Weegee's apartment above the Jovino gun shop

5 Centre Market Place | Little Italy | built 1910

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The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.

Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.

  1. 1911

    John Jovino founds the gun shop that is later based at 5 Centre Market Place

    John Jovino started the gun shop in 1911 and sold it in the 1920s to the Imperato family, who kept it going. At 5 Centre Market Place it stood in the cluster of gun dealers behind the NYPD's former headquarters on Centre Street, and it was known for a sign shaped like a revolver. It was later described as the oldest gun retailer in the city.

    “…founded in 1911 by John Jovino who sold it to the Imperato family in the 1920s…”

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. 1935

    Photographer Weegee works out of a tenement apartment above the Jovino shop at 5 Centre Market Place

    From the mid-1930s until 1947, the crime photographer Weegee lived and worked in a small apartment over the John Jovino police supply store, on a short street facing the city's police headquarters. He held a police radio permit, costing $25 a year, and was the first civilian with a camera to get one, so he heard about breaking news before his rivals did.

    Source: themobmuseum.org

  3. 1940

    Paddy wagons and newsmen crowd Centre Market Place for the morning perp walk

    While Weegee lived at No. 5, the block was a drab row of tenements filled with reporters and photographers covering crime, as the New York Times later described it. Every morning paddy wagons, which Weegee called pie wagons, delivered the night's arrests from precincts across the city. Newsmen crowded the sidewalk as police paraded handcuffed suspects past them.

    Source: vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com

  4. 2003

    The Jovino gun shop leaves 5 Centre Market Place for Grand Street, taking its gun-shaped sign

    Around 2003 the John Jovino shop, which claimed to be the oldest gun shop in the United States, moved from No. 5 to 183 Grand Street, just around the corner, and carried its gun-shaped awning sign with it. It had been one of several gun shops that opened on the block after the new Police Headquarters arrived in 1905.

    Source: Forgotten New York

  5. 2004

    The Novogratzes buy 5 Centre Market Place and find bullet holes from an old gun range

    Developers Bob and Cortney Novogratz bought No. 5 in 2004, after the gun shop moved out, and made it their home. Bob Novogratz told the Daily News that the basement walls still had bullet holes from the former gun range, and that the owner had turned down other buyers before getting to know the couple. They ended up with half the street.

    Source: vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com

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