Former Casket Shop at 50-29 Celtic Ave.

The wood frame building at 50-29 Celtic Ave. in Sunnyside once housed a casket shop, which makes sense given it's so close to several cemeteries. Just below the roofline on the front of the building is the faint image of a painted sign from days gone by, reading "L.I. CASKET & Box Co." The wooden, two-story building is shown as a store on a 1914 map, with a one-story wooden building on the lot to the rear used for "casket box making." The company was founded by Louis Chianella by 1914 and has relocated to West Babylon, where the name was changed to Island Casket. The two-story building on Celtic Avenue has become a two-family residence.

In the late 1840s, a patent for an iron casket was given to Dr. Almond Fisk. While the words "coffin" and "casket" are mostly interchangeable, although they may have been shaped differently. A coffin traditionally had six sides, with the upper third tapered to the person's shoulder width. The term comes from the Old French word "cofin" meaning a little basket. "Casket" is a later term and was more likely to be rectangular; the word is related to a vessel for carrying precious goods. The cover of a coffin usually was removable, while a casket's top is hinged to the bottom. Wooden coffins were usually made by the local furniture and cabinet maker in early America as a side job. It wasn't until the Civil War that the need for so many caskets brought about their mass manufacture and the need to streamline the process. There were over 700 casket manufacturers in the U.S. by the 1950s, according to the Casket & Funeral Supply Association of America. With consolidation in the industry, the number shrank to under 150 companies by 2003.

The 1914 Sanborn map labels this two-story building on Celtic Avenue in Sunnyside as a store (possibly already a casket shop). The road was formerly (Old) Bowery Bay Rd. but was renamed Celtic Ave. by 1914. The one-story wooden building shown on the 1914 Sanborn map on a large lot to the rear of our store building, fronting Locust St., was used in 1914 for "casket box making." The Locust St. structure was the only building on its lot; the Locust St. lot has since been redeveloped with multiple buildings.

There were four casket-making businesses in Queens by 1916, employing 282 people and producing $790,000 in annual sales. The largest may have been National Casket Company, with the Long Island City factory opening in 1915 with 250 employees; National Casket had 23 locations by 1910, including one in Brooklyn. A classifieds ad for our Long Island Casket Box Company in 1921 read in part "Funeral Directors' Supplies...Casket Boxes Promptly Delivered to Designated Premises." The building's address in 1921 was 71 Celtic Ave. "Long Island Casket Box Co." was one of three casket businesses in Queens in 1922; the other two were in Long Island City (National Casket Co. at 470 Jackson Ave. and Frank Pallanti at 2534 33rd St. There were three coffin businesses in Brooklyn in 1922 and three in Manhattan. Most of the general manufacturing in Queens was concentrated in the Long Island City and Maspeth sections of the borough. The nearness to Manhattan, convenient railroad connections, and a plentiful labor force built the industries to employ about 80,000 by the early 1930s.

The Celtic Ave. building used to have a one-story front porch (the City of New York took an official photo of the building in 1940 for its tax department).

Chamber of Commerce, Queens, N.Y. Queens Borough, New York City, 1910 - 1920: The Borough of Homes and Industry... . Queens, NY. L.I. Stara Publishing Co., 1920.

Emporis. 50-29 Celtic Avenue, Buildings: New York City. January 1st 2022. Accessed May 14th 2022. https://static.emporis.com/buildings/935034/50-29-celtic-avenue-new-york-city-ny-usa.

forgotten new york. Long Island Casket & Box, Sunnyside, Signs. October 1st 2021. Accessed May 14th 2022. https://forgotten-ny.com/2021/10/long-island-casket-and-box/.

Hayes, Sarah. From Coffins to Caskets: An American History, Newman Brothers Coffin Works. July 26th 2017. Accessed May 31st 2022. http://www.coffinworks.org/from-coffins-to-caskets-an-american-history/.

Hoyle, Raymond J. Wood-Using Industries of New York. Bulletin of the NYS College of Forestry at Syracuse University, vol. 1 no. 4c, no. Technical Publication No. 2712 - 117. Published December 1st 1928.

R.L. Polk & Co., Inc.. Polk's New York City Directory, Boroughs of Queens and Richmond. Volume 1933-4. New York, NY. R.L. Polk & Co., Inc., 1933.

Weber, Austin. The History of Caskets, Assembly. October 2nd 2009. Accessed May 31st 2022. https://www.assemblymag.com/articles/87043-the-history-of-caskets.