12 Responses

  1. Al Cyone says:

    Another great story! Of course, growing up in the 50s and 60s, I’d seen the Carey buses many times in the mid-town area but never knew anything about their eponymous founder.

    Your story made me think of GCT phone center which, if my memory serves, was on the main floor (concourse?) underneath where the Apple store is now. There were dozens of phone booths and a central service desk where you’d give an operator the (long distance?) number you wanted and she’d direct you to a particular booth. Any pictures and the story behind those booths would be greatly appreciated (in the unlikely event you run out of stories about the marvelous GCT).

    • Emily says:

      Can’t say I’ve heard anything about that… are you talking about where the old baggage check was, and later on had a bank? I’ll have to investigate :)

      • Al Cyone says:

        I’m honestly not sure about the actual location. I was just a kid then and it’s been awhile since I’ve been at GCT to re-fresh my memory. I found a few oblique references on some online forums but I’ll continue looking (I have great faith in Google). I remember my father using the service a few times so maybe an older sibling (or my 94-year-old mother!) remembers something.

      • William Hays says:

        IIRC, the telephone center was on the east side of the upper level and the baggage room was on the west side.

  2. Jeff M. says:

    Emily, you are usually spot-on with everything, so I am loathe to point out an error…but you clearly made one in the caption for the JFK terminal photo. That could not possibly have been taken in 1948, since it shows Eero Saarinen’s wonderful TWA terminal that wasn’t even started until 1956 and opened in 1962. Plus, the Carey bus shown is a “new look” model that wasn’t introduced until 1959.

  3. Jeremy K. says:

    Great post. I’d be interested in seeing more you might come across on early businesses in the terminal. My grandmother seemed to think a relative of ours owned what might have been the first dry cleaner in GCT in the teens or ’20s, it would be way cool to substantiate it somehow.

  4. Chris Carey says:

    That’s my great grandfather. I remember when they closed the haberdashery my siblings and I went to the shop and took anything we wanted. Needed bigger closets!

    • Emily says:

      Awesome to hear from you! Do you recall what year the haberdashery closed? I wasn’t able to definitively figure that out.

      • Chris Carey says:

        Sometime around 1967. It may have been concurrent with the sale of Carey Transportation (the bus line) to Greyhound.

        • John Carey (brother of Chris) says:

          Actually JPCAREY Shop closed around 1971- 1972
          Carey Transportation was sold to Greyhound in 1969
          Barbershops and package check closed in the mid-1960s

          • Emily says:

            Yeah, I figured it closed sometime in the 70’s – the NY Times obituary for J. Paul in 1973 says he retired from the haberdashery 3 years previous, and that his son J. Paul Jr. is now running it. That seems to imply it was still around even in 73.

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