Coffee in Brooklyn

More Coffee Drinking When National Prohibition Comes, circa 1920; V1973.5.914, Brooklyn photograph and illustration collection, ARC.202, Brooklyn Historical Society.

Artisanal coffee roasters in Brooklyn have been popping up everywhere in recent years, but it might come as a surprise that Brooklyn has a long history of coffee roasting that spans long before it was considered hip. The photo of the week was taken around 1920 in a warehouse at Bush Terminal (now Industry City) and features two men lifting a large bag of coffee. To me, the most interesting part of this photograph is actually the verso ( i.e. the text written on the back of the photograph). It speaks to the sentiment towards prohibition at the time and the opportunity for growth in the coffee industry. It reads,

“MORE COFFEE DRINKING WHEN NATIONAL PROHIBITION COMES -- A STORY OF PRODUCTION. Stacking coffee in a big warehouse at the Bush Terminal in Brooklyn, N. Y.  Coffee from Central America. Scientists say that every adult takes some kind of a stimulant, and coffee is the most widely used of all the stimulants. When all traffic in intoxicants is stopped, millions of people will drink more coffee.  The consumption of coffee will increase greatly through the lunch room trade. Hundreds of thousands of people will go into lunch rooms and eat pastry and drink strong coffee instead of going to saloons for drinks, when prohibition puts an end to all saloons in this country.”

While it’s not entirely true that prohibition led to increased coffee consumption, it’s true that the popularity of coffee was on the rise.  In the early 20^th century, Brooklyn was roasting more coffee than any other place in America. John Arbuckle (1839-1912) is credited as pioneering the way we purchase coffee today—roasting and grinding beans onsite, packaging coffee in one pound bags, and marketing it to different consumers around the country. By 1909, Arbuckle was roasting about 25 million pounds of coffee a month. Arbuckle Brothers continued to roast and store coffee at the Brooklyn waterfront factory until 1930 when it was sold to General Foods. You can learn so much more about the history of coffee in Brooklyn, as well as other interesting historical facts about the waterfront at the Brooklyn Waterfront History website produced by BHS in partnership with Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Interested in seeing more photos from BHS’s collection? Visit our online image gallery, which includes a selection of our images. Interested in seeing even more historic Brooklyn images? Visit our Brooklyn Visual Heritage website here. To search BHS’s entire collection of images, archives, maps, and special collections visit BHS’s Othmer Library Wed-Sat, 1:00-5:00 p.m. library@brooklynhistory.org