Blog Stories and Updates
Preserving Family Stories: Beyond names and dates, this journal celebrates the voices, traditions, recipes, photographs, and everyday moments that make our history personal. Share a cherished memory, identify a familiar face in an old photo, or add the story behind a treasured heirloom so future generations can better understand the lives and legacy of the Ferretti family.
The Ferretti Grocery Store 1924
Family stories remember Jerry Ferretti as the owner of a grocery or produce business in New York.
Jerry was born in New York in 1893 and spent much of his life in the Brooklyn and Queens area. By the 1920s, he was already appearing in local telephone directories. A particularly interesting entry from the 1924 Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island telephone directory lists “Ferretti Jerry” followed by wording that appears to refer to fruits and vegetables. This fits well with the story passed down through the family that Jerry had his own grocery store.
By the early 1950s, Jerry can be placed more precisely. A Brooklyn telephone directory lists Jerry Ferretti at 2142 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, with the telephone number DIckens 5-2934. The building at 2142 Atlantic Avenue was constructed in 1927.
Atlantic Avenue during this period was a busy commercial street filled with neighborhood shops, markets and family-run businesses. Historic photographs from the 1930s and 1940s show rows of small storefronts serving the surrounding Brooklyn neighborhoods. Jerry's grocery or produce business would have been very much a part of that world.
Pictures below show what Atlantic Avenue looked like between 1939 and 1941.
