Lost City: New Haven Edition: Two Good Signs

Kebabian on Elm Street contends it has been there since 1882, though I'm guessing the sign came in during the 1930s. What is it about New Haven's utilization of great signage to proclaim humdrum businesses?

The Pizza House, meanwhile, is a bit west of the center of town on a fairly quiet corner. They've been doling out pie since 1963. There's a long lunch counter inside, but no one sits there, except to wait for their take-out order. They cut their pizza in squares, not slices, and make toasted grinders, too.

Absurd Juxtaposition on Third Avenue

New York City, by it ever-changing nature, is a City of odd, jarring and sometimes compelling architectural juxtapositions. But this one of Third Avenue near E. 6th must count as one of the most egregious and sick-making side-by-sides in burg history. Let's see: Three-story brick building; enormous, convex, glass-and-metal jackknife into the sky; four-story brick building. I get queasy just looking at the grouping. Talk about not taking the surrounding environment into account.

If I were the squat, dormer-window affair to the left, I'd be nervous. I mean, Jesus Christ!, am I seeing things or isn't the Cooper Square Hotel missing a big chunk of it base? Where's the rest of it? Somebody stick in the missing puzzle piece before it all topples over!

What a horrible, horrible building. I wonder if the architect has any inking that the tiny, 200-year-old house that now lives in his skyscraper's shadow is 100-times better a structure than his invention can ever hope to be?

UPDATE: A reader tells me the small building is owned by the hotel and will be torn down. I got a better idea. Still it in that big hole in the hotel! It'll just about fit.

Other Great Plans NYU Has for the City

Witnessing how well its idea to dump a ton of new bricks on the historical Provincetown Playhouse went over, New York University this week rolled some of its other plans for the town. Among them:

*Remembering that, historically, painter John Sloan once camped out on top of The Washington Square Arch with a bunch of his buddies, NYU will build on that idea by installing two dorm rooms and a bulkhead at the top of the arch.

*To create yet more dorm rooms, an enormous treehouse will be built among the branches of the centuries-old "Hanging Elm" in the park.

*Toll booths will be placed at Fifth Avenue, LaGuardia Place and all other entries points to Washington Square to regulate traffic and provide a steady source of income for the university.

*The university will enter into a partnership with restaurateur Keith McNally to turn the Minetta Tavern into a student cafeteria. Joe Gould goulash will be served every Wednesday.

*NYU will build a tall glass building that will spoil, er, enhance the view of the Washington Square when looking down Fifth Avenue. Wait! They already did that.

*NYU will be a monstrous towering dorm over the corpse, er, facade of St. Ann's Church. Wait! They already did that.

*NYU will tear down a former home of Edgar Allan Poe to build a new law school...what's that?...goddamn it!

*The school will propose to City Council changing the name of the metropolis to New York University City.

*Taking on Columbia University as its running mate, NYU will run for Mayor in 2009. Bloomberg, it is expected, will endorse the two institution's candidacies. City Hall to become a dorm. Gracie Mansion a gymnasium.

The Last Remnant of Kiev Comes Down

Two gentleman were busy Tuesday dismantling and altering the facade of the restaurant space at the southwest corner of Second Avenue and E. 7th Street in the East Village. The good news is they took down the horrifically garish signage belonging to the American Grill, the lackluster eatery that took the place of the great, old-school Russian diner, Kiev. The bad news is they were also taking down the great Kiev sign, which the owners of American Grill, out of laziness, had left on the second-story corner of the building.


The industrious duo, seemingly connected with the new eating concern which will soon occupy the address, attacked the sign with screwdriver, hammer and other implements of destruction. They opened it and ripped out wiring that had once made possible its illumination. I peppered them with questions, but they either did not understand English or pretended not to. The American Grill sign parts were collected on the sidewalk.

I let them be and returned to check on their progress three hours later. I feared I might never see the Kiev sign—a classic—again. It was still there, but hollowed out; you could see right through it. My friends were now busy painting the facade a loverly shade of, um, black. They seem like a particularly unsentimental bunch, the new owners.

Hidden in Plain Sight

Taking up space at the corner of Russell and Nassau Streets in Greenpoint, with views of McGolrick Park (not that its inhabitants care about views) is the Palace Cafe, one of the best old dives in the City and one that for 75 years has done a good job of staying out of the news.

Aiding its anonymity is the fact that there's no sign on the brown, cornerside, double doors. To further confuse folks, there is a sign—a full awning, in fact—that says Palace Cafe around the corner, leading to a door that is not the main entrance. Also befuddling is the joint's stubborn refusal to change its name, even though it hasn't served food as a restaurant in many years.

Those who do figure out that it's OK to go inside are in for a treat. The heavily-timbered room, ramshackle assortment of stools, cheap beers and huge horseshoe-shaped bar are mighty homey-making. It feels like the bar at an old Elks Lodge, or your uncle's basement den. One wants to linger forever. In my book, in has a place alongside the great old bars of Gotham.



This is my corner bar and is regularly called the Heavy Metal Bar by Williamsburg-area hipsters.

