The number of public gas stations in Manhattan has been steadily dropping for decades, and is now, apparently, somewhere below 30.1 Most people who live here don’t own cars, and most people who drive here buy gas someplace closer to home. So, photos of gas stations here always have, to me, a slightly surreal quality.
May 27, 1948, the corner of Sixth Avenue and 17th Street:
We’ve got Brick’s2 gas station which appears to perform service as well, and right next door the Barney Jr. Motor Car Company buying and selling cars. Barney Jr. is advertising as “The home of Tucker,” but given that only 51 Tuckers were ever made – all in 1948 – I’d guess that none were actually sold here.
Note the ghost on the 1920s loft building on the left (the one with the LOFTS sign). There were rowhouses or very small commercial buildings here earlier. The site appears to have remained a gas station until 1988, when the New York Foundling Hospital built a new mid-rise here, having sold its former home on the Upper East Side.
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