Grunwalski Crewneck Black

• 100% organic cotton 
• 12oz brushed interior, 28 oz.
• Screen Print on chest and on back.
• Handmade in Pakistan (at a GOTS certified facility).
• Wash inside out, dry on low heat or air dry.

 

If you look closely at the chipping green paint on a certain north-facing bench in McGolrick Park, you will see a small plaque inscribed: 

 

In Memory of Adrian "Miś" Grunwalski, the Ice Bear of Brooklyn

(1901-1994)

 

The 1927 Ellis Island Immigration Records indicate that an Adrian Grunwalski of Poznań, Poland, arrived in New York that February by boat, hailing from the port of Gdańsk. He traveled alone, and registered his sister-in-law’s home address at 1140 Box Street, Brooklyn as his domicile. 

 

The young Grunwalski, ambitious and determined to make it in the Big City, arrived during a time of rapid industrialization and great hardships: the Great Depression was around the corner, and the era of Hudson River Ice Harvesting was coming to a close. However, the City’s recent ice factory boom and growing appetite for ice cream was a promising opportunity for Grunwalski. No stranger to frigid temperatures, he had spent two years in a Soviet forced labor camp in Siberia for committing a petty theft. But in Brooklyn, “ice cold" meant fountain drinks, shaved ice, and popsicles. 

 

Starting as a dock worker unloading ships along the East River, Grunwalski began to develop an understanding for the ice merchant trade. In 1935 he opened his first warehouse: Grunwalski Ice Supply and Distribution Company. His network of groceries, butchers, and soda fountains rapidly expanded every year — and it wasn’t long before he had trucks delivering to all five boroughs. He aptly earned the moniker of “Miś, the Ice Bear of Brooklyn”.

 

In 1954 he landed one of New York ice suppliers’ most coveted contracts, becoming the sole ice supplier and refrigeration for Misses Softees Ice Cream trucks citywide. With a fleet of over 100 trucks, Grunwalski dubbed his ice cream distributors the “Arctic Armada". By then, he was a local celebrity amongst the Greenpoint youth for providing their much anticipated summer sweet treats. 

 

Adrian Grunwalski died in 1994 in his Brooklyn apartment at the age of 93. He is survived by children and grandchildren, all members of the Coney Island Polar Bear Club. They honor Miś every year through a dip in the freezing Atlantic — a plunge that Grunwalski himself made over 50 times while living in Brooklyn.