Lost City: New Haven Edition: Modern Apizza

Modern Apizza is the only one of New Haven's three great pizza palaces to have evaded me to date. I've been to Frank Pepe's and Sally's Apizza, which are both on the same street, Wooster, in New Haven's Little Italy (very little). Modern has always been a harder assignment because it's a little out of town, a goodly walk from the main square.

On this visit, however, my New Haven friend was intrepid and agreed to the necessary trek. It helped that he, too, was annoyed at never having visited the place, despite living there. Compared to Frank Pepe and Sally's, Modern is relatively unsung. It wins some polls, but, unlike its competition, is relatively unknown outside New Haven. Visiting Modern at lunchtime was a breeze. No wait, though it was bustling. Unlike its New Haven pizza rivals, Modern pies are not misshapen, but the usual round items; they're not overly hung up on the circular shape in this town. But like the other pizzerias, they offer a clam pie. We didn't go that way. We order two small: one half plain, half pepperoni; one a white pie, half spinach, half artichoke.

It was all good, but the artichoke slices were particularly savory and creamy, and the artichokes were fresh. The pepperoni was excellent, spicy and zesty. The verdict? Frank Pepe's is probably the best of the three. But Modern scores many points for being a much more low-key affair. You don't have to wait in horrendous lines, and the place is not stuck on itself. It's lack of airs is refreshing.

A Good Sign: New Haven Edition: Perkins Rubber Stamps

This choice pair of signs on Elm Street in New Haven belong to an improbable, one-of-a-kind business: a 132-year-old independent maker of rubber stamps and other "marking devices"! They also make mugs, small signs, awards, buttons, nameplates, decals and a bunch of other office knick-knacks. How can such a business have survived for so long in the world of Staples? Perhaps people are helplessly attracted to the beauty of the old signs.

A Good Sign: Smolenski Funeral Home

Not just a great sign, but a clock as well! In Greenpoint.

Lost City: New Haven Edition: Yankee Doodle Did and Died

I often visit New Haven, Connecticut, since I have friends there. It's a city I like. Either because of a sense of tradition lent to the area by the influence of a centuries-old university (Yale), or because urban blight and economic stagnation—so common to cities in this state—halted progress to a large degree, a great many wonderful old New Haven businesses have persisted for many years.

For years, I pledged to myself on every visit that I would get around to bellying up at the counter of the half-century-old Yankee Doodle Coffee Shop on Elm Street. The narrow, slip of a place—just a corridor, really, with a counter and a row of 12 stools— had been there since 1950. It's a beloved local institution. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were regulars during their college years. It is known to locals as The Doodle. I had a hard time getting there because of its limited hours; it was a weekday lunch place, and I was always in New Haven on the weekends.

Alas, I waited too long. I arrived this past weekend to find it had shuttered for good on Jan. 28, 2008. The great neon sign, with its long-legged, white-clad serving man, is good. All that's left to indicate it ever existed is a plaque.

The place was run by three generations of the Beckwith family: Lew, Lew, Jr. and Rick. The last one closed it due to "economic reasons." That is, the rent was too high, and New Haven had become to gentrified for a tiny coffee shop to make a go of it. The website still exists, for what it's worth. You can't buy any souvenirs through it, and the phone number isn't working, but it's there. (There is an ongoing effort to reopen the place, spearheaded by patrons, but it's unclear if anything will come of it.) For the particularly mournful, there is this perverse YouTube video of a fife and drum corps playing outside the shop. Touching, and bizarre.

What it used to look like:

Work Gets Underway at Trader Joe's

Following months of anticipation regarding Trader Joe's taking root in the old Independence Bank Building at the corner of Court and Atlantic in Brooklyn, and rumors that the deal had been scotched, work finally got underway inside the cavernous old stone barn.

Oh, sure, plenty of work was done last fall. The inside was gutted of everything that ever indicated it used to function as a bank. But then the interior became a ghost town for months on end. A spokesman at Trader Joe's told Lost City a couple months back that work would begin in spring. But then more weeks passed, and hope began to face.

Walking by the space in Friday, however, the doors were wide open for the first time in ages. Some sort of powerful truck was parked outside with power cable leading inside the building. New equipment was in evidence and workers were walking about. Yes, indeed! There was life in the old place. Trader Joe's may be on its way after all.

Some Stuff That's Interesting

360 Carroll developer is petty and hates love.

Minetta Tavern will close May 6 for its Keith McNally redo.

Plans were revealed for the $75 million Lakeside Center that will replace the Wollman Rink in Prospect Park. As someone notes, kinda looks like an IKEA.

The City will let dead bodies be dug up for any development project. First Washington Square Park. Now the Bay Ridge United Methodist Church.

Activists have temporarily halted the privatization of part of Union Square Park.

Is the building boom over? Oh, God, given the above examples of building, let's hope so.

Ahead of the Curve

This curvy specimen from the Belmont section of the Bronx is an uncelebrated wonder, as far as I'm concerned. Look at the grace with which its castle-like form banks that corner, ridding the City of one of its harsh corners, and the lovely line the roof traces against the sky. It's altogether a pleasure. What developer today would go to the bother of creating anything so stylish that didn't take full advantage of the lot's footprint?

