Decades later we’ve built lives, found jobs, maybe even opened businesses of our own, but those stores still retain a sweet spot in our memory.10 accounts
Project Coordinator: Yosef Zoimen
Editorial Support: Rachel Bachrach
Illustrations: Marion Bellina
We were young and impressionable kids unschooled in enterprise, but even back then we had a favorite haunt — a store, a shop, an eatery. More than a place to buy or sell, the stores of our youth were places where we absorbed enduring values. As we calculated prices or savored the fare, we learned lessons about life’s bigger priorities. Decades later we’ve built lives, found jobs, maybe even opened businesses of our own, but those stores still retain a sweet spot in our memory. 10 accounts
I’Mnot sure what gave me the gumption to approach Mr. Moshe Bochner, proprietor of M. Bochner Grocery Store (Est. 1950) at the corner of Boro Park’s 16th Avenue and 50th Street, that day in 1976. I was all of nine years old, and that afternoon my mother had sent me to the corner to pick up a few items.
Mr. Bochner, as I recall, was a man of few words, yet when he did speak it was in a heavily accented English. Most of the time he could be found at the first of two registers just across from the pastry display, wearing black suspenders and deftly typing in prices on the ancient cash register (likely now on display at the Smithsonian). He knew them all by heart and could ring you up without even checking the prices on the faded tape. He was also clearly keeping a keen eye on the Danishes, making sure his customers weren’t squeezing too much when testing their freshness.
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