In today’s marketplace we are constantly bombarded with mattress commercials as if the sale of such items is a whole new concept. It isn’t. Restful Mattress, the granddaddy of the business in Queens, was located at 168-40 and 168-50 Jamaica Ave. in downtown Jamaica.
Charles Greenbaum, with partner Abe Horowitz, had two furniture stores, one at 104-12 150 St. and the other in the two adjoining buildings on the avenue. You could buy a complete three-piece bedroom set for $29.99. By 1937 they saw there might be more money in the mattress business and expanded the store to carry every type of mattress. Most were made of straw, feathers or horse hair with coil springs.
The store also sold a full line of reconditioned mattresses starting at $2.95, for those who could not afford a new one. At the time, many poor black Americans were migrating from the South and making their new home in the southern part of Jamaica, and the used mattress business boomed.
Restful continued to sell furniture well into the 1970s but had stopped selling used mattresses by then.
Today 168-50 is gone, with a broad grassy lot where the building had stood. At 168-40, the signs still advertise home furnishings and mattresses, being sold under the Ace Furniture name.
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