The Iconography of the Candy Store

This is how the New York Candy Store lives in the collective subconscious of the populace, in the imaginations of Edward Hopper, Berenice Abbott and Richard Estes. Bold black letters on a white background: "Candy Store Films - Toys." A Coca-Cola sign. An sunburnt awning. A rusted roller-shutter. A parking meter. Angular shadows.

Pure American iconography. Sitting there, actually existing, on 187th Street in The Bronx. If we saw this image in a museum, we'd gaze on in on profound contemplation and appreciation. If we see if actually standing on a working sidewalk, we want to tear it down.

This, in essence, is what's wrong with the times we are living in.

NYU Thinks Up the Unthinkable

Here's a simple history test even an ignorant dunderhead of a New Yorker could pass. The Provincetown Playhouse in Greenwich Village where Eugene O'Neill, the father of modern American drama, produced many of his first plays—worth preserving or eminently dispensable?

Duh.

Well, NYU isn't as smart of your average dunderhead. It wants to tear down the Macdougal Street landmark (which isn't officially landmarked, of course) and develop the property for its law school. When I first saw this article in the Villager, I checked to see if it was April 1. It seemed like one of those April Fool's Day joke stories. It couldn't be true!

Excuse me while I go berserk for a minute.

WTF! WHAT THE FUCK?! What the everlastin', God-fearin' fuck are they fucking thinking, those monstrous, vulgarian, institutional mother-fucking fuckers. If they touch one brick I'm going to go down to Washington Square and rain a torrent of blows on their greedy, unthinking, unworthy heads!

OK. I'm better now. Still furious, though.

Reads The Villager article:

New York University proposes to demolish the four-story buildings on MacDougal St. where the Provincetown Playhouse first produced the plays of Eugene O’Neill, and redevelop them to include new space for the university’s law school as well as a new theater.

Although not protected by city landmark designation and modified several times over the past nine decades, the row of four buildings and the 170-seat theater have iconic cultural significance.

The redevelopment of 133-139 MacDougal St. will be the first test of the N.Y.U. planning principles adopted in January with the support of the Community Task Force on N.Y.U. Development and Borough President Scott Stringer. The principles were adopted with the hope they would bring a new era of harmony between the university and its Village neighbors.

Oh, yeah. This'll breed harmony for sure. NYU! The village just gave you holy Hell for wanted to shut down a Met supermarket! Do you think this proposal makes for a good follow-up?

Here's the ugliness they're after. Purty.

NYU President John Sexton's e-mail is: john.sexton@nyu.edu. Write. Write. Write. Make his computer crash. Make his life miserable.

NYU sucks. NYU sucks. NYU sucks. NYU sucks. NYU sucks. Repeat ad nauseum.

Happy Passover, From...Arthur Avenue?

I'm all for supporting tolerance and understanding and togetherness wherever I see it, but this airborne tiding, strung over ultra-Italian-Catholic Arthur Avenue had me doing a triple-take.

An Image From the French Countryside?

No. A house on Sycamore Avenue in Riverdale, The Bronx.

Put it on a postcard, though, and no one would be the wiser.

A Good Sign: Sante Fe Grill

It's the side wall of this Bronx restaurant that has the signage appeal.

Though it's not practiced that often anymore, wall sign-painting—raw paint on a raw brick wall—still retains a certain visceral aesthetic appeal. The bold lines; the textural feel of the bricks coming through the paint; the sense of an individual, human—rather than machine—effort; the possibility of idiosyncratic expression and of endearing mistakes—it all adds up to something a factory-made plastic awning can't begin to approach.

Bonus points: the way vines have begun to grow over the landscape of desert shrubland.

On Broadway near 242nd Street.

Wakey, Wakey

Wishing to get away from all the mishegoss of the Pennsylvania primary and the upheaval at the Department of Building, I made tracks today for the idyllic and underappreciated Bronx beauty spot Wave Hill. Which is a hell of a long way to get a little respite.

It was tulip time there, and quite pleasant. The views of the Hudson can't be beat. By the way, the frog pictured is not a statue, though it sure looks like one. It was very real and very still.

From the Rich Irony Department

Hey look! Next week is the Department of Building's "4th Annual Construction Safety Week." How's that for weird timing?

Guess Patricia Lancaster—doubtless the founder of this festival—won't be around to oversee this one. Well that's no excuse for us all not to have a good safe time! I will be sure to be there on May 1 for "Crane Safety: New Regulations You Need to Know." Seating is limited, they tell us.

Lancaster, the Scapegoat

Don't misconstrue the title of this post. Patricia Lancaster got exactly what she deserved when Mayor Bloomberg yesterday accepted her resignation/canned her ass as head of the Department of Building. She may have made some inroads in streamlined and organizing an "agency in disarray"—as the New York Times, with agonizing fairness, never ceases to point out—but she approved hundreds of construction projects knowing her agency was not sufficiently staffed to keep proper tabs on the project; coddled developers; looked the other way when building infractions came rolling in; and ignored the complaints and cries of concerned citizens. Under her, the agency's name was taken quite literally. It was the DEPARTMENT OF BUILDING. Lots of building. It was not the Department of Building Supervision and Regulation.

