The Million Dollar Peanut Stand

Of course, no peanut stand was ever worth a million dollars. But the land that one New York City peanut stand stood on in the 1920s - now, that was another matter.

By the early 1900s, upper Fifth Avenue was beginning to be lined with the mansions of fabulously wealthy families, and by splendid public places such as Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (founded in 1870).

In contrast to these magnificent places, there was a strange sight to be seen on the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street*, from the mid-1890s until 1922. Across from the massive white splendor of the Metropolitan, and the mansions of high society Astors and Vanderbilts, was a little house surrounded by a picket fence with a side gate, trees and, in back, a huge vegetable garden. It was a large piece of land "whose value," wrote the Times in 1922, "is much more than a million and a half dollars." It added that the "tiny mansion" was not in the Real Estate Directory.

The little house was where Frank Beggi - otherwise known as the Peanut Man of Fifth Avenue - had a peanut and candy shop. An Italian immigrant, he had lived at "the suburbs" of Third and 82nd as a young man in the 1890s, and often walked across "the fields" from his home to Central Park. He noticed a vacant lot right across from the Museum. Seeing all the visitors going in and out, he thought that it might be just the place for a peanut stand. So Beggi asked the landowner for permission to go ahead, and the owner agreed. Beggi started his peanut stand across from the Museum in November 1894. As his business grew, Frank Beggi built a little structure on the land to serve as a shop. It had a soda fountain inside, and he also sold candy, cigars and sandwiches.

Beggi said that the Museum staff were "fine people," friends of his really, who used to run across Fifth Avenue to buy ginger ale, sarsparilla, candy and peanuts from him.

He knew all of his wealthy neighbors, too. They had begun to build mansions on that stretch of Fifth Avenue by the late 1890s. He was also a "Furnace Man" by trade and kept the furnaces of the huge mansions running smoothly - 22 of his clients were in the Social Register. They included the Astors, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick and Frank W. Woolworth. They often gave flower boxes for his lilacs and shrubs. In addition, Frank Beggi raised Pomeranian puppies there.

The "tiny mansion" was not where Beggi and his family (including twelve children in all) lived. They resided at 1464 Third Avenue (at 83rd and Third). Beggi considered the little house on Fifth Avenue to be his "summer residence."

But by 1922, he was forced out of business. The landowner had decided to sell. The Times noted that "a palatial apartment house" would soon "crowd him out." And the man known as Frank the Peanut Man would not sell snacks across from the Met any more. He lived for 16 more years, still living in the general area of Third and 82nd.

You can see the "palatial apartment building" in the modern picture on the left - it is the highrise just to the right of the narrow house with the green roof. It is hard to believe it, but right on that spot, less than a century ago, there was a little house with a picket fence, trees and shrubs, where the Metropolitan Museum staff used to send  for their sarsparilla sodas.

Sources:

"Fifth Avenue Landmark and 'Pioneer' to Go," New York Times, Jul. 30, 1922, p. 33.
"Fifth Ave. Vendor of Peanuts Dies," New York Times, Mar. 22, 1938, p. 23.

The picture of present-day 82nd and Fifth is from The City Review. The photos of the peanut stand - not Frank Beggi's - of the Metropolitan Museum of Art around 1902-3, and the Henry Clay Frick mansion on Fifth Avenue and 71th Street (just to give you an idea of Beggi's neighbors' houses) - are from the NYPL Digital Gallery. I looked for a picture of Beggi's little store and million-dollar piece of farmland, but found nothing.

*I had originally thought that the Beggi house was right next to the frame house on 83rd and Fifth - obviously, it is not. I've edited that post to reflect this.

The Lost House On East 83rd Street

This little flat-topped frame house at 3 East 83rd Street was built sometime between 1845* and 1867, when this part of Manhattan was the countryside.

You can just see a bit of the Metropolitan Museum of Art at the far left. The tall building to the left of the little house is still there**, at the corner of 83rd and Fifth, but the frame house is, alas, long gone.

The house was razed in 1953 in order to make way for a twelve-story apartment building "with penthouse," as the New York Times said admiringly. It added that the curator of maps and prints at the New-York Historical Society, Arthur B. Carlson, had estimated that the house was built between 1853 and 1867 - a time when "geese and goats still thrived in East Eighty-Third Street, and the horse was a major means of transportation."

But there was something else amazing and anachronistic, just one block away from the frame house on 83rd. It - and its owner - are a fascinating part of lost New York history, something hard to imagine on Fifth Avenue now.

I'll tell you all about it in my next post!

* The New York Public Library, see at the link, states that the house dates from 1845.
**Note the unusual feature of the taller building - the windows at the side, which were possible only because there was a small house next to it and not another tall building.

Photograph of the house from the NYPL Digital Gallery. Also see "Century-Old Home Yields to Progress," New York Times, Mar. 19, 1953, p. 31.

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And thank you to Leslie at Lost Family Treasures for the Kreativ Blogger award!

Pa Cat 's Merciless Jokes

Would anyone like to guess what on earth the picture has to do with Dunbar's Diarrhoea Mixture? And is that an alarm bell that the kitten on the right is about to pull?

I think that the consumer was meant to draw an analogy  between the condition that the Mixture was supposed to alleviate, and the distress of the kittens at having to listen to Pa Cat read out not-very-funny jokes from his Very Funny Joke Book. Pa Cat looks so pleased and so determined - and he also looks a bit like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland (who would, at most, just smirk at Pa's jokes).

This card made me laugh, and I love cats (even when they are telling bad jokes - whatever sort of jokes are in that book, anyway? I really want to know!) - so here it is.

This amusing advertising card comes to you courtesy of the fabulous Images From the History of Medicine of the National Library of Medicine at Bethesda, Maryland. It was printed at Providence, Rhode Island by the Buker Press, and probably dates from the late 19th century. The picture of the Cheshire Cat is from Wikipedia.