38 DECEMBER 13, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
How Queens did their holiday
shopping a century ago
BY THE OLD TIMER
EDITORIAL@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
@RIDGEWOODTIMES
Years ago, Queens cooks would
have had to prepare their holiday
dinners without the benefi t
of supermarkets.
Peddlers in horse-drawn wagons
made the rounds of the scattered
homes of the non-farm families in
the area, selling meat, fruit and vegetables.
However, as the population
grew, stores opened and the day of
the peddler came to a close. The stores
that opened were groceries, bakers,
butchers, fruit and vegetable stands,
ice cream parlors and candy stores.
Because of the rural nature of the
Ridgewood area, there were a number
of dairies, each with 50 to 60 cows, producing
milk which was sold for home
delivery, or to local grocers and ice
cream parlors.
Who were some of the dairies of our
area? Let’s take a look.
Joseph Caccioppo started a small
dairy in 1901 at McKibben Street
and Bushwick Avenue, and then
relocated the following year to 1484
Metropolitan Ave., where he started
the Grandview Dairy with 50 cows.
The Grandview Dairy was on the site
of the present-day Grover Cleveland
High School.
He made home deliveries of “loose”
milk which was poured into customers’
milk cans. In 1905, he started
delivering his milk in bottles. In 1914,
he installed a pasteurization unit to
comply with state Board of Health
requirements.
Julius Oechslein had a dairy located
between Central Avenue and the
Long Island Rail Road, and ran from
Webster Avenue (later Olmstead Place,
now 71st Street) to Madison Avenue
(later Edison Place, now 71st Place) in
Glendale.
George Schwartz had a dairy between
Cooper and Central Avenues,
which ran from Webster to Madison,
with 30 cows. He sold milk at his dairy
for 5 cents per quart.
Charlie Lempke, who had a dairy at
what is today 78th Avenue and 78th
Street in Glendale, sold milk at his
farm for 3 cents per quart.
In June 1911, Charles Flugge bought
the old Montauk Brewery located on
(Photo via Wikimedia Commons/Dumbodude)
the east side of Forest Avenue, just
south of Metropolitan Avenue, and
modernized it for his Metropolitan
Dairy Company Inc. He had been
associated with Henry Dobt in the
milk business when, in 1892, he went
into business for himself with a dairy
located on Old Fresh Pond Road (now
The exterior of a Bohack supermarket in Kew Gardens in the 1940s.
(Ridgewood Times archives)
The site of the Metropolitan Dairy Company in Ridgewood
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