That said, Lancaster is a scapegoat. She was operating just as Bloomberg and his former Machiavelli Dan Doctoroff instructed her to: sign off on as many development projects as possible and "don't sweat the small stuff," as the Voice put it in a recent article. Bloomberg has positioned himself in such a way that he gets off scot free (as he usually does), taking no responsibility for the construction accidents and deaths which are basically his fault. First, he completely distanced himself from the horrific east side crane accident that got the recent ball of DOB criticism rolling. Lancaster took all the heat, and Bloomberg remained at a safe distance, writing poetry and such. Then, when he saw the press, public and politicians weren't going to let up—that the issue wasn't going to blow over—he began to condemn Lancaster.

Gowanus Lounge put it as well as anyone could this morning:

On Monday, Mayor Bloomberg said "I don’t think anybody should be fully satisfied with the Department of Buildings’ performance." The statement was disingenuous at best and self-servingly cynical at worst. The construction boom and DOB's laissez faire attitude have happened under Mr. Bloomberg's watch and the placement of the agency under former Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff's purview for most of his administration symbolized the back seat that regulating building took to encouraging development. The city's worst kept secret for much of the last six years has been the fact that DOB was expected not to interfere in major ways with development. If this meant looking the other way while safety, work hour and other regulations were violated with impunity, well, that was a small price for one of the biggest building booms in New York history.

That statement, the oft-quoted "I don’t think anybody should be fully satisfied with the Department of Buildings’ performance," was weasely, back-stabbing, scapegoating, political double-speak at its worst. It was bottom-of-the-barrel stuff and anyone who's a student of the political art would recognize it as such. You can bet as Lancaster watched Mayor Mike utter that line on television, she was muttering "son of a bitch" under her breath. Bloomberg was plenty satisfied the Lancaster and the DOB—it was doing exactly what he wanted it to do, with as little money as he chose to give it—until its corrupt performance began to impinge on his image as an infallible leader.

Lancaster's departure is a good thing. She's was a feckless puppet of the development cabal. She was no public servant. The problem is her successor will be selected by the same man who chose her.

Oh Dear

The Oh family's Trusting Tailoring and Cleaning—a Cobble Hill business whose destruction at the hands of the booming real estate market and one voracious landlord in particular was widely covered in the press—has been thoroughly cleaned out and is ready for inspection by interested parties. Witness the two large signs advertising its vacancy. I hearby encourage no one with a conscience to call this number, unless you want to curse the landlord out by way of his slimy real estate broker.

A Good Sign: Star Deli and Bakery

A bold and boldly red sign, complete with that Polish eagle so common in Greenpoint signs.

Bulletin: It's Happened!!

There is justice in New York City. Read on:

Bloomberg’s Buildings Chief Resigns

By Diane Cardwell

Facing mounting pressure and dwindling confidence from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg over her handling of the Department of Buildings, Commissioner Patricia J. Lancaster resigned on Tuesday.

The first woman to lead the troubled agency and one of the only commissioners to leave the administration under a cloud, she is departing as a series of high profile construction accidents and bureaucratic problems have embarrassed the agency and the mayor.

Mr. Bloomberg announced at 12:10 p.m. that he had accepted her resignation. He had hired Ms. Lancaster, an architect, to modernize the 1,286-person agency, which issues permits, oversees construction and enforces the building code. But the agency had come under increasing criticism.

This year, there have been 13 fatalities at construction sites in the city, including seven in a March 15 crane collapse, compared with 12 during all of 2007. In another case, investigators found after the death of two firefighters in an Aug. 18, 2007, fire at the former Deutsche Bank building near ground zero that building inspectors had failed to detect numerous violations, including the dismantling of a standpipe that would have carried water to firefighters at the top of the building.

The announcement on Tuesday afternoon included a statement from Mr. Bloomberg:

This morning, I met with Patricia Lancaster at Gracie Mansion and accepted her resignation as New York City’s Buildings Commissioner. Over the past six years, Patricia has moved the Department of Buildings a long way forward by fighting corruption, strengthening inspections and oversight, increasing the public’s access to information, and bringing increased levels of professionalism and integrity to all levels of her agency. Patricia led a comprehensive overhaul of the City’s byzantine building code, the first in 40 years, which will make the construction of homes, schools, stores and offices in New York City safer, more affordable and more environmentally friendly for years to come. Patricia leaves a strong foundation of reform and improvement for her successors to build on, and I thank her for her dedication to making New York City a far better place to live, work and visit.

It also included this statement from Ms. Lancaster:

Today I submitted my resignation, which Mayor Bloomberg accepted. It has been an honor serving in his administration and I thank the Mayor for this opportunity. After six years in public service, I made this decision because I felt it was time to return to the private sector. I am proud of the groundbreaking work the department has done during my tenure to root out corruption, increase transparency, overhaul the building code and increase safety for workers and the public alike. My message today to the talented and capable staff at the Department of Buildings is to keep up the hard work: you’ve made so much important progress. It has been my distinct pleasure working with you.

Both statements are utter, mealy-mouthed crap, of course. You knew Lancaster's days were numbered when Bloomie stopped supporting her at press conferences. Still, I'm amazed Mayor Mike admitted to any fault in his administration.

