2553 Sage Place ca. 1936

This Spuyten Duyvil store was approximately 100 years old, and from the 1850s to the early 1930s housed a barber shop. One of the daughters of barber Peter Tarantino turned the shop into a luncheonette called “Ye Olde Country Store,” but the store failed, a victim of the Depression. The store was closed when Abbott visited, but she was able to photograph the store’s exterior and interior. The exterior view, which Abbott discarded, shows the rural character of the neighborhood, which lacked paved roads and sidewalks. The interior view shows the store’s original beaded wooden sealing board and hand-planed oak floors. The potbelly stove, wall clock, and wire-back chairs date from the turn of the century. The light streaming in from the windows casts a warm glow, lending the illusion of stability and order to the scene. Sage Place no longer exists. In the 1960s, the area was cleared for apartment buildings and a high school.