The Saga of Flora Mir

This building on the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Caton Avenue made me stop in my tracks. The facade seemed needlessly ornate and rococo. It reminded me of the old, long, one-story buildings you see here and there in the city that used to be the homes of Child's restaurants. For a moment I thought that this address itself might have been a Child's at one point.

A little research proved that theory wrong. Just as it is today, this structure was originally chopped up into various assorted businesses. In 1944, there was a poultry and egg shop here, a florist and a place offering electrolysis. And a few offices on the second floor. But the main operation, occupying the corner space, was a store called Flora Mir.

Flora Mir sold homemade candy. It was established in 1928 in New york by two cousins, Florence and Miriam Berman. (Hence the fancy-sounding name.)  It appears to have been a chain of some sort, with many stores, and had "executive offices and kitchens" in Bushwick. In 1953, Flora Mir had eight stores in Manhattan, Long Island, Staten Island and New Jersey. You could also buy Flora Mir candies at other stores. (See below for an examples of the nice tins the candies came in.) I get the idea that they were sort of the Russell Stover of their day, the kind of box of chocolates you could buy in a card shop or variety store. In the 1950s, comedian Henny Youngman was a paid spokesman for the company.

The corporation seems to have gone down in rather spectacular fashion in the late 1960s. Flora Mir went public, with shares traded, and acquired four other candy companies across the nation. However, those acquisitions apparently didn't go well. By year's end, Flora Mir was entangled in various nasty-sounding legal tangles, and went bankrupt.