Not to be smug, but this blog was the first I know of to call for her resignation in the wake of the crane accident. But congratulations to all the NYC blogs out there who kept the heat on the issue of rampant overdevelopment and the DOB's shoddy, corrupt performance, and finally forced the print dailies to take notice.

Now, let's see if Mike has the courage to appoint someone who will actually clean up the department, look out for the citizenry and keep developers in line. Let us not forget that whatever Lancaster did, she did with the tacit (or even explicit) approval of her boss.

Lancaster the Scapegoat

Cheyenne Diner Saved by...the Son of a Developer

I guess the only thing that can save development from itself is...development itself.

Just the other day, the west side's Cheyenne Diner was set to go down to dust, the victim of a rival diner who owned the structure and wanted to erect a nine-story building there. Would no one save the 68-year-old Cheyenne?!!

Yes, it turns out, someone would. Mike O'Connell, son of Red Hook developer of note, Greg O'Connell, who owns about a million things in South Brooklyn. The scion, head of O’C Construction, purchased the diner for $5,000 will now work on securing permits to transport it to its new home in sunny Red Hook. The Cheyenne will be refurbished and returned to its former glory by a diner specialist. All this was brokered by preservationist Michael Perlman, who formed the Committee To Save The Cheyenne Diner, and seems to spend his life preserving New York diners. Gotta hand it to him. He gets things done.

Barbie Cast Down!

Readers of this blog may remember, about last year at this time, an item about a curious display built into the facade of a Boerum Hill home. At 229 Dean Street, a rectagular space once reserved for an air-conditioner had been faced off with glass in the fashion of a display case. Inside was place a statuette of the Virgin Mary and—the severed head of a giant plastic Barbie doll! (See below.)

The bit of strangeness was picked up by other sites at the time and much commented on. Perhaps too commented on. Because, one year later, Barbie has been banished! The Blessed Virgin is still there. But she has no foxy roommate anymore. Instead, she's framed by two tacky religious candles (above). It makes for distinctly less arresting eye candy. Otherwise the building looks exactly the same.

Next Scheduled Old Sign Discovery: 2035

As South Brooklyn folk know, the old St. Clair Restaurant at the corner of Atlantic and Smith was recently given a redo, complete with shiny new sign. Between the time when the old sign was being taken down and the new one installed, an even older sign (see far below) was briefly revealed. Such "reveals" are quite common in these days of widespread construction and renovation. Old signs, it seems, never die. They're just covered up.

Walking by the diner recently, I peered closely at the space between the new sign and the awning and—sure enough!—it became clear as day that the builders has not taken down the very oldest sign. They just left it there and built over it.

That means that some day in the future, when the latest owners of the St. Clair decide to renovate the restaurant anew, Brooklynites will once again be stunned and surprised by the uncovering of the original brown-and-cream-colored metal sign. The cycle continues and the archaeological dig that is New York City takes on one more layer.

Some Stuff That's Interesting

Exxon helped sponsor the Go Green Greepoint event over the weekend. File under Unmitigated Gall.

Cobblers are happy and busy in Hasidic Williamsburg.

I don't mind the new Perry Street Hotel, which, by today's design standards, is a work of genius.

The Old College Restaurant?

I've passed by the diner that I know as the New College Restaurant on Fourth Avenue and Union Street many times over the past decade. (Lately I'm not sure what they call themselves, since the "New" and "College" have been removed from the facade.) But it was only the other day that I noticed that the place had hung a sign from the corner of the building.

It's an interesting touch. Though, as the sign indicates, the diner has only been around since 1992, with this sign they are clearly going for that landmark, Olde New York look. Fine by me. I think it looks great and lends the place some distinction. I'd like to get a gander at it at night when it's lit up. Bet it looks fetching from the cab or a passing semi.

A Positive Slant

It may just be me, but lately it seems more buildings than usual have been suddenly plummeting to the ground, collapsing in a heap. Is it just that the building are getting damn old, or is all the new construction rumbling them to an early grave? I have my suspicions.

This four-story brick job on Union Street near Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn looks like a good candidate for the dirt—check out the worrisomely crooked line the right-hand wall takes as it travels skyward. And it appears that the tents known it well. They have christened their hovel The Leaning Brownstone. A brownstone it is not, though leaning it certainly is. Wonder what the landlord thinks of that bit of whimsy (I can't imagine he sprung for the awning, or approves of it.)

Lunch with Mike, Amanda and Patty

(Mayor Michael Bloomberg, City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden and Department of Building Commissioner Patricia Lancaster walk down 52nd Street toward the Four Seasons Restaurant. Lancaster suddenly crosses to the other side of the street.)

Bloomberg: Patty! What's wrong with you. Get over here.

Lancaster: That thing looks a little shaky, Mr. Mayor.

Burden: What thing, Patty?

Lancaster: I don't walk under those anymore.

Bloomberg: That's an awning, you nitwit, not scaffolding. Stop cowering. I'm hungry. (Looks at the passing cars.) Goddamn traffic!

(They pass up the stairs to the restaurant.)

Bloomberg: Hello, Julian.

