If you’ve ever seen Abbott & Costello’s Bagel Street routine about the Susquehanna Hat Company, you’ll do a double take when you pass by Surf Avenue and Jones Walk in Coney Island. The Jones Walk sign now says Bagel Street and The Susquehanna Hat Company–“Coney Island’s Greatest Hat Supplier”–occupies Coney Island’s oldest building, Thor Equities’ long-vacant Grashorn Building. The signage on the shop makes it look like it’s been there forever. But it’s a set for the HBO series “Bored to Death,” which is filming in Coney Island this week.
If the T-shirts and souvenirs in the window and inside the store look familiar, that’s because the props manager bought everything locally at Coney Island Beach Shop located behind Nathan’s. If you see anything you like at the Susquehanna Hat Company, you can buy it at the Beach Shop, which still has plenty of merchandise in their store as well as online.
The last time ATZ wrote about Coney Island’s oldest building, it had been rescued by Will Smith and “Men in Black 3,” who were filming in Coney Island in May. The MIB3 production crew fixed up the gutted interior of the building located at Surf and Jones Walk to use as their location headquarters. Now the spiffed up building and its interior are actually part of the story.
“Bored to Death” is an HBO comedy series featuring a Brooklyn writer who moonlights as a private detective. In this episode he is sent to investigate something funny that’s going on at the Susquehanna Hat Company. More than that we cannot say! Though it will be interesting to see how the script plays off the Abbott & Costello skit from “In Society” (1944). Will it solve the mystery of why everybody they meet flies into a rage upon hearing the name of the Susquehanna Hat Company?
Thanks very much to Charles Denson of the Coney Island History Project, who has been photographing the Grashorn building for decades, and we hope many more decades, for sending us these on location photos.
Related posts on ATZ…
May 2, 2011: Men in Black 3 Set Transforms Coney Island Boardwalk
April 2, 2011: Coney Island 2011: Free Movie Screenings on the Beach
April 10, 2011: Men in Black 3 Rescues Coney Island’s Oldest Building
January 27, 2011: Video: Coney Island: Secrets of the Universe by Charles Denson
let me be the first one to say…. slowly i turned, step by step :)
I said that to myself when i saw the sign going up last week.
I can’t wait to watch this episode. It will certainly be out sooner than MIB3 too!
it has been said that Abbott and Costello stole some of their comedy routines from other burlesque performers. but without A & C, some of them would be lost forever.
I used to have a booklet published in the early 20th c with the dialogue for vaudeville routines. That may be how these routines spread among performers. Some were ascribed to specific vaudeville entertainers who were famous in their day
[…] that involves the Susquehanna Hat Company. You can watch it here. For the shoot, Bored to Death brought the faux business to Coney’s oldest building, at Surf Ave. and Jones Walk. Harrison Bergeron, meanwhile, is the […]
Back then there were no copyright laws to protect routines, such as there is today. Performers often times used the same routines but re-modified for their acts. Example. The Three Stooges when with Ted Healy were the first to perform the “Drill Routine” that is seen in Abbott & Costello’s film “Buck Privates.” A&C, thank God, immortalized so many of the old burlesque and vaudeville routines by bringing them into their films. Had they not, many would have been lost forever.