Sepia Saturday 584 and the Genealogy Blog Party. Tenth in a photo blog series on my maternal Italian ancestors from Gloversville, Fulton Co., N.Y.
In the last post, I included a detail from a 1912 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map showing the Gloversville, Fulton Co., N.Y., home of my great-grandparents Peter and Mary (Curcio) Laurence, who lived with Mary’s parents — and my second great-grandparents — Antonio and Antoinette (Del Negro) Curcio.
Behind the house at 128 East Fulton Street in 1912 was the outline of the A. Curcio Junk Yard, where Peter worked — which was owned and operated by Mary’s father. But I wondered, had it always looked this way?
So back I went to the digital Sanborn maps to see how the house and family business had changed over time — and what else I might learn about my direct and collateral Italian relatives.
The 1912 map
The Sanborn map from 1912 1 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Gloversville, Fulton County, New York. Sanborn Map Company, Oct, 1912. Map 15. Detail: A. Curio Junk Yard at 128 E. Fulton Street, Gloversville, N.Y. https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn05951_006/. Accessed 12 Aug 2021.is the most recent rendition of the house and junkyard on the family property — prominently labeled A. Curcio Junk Yard. Here’s what the map tells us:
- All images are yellow, indicating they are wood-framed structures with either a slate/tin roof (o), a shingle roof (x) or a composition roof (dark dot).
- There are three dwellings (labeled D) along Fulton St. at the top of the image: A 2-story barber shop, with dwelling above, at 126 1/2 ; the 1-story Curcio-Laurence home at 128, with a dotted line indicating a front porch and a large eat-in kitchen at the back; and a 1-story cobbler shop, also labeled as a dwelling.
- There is a set of scales between the Curcio home and the cobbler shop — enabling items to be valued by weight.
- There is a 2-story building labeled Junk at 128 1/2, which likely held the business’s recyclable items.
- The back of the lot is labeled Scrap Iron Yard.
The 1907 map
The Sanborn map from 1907 2 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Gloversville, Fulton County, New York. Sanborn Map Company, Oct, 1907. Map 28. Detail: Antonio Curcio Junk Yard, 128 E Fulton St., Gloversville, N.Y. https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn05951_005/. Accessed 12 Aug. 2021. shows the home and junkyard five years earlier. Much is similar — the woodframe dwellings, the barber shop, the cobbler shop, the scales.
However, the 2-story woodframe recyclables repository is labeled Junk Shop — and there is no scrap iron yard at the back.
Was the scrap iron yard an innovation added by my great-grandfather Peter once he joined the business? Or was it merely a logical expansion of the junk business as automobiles and other large metal items became more commonplace?
The 1902 map
The earliest 1902 Sanborn map 3 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Gloversville, Fulton County, New York. Sanborn Map Company, Oct, 1902. Map 20. Detail: Antonio Curcio Junk Shop at 128 E. Fulton, Gloversville, N.Y. https://www.loc.gov/item/sanborn05951_004/ Accessed 12 Aug. 2021. shows a much less developed property at 128 E. Fulton Street:
- No upstairs dwelling above the 2-story barber shop — nor are there any additional buildings/sheds behind it.
- No scales between the Curcio home and the cobbler shop.
- The Junk Shop is the same at 128 1/2 — but A. Curcio’s name does not yet appear, and it is colored green on this map as a “special” building.
- No scrap metal yard yet — nor anything else at the back of the property.
The tale of three junkyards
My Italian immigrant great-grandfather Peter D. Laurence (nee Pietro di Lorenzo) joined the Curcio household when he married my great-grandmother Mary circa 1901. So when the 1902 Sanborn map of Gloversville was created, Peter was new to the Curcio family business.
By 1907, however, he’d been working for Antonio Curcio & Co. for five years — and a set of scales had been added to the property to value items by weight.
After another five years, in 1912, a Scrap Iron Yard became part of the family business — creating an additional revenue stream.
A place for Antoinette’s brothers?
Another item of interest on all three maps is the cobbler shop, which was also a dwelling. Could this have been a residence and/or place of employment for Antoinette (Del Negro) Curcio’s brothers — Michael and Vincenzo “Jimmy” Del Negro?
Both brothers gave their occupation as “boot black” in several censuses and — as discussed in the last blog post — Michael and his family were enumerated in censuses with the Curcio household at 128 E. Fulton St. in 1905 and 1910. Did they actually live behind the cobbler shop? Did he and Jimmy work there? More questions — and new research to do!
Up next: The Del Negro brothers of Gloversville, N.Y. Meanwhile, please visit the blogs of this week’s other Sepia Saturday participants. Then visit the September 2021 Genealogy Blog Party: What You Learned to check out the skills that genealogy bloggers have shared.
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