Julian Niccolini: Mr. Mayor, so good to see you. Your usual table?

Burden: The pool! The pool!

Bloomberg: The Grill Room is better for business.

Burden: The pool!

Bloomberg: All right, all right. Don't know how Steve Ross put up with you, Amanda. Julian, this place still landmarked?

Julian: I am happy to say it is. One of only two restaurant interiors in the city.

Bloomberg: What's the other?

Julian: Gage & Tollner in Brooklyn.

Bloomberg: Yeah. That closed, didn't it. It's a TGI Friday's now. Not as good as Subway, but good.

Julian: I believe that restaurant is also gone now.

Bloomberg: Too bad. It was good.

Julian: I did not have the pleasure.

Bloomberg: Yeah, yeah. If you want to fix that landmarking thing, just let me know. I can make it happen. You could spiff up the place. Give it a new look.

Julian: I will keep that in mind, Mr. Mayor. Here you are, ladies.

Lancaster: My, these prices are high.

Bloomberg: Look at those ceilings. Lot of wasted space here. Could fit three, four condo units in here.

Lancaster: Are there sharing plates?

Bloomberg: When are they gonna get Cheeze-its on this thing? I've told Julian...

Burden: I'm having the lobster.

Bloomberg: Me, too.

Lancaster: But they don't list the price.

Burden: Don't be such a skinflint, Patty. Live a little.

Lancaster: But...

Bloomberg: What you need is one of those things Quinn has, that slush fund...

Lancaster: Really? Can I get one of those?

Bloomberg: Uh, no. Belt-tightening, Patty. Belt-tightening. I'm asking all of the agencies...

Lancaster: But I read where you have more staff than ever...

Bloomberg: I asking most of the agencies...

Lancaster: I was just thinking I could use a few more building inspectors...

Bloomberg: The economy. Fiscal responsibility, Patty. I run City Hall like a business. Lotsa cubicles. That's why I'm such a raging success and people want me to be President.

Burden: I thought that was...

Bloomberg: I mean Governor.

Burden: Now, this is the kind of place I was talking about. The kind of place Harlem needs more of.

Lancaster: The Four Seasons?

Burden: If there was a Four Seasons on 125th Street, people would go to the Appalling Theatre.

Bloomberg: Apollo.

Burden: The Apollo Theatre. People will understand when the building gets underway. I know. I was a public schoolteacher in Harlem in the 1960s and there was never any decent sushi.

Bloomberg: Building? That reminds me. How much building we got going on, Patty.

Lancaster: I don't know. They keep asking me that. I don't know.

Bloomberg: Well, how many buildings did you approve today?

Lancaster: None.

Burden: None? Not even for 125th Street? Do you need an engraved invitation?

Lancaster: Well, there was that crane thing...

Bloomberg: I not interested in some new chick at the Bronx Zoo.

Lancaster: No, the crane that fell down. On the East Side.

Bloomberg: That was weeks ago.

Lancaster: People are upset, I'm afraid. My feet are really to the fire. They're accusing me of the most upsetting things...

Burden: So what? That crazy man at the commission meeting when we approved the Harlem rezoning yelled at me. He called me "a rich, rich, rich person."

Lancaster: Actually he called you a rich, rich, rich horrible person.

Burden: Oh. I wondered why he was so upset. I thought he was just jealous. If he wants to be rich, he should marry his own money.

Bloomberg: What's wrong with people? This is the nature of development. A few falling cranes are perfectly normal.

Lancaster: But people died...

Bloomberg: A few deaths are perfectly normal. Why, I killed a few people building my place in Bermuda. My God, Patty, do I have to have Doctoroff call you again and explain it all?

Lancaster: (shuddering) No, no, please don't do that.

Bloomberg: Man, cranes weren't falling when Doctoroff was around. I'm going to have Doctoroff call you.

Lancaster: No, please, Mr. Mayor...

Waiter: Have you decided?

Burden: Lobster. And the foie gras to start.

Bloomberg: That stuff'll kill you. You know what they do to those geese? I'm thinking of outlawing it in New York restaurants. That and salt. I'll have Lobster, too. Beet salad to start.

Lancaster: Could I get a bowl of consomme?

Burden: Oh, for heaven's sake, Patty, why don't ask them to boil you up some Raman noodles?

Lancaster: Well, I'm sorry if I'm not the richest person in New York City.

Burden: Well, neither am I, but you don't see me complaining.

Bloomberg: I am! But my parents were middle-class. Did I mention that. In fact, they were the last decent middle-class people to live in this country. Now all the best people are rich.

Lancaster: I'm not hungry.

Bloomberg: Amanda, how's that Chinatown rezoning coming?

Burden: Almost there. You know, I can never find anyplace to eat down there.

Bloomberg: Because I was on Pell Street the other day and all those buildings seemed really short. And dirty. The area's a mess.

Burden: It'll soon be fixed.

Julian: (carrying a bottle of Krug champagne) With the compliments of the gentleman across the pool.

Bloomberg: Who's that? Ah, geez. Ratner. Send it back, send it back. He's just wants something. Say, Julian, Obama been here lately?

Julian: Not in the past week.

