313 Broadway

[Bill Murphy]

I think Griffin and Howe is still a viable and respectable gun merchant. They even do passable gunsmithing. Yes Manhattan was a great place to mess with guns, even into the sixties and early seventies. I don't remember the year that Abercrombie and Fitch had their last liquidation sale, but I remember parking my '72 Suburban in a lot on Times Square when I attended the sale. So A&F actually made it into the seventies. My last trip to Manhattan that included visits to A&F, Griffin and Howe, and Continental Arms was about 1962. All three were going strong at that time. In the twenties, when my Dad was going out into the business world for the first time, his address was "Wall Street", don't remember the exact address. I think he was boarding with relatives who lived at that address.

[edgarspencer]

Does anyone remember the great military surplus stores that used to be on Canal St, Vesey St and Cortland St.? This was all back in the pre-Trade Tower days.

[Jim DiSpagno]

Edgar, as kids growing up in Staten Island, we would save our money, then take the S.I. ferry for 5 cents and buy surplus helmets, napsacks, canteens, Eisenhower jackets and the likes then go home and choose sides and play war in the many wooded area in our neighborhood. We would even buy surplus demilled guns, enfields, springfields and mausers. for $5.00 with welded bolts and carry then down Broadway and Whitehall Street to the ferry and on the #2 Bay Street bus back home. All out in the open and no one ever gave us 9 and 10 year olds a second look. Try that today LOL.

[OLD GEEZER]

As far as Mr. Dodge goes my Grandfather always said that if you took someone from the Temperance Society fishing make sure you took two of them otherwise if you took only one he would drink all your Booze. Thomas

[Bill Murphy]

Edgar, if I had known the surplus stores were there, I would have been all over them as a teenager.