The area around Stanton Street in the Lower East Side of Manhattan used to be a “Monument District.” The gravestone monument business used to be located there by the 1930s, but the trade disappeared in the late twentieth century. The name “monument district” was never official and not listed on any map.
New York Times
The Last Gravestone Business Standing
By LILY KOPPEL
Published: November 24, 2006
Silver Monument Works’s trade is gravestones. Its sign, written in heavy black letters in English and Hebrew, juts out of the storefront at 125 Stanton Street, at the corner of Essex Street, next to Dulcinée Vintage Clothing and New York Hardcore Tattoos. It opened 60 years ago and is the only business of its kind still standing in what used to be New York’s monument district. In many ways, Silver Monument is a fitting memorial to the Lower East Side’s legendary past as a bustling Jewish enclave.
Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.
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Above, Big Apple Corner at 54th Street and Broadway in Manhattan. Google Maps. Stolen and missing, 2021-2024.
Above, John J. Fitz Gerald, from the Aug. 15, 1931, Binghamton (NY) Press, pg. 14.
Listen to Robert Emmerich introduce "The Big Apple," a hit song from 1937. Music written by Bob and performed by Tommy Dorsey's Clambake Seven with Bob on piano. Lyrics written by Buddy Bernier and sung by Edythe Wright. Audio provided by Dorothy Emmerich.
Also listen to a 1937 "The Big Apple" song by Ozzie Nelson and his Orchestra. See a 1929 photo of John J. Fitz Gerald and a 1931 photo of John J. Fitz Gerald.
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