Bloomberg: I've got an idea I want to run by him.

(Suddenly there is a loud crack following by a creaking sound. A huge crane crashes through the west wall of the Pool Room landing on Bruce Ratner, killing him instantly.)

Burden: Uh. My dress!

Lancaster: (rocking back and forth, reciting as if by rote) I inherited from Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani a department in disarray. I inherited from Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani a department in disarray.

Bloomberg: On second thought, Julian, leave the Krug.

A Good Sign: Katz's Delicatessen

A natural, I know. A classic. But I've never posted it before, so here it is.

The clock's a gem on its own. It wins points for whimsy.

The side signs are also worth noting. Fine examples of metal signing. One thing: Who was signmaker George Taran? Not a clue. But millions of people have seen his handiwork.

History in Starbucks: 910 Manhattan Avenue

This member of the coffee house chain, at 910 Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, was once the Chopin Theatre, named after the great Polish composer, something the surrounding Polish community could appreciate. The 500-seat house was opened as the American Theatre, hence the eagle on the top. It was always a second-run house.

There used to be a Burger King in the ground-floor space, which I guess is worse than a Starbucks, and then after that a Quest Diagnostics, which is better. Upstairs there was a billiard parlor, then a bingo hall, then a dance club.

Wooden Stones

On a recent tour of Greenpoint, it was pointed out to me that cobblestones on West Street near Noble are actually made out of wood, not brick. I wouldn't have noticed it had I not looked closely.

The patch of sidewalk is near the wreck of the Greenpoint Terminal Market, but was not harmed by the horrible fire that consumed that property. Hardwood cobblestones were once quite common in the City, but I am told that this stretch may be the last example of the buidling material remaining in Gotham.

What's Going On With 110 Amity?

Last we heard Time Equities, the outfit that was behind the Lamm Institute mews development project at 110 Amity Street in Cobble Hill—which was deemed the Amity Street Horror by some—their plan had been reviled by the community and turned down by the Landmark Preservation Commission. The scheme had involved an objected-to new mews on the Henry Street side filled with townhouses. This led Francis Greenburger, CEO and Chairman, Time Equities Inc., to write an open letter to several local blogs (including this one). It read in part:

We value feedback from the community and the commission and will continue to address concerns, such as those that arose in the early meetings which led to design revisions of the Henry Street façade of the new townhouse.

At this point, we will re-conceive the project in a traditional street wall approach and try to present a plan that is responsive to the input received at the most recent Landmark hearing. As we did last time, we will reach out to the community and Landmark staff prior to presenting the final concept to the commission.

That was in late January. That would-be mews, the Henry Street lot, is now up for sale. (Second listing down.) The listing says the lot's "of right zoning will permit for a 15,660 buildable square foot residential building," and it has "great potential for high end condominium and/or residential apartments." (It never ever stops, does it?) Asking price? "Call for More Information!!!"

Did Time Equities throw in the towel rather than deal with the community and LPC? Did the economy cause they to abandon the project? And now what happens?

DOB's Lancaster Admits She Screwed Up, in Several Ways

Embattled Department of Building head Patricia Lancaster—who is twisting in the wind while her boss Michael Bloomberg airs his poetical works—confessed at a Thursday City Council hearing that the East Side building that last month sent a crane hurling to earth, killing seven people, was not only in severe violation of building codes but did not conform with zoning regulations and was approved in error.

You got that right: it shouldn't have been built in the first place!

My favorite part of the New York Times account is this jaw-dropping exchange:

"Wow," said Councilwoman Jessica S. Lappin, whose district includes the site of the crane collapse. "You’re telling me this building should never have been approved in the first place?"

"That is correct," Ms. Lancaster replied.

After her testimony, Ms. Lancaster sought to clarify her remarks with reporters.

I'll bet she did! The mistake of approving the building was apparent discovered before the crane accident, but not acted on "because buildings officials were talking to [developer James] Kennelly to resolve the matter." Only the DOB won't say exactly when the found out the 43-story thing had no write to be there.

Other things Lancaster can't account for include the pace of building construction in New York City. She had no real answer for the Council. Also, the locations of buildings it has deemed dangerous—like the one that suddenly collapsed in Harlem on March 4. The Daily News reported, "Buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster then promised a review of 'every outstanding emergency declaration in the city.' As of Wednesday [April 16] she could not provide the location of even one."

As of April 18, Lancaster still had her job. Somehow.

A Good (Temporary) Sign: Ortiz Funeral Home

Holy Smokes! That's the best thing I ever saw. Never fix it!

Whither Cobble Hill Towers?

The other day I was wondering to myself, if I had $60 million sitting around doing nothing, what would I do with it?

Today I got one possible answer. I could buy the Cobble Hill Towers, the historic, landmarked residential complex formerly known as the Home Apartments which stand on Hicks Street overlooking the BQE. The whole circa-1876, 188-apartment shebang in on the market. (Scroll down to the last listing.)

