickwork, and the complicated reflections of buildings and signs from across the street--make this photograph one of Abbott's most memorable. In a variant, a young man's head and shoulders arising from the basement lends the work a surrealist touch, but Abbott preferred the version which, like many of Atget's Parisian storefront photographs, shows a shopkeeper looking out at the photographer.

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