Sorry if I'm late in addressing this—Massey Knakel tells me the Towers have been for sale since the fall—but it's the first I've learned of it. This is a lovely structure, for those who don't know it, one of the finest bits of building in all of Brooklyn. They were built as tenements by Alfred Treadway White, who believed that even poor people deserved a decent place to live. Tenants reach their apartments by way of open-air stair towers leading to outside recessed balconies. Each unit has a separate entrance. When the setting sun hits the red brickface, it's a beautiful site, one that almost makes you forget the horrible gash that is the sunken highway.

Of the 188 apartments, 186 are rent stabilized, and two are free market. Rents are 50% of market rents. The complex allows a great many middle-class folk to remain in ritzy Cobble Hill. What would happen if it were sold to a new party, I don't know. But $60 million?! I can't imagine anyone would bite at that price without some condo dream or rent-stabilized smashing scheme in his dirty little mind.

In Cobble Hill, They're Proud of Their Garages

This heap of undistinguished bricks was built in 1918. Or so it would seem. Funny, though, the bricks don't look very old. Certainly the garage door is newish. And then there's that "CC." Which could be the initials of the builder. Or maybe it's a sly reference to the old abbreviation for "carbon copy." Could it be that the owner built a new garage where an old one used to sit and is having a joke with us? Not sure what is going on here.

What's That Line About Good Intentions and Hell?

Here's a not-unusual sight on the Lower East Side: the old entrance of a now-defunct temple—in this case, the First Roumanian-American Congregation.

Of course, the 150-year-old synagogue famously collapsed back in 2006 when the roof caved in. This doorway is all that remains. Built around is a new building housing Museum 52, a new art space. It seems a sort of an insult to keep the doorway but have it used for secular purposes. I'm all for historical preservation, but this example feels particularly crass.

Lost City in the News

Of the print publications, I've long thought the smaller titles have done the best job in chronicling the ongoing alteration of New York's skyline and character. Among the best is The Villager, the longstanding community weekly, which has covered every attempt by NYU, St. Vincent's or whatever developer to bulldoze what's valuable in what is arguably Manhattan's most historically rich neighborhood.

Patrick Hedlund, who writes the Mixed Used column, recently interviewed me about Lost City and the beat it covered. His article, which also included comments from East Village-based blogger Jeremiah Moss, appears today. It begins:

Mixed Use often counts on our local pavement-pounders for tips on the freshest Downtown development grist, but we reserve a special spot for a group of savvy bloggers who’ve kept detailed tabs on the city’s real estate boom — and its resultant casualties.

The brains behind Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York and Lost City consistently update their metro-centric Web sites with original news about neighborhood openings and closings, and commentary on the city’s ongoing evolution, with an overriding sense of mourning for the New York of yore.

"Unfortunately, there’s always stuff to write about," said Lost City blogger Brooks of Sheffield, who, as a working journalist by day, uses a pen name for his site. "These places are treasures, and once they’re gone, they’re irreplaceable."

Lost City, which recently chronicled the changes — or, as Brooks found, lack thereof — on the Lower East Side’s Ludlow St. over the past decades, often breaks news that feeds some of the city’s larger real estate media, such as Curbed.com and the big dailies....

To read the full piece, click here.

The Germans Must Have a Word for It; or, Will the Sunview Rise Again

One of the hazards of writing a blog like this, forever trolling the City with an eye out for the worthwhile corners of New York that are on their way out or hanging on by their fingernails, is that some days you become so sodden with grief that you begin lamenting not only the places you knew and loved and are now gone forever, but also shops and stores that you never even knew in the first place, but discovered too late. Is there a word for missing something you never had? It's sort of like running to catch a train at Grand Central and getting there just as it's pulling out of the station. You'll never know, but you just have a feeling life would have been that much better if you had only made that train.

Which brings us to the Sunview Luncheonette. What's left of it stands at the corner of Russell and Nassau in Greenpoint. It was founded in 1963 by a Greek couple. The rusted sign says "Sunview" nowhere. It says only "Luncheonette" and then "Fountain." (Fountain!) It also says "Coca-Cola." I peered through the dirty windows of the Sunview for the first time only last weekend. I couldn't get in. It was closed by the Health Department last September. A health notice in the window is scrawled over with the message "The Greeks will be back!"




The scene inside made my heart ache. A classic long counter with a row of round, backless stools. A shining stainless steel prep area. Old Pepsi menu boards hanging from the wall, listing the the menu's items and low, low prices. (Burgers are a buck fifty or something.) A tin ceiling. A ceiling fan. On the right wall a line of booths. And—Holy Sweet Jesus!—two wooden phone booths side by side in perfect condition. It was peerless. It was perfect.


How could it be that I could not enter? How could I have found out about this place only after the DOH made it a victim of its face-saving crusade in the wake of the KFC-Taco Bell-rat fiasco?

Surveying the internet, I found people had only good things to say about the diner and it's owners, Lou and Dimitria, who for some reason is known to patrons at Bea. I found a phone number for the Sunview and, even though the place was clearly closed, called. I guess I wanted to determine if the line was in service. If it was, there was still hope.

I was shocked when someone picked up—an old woman with a soft, frail voice. After a few moments, I realized this was Bea herself. And though I had disturbed her, and brought up a sore subject ("Will the diner reopen?"), she was in a talking mood. She said the place may open up again one day, but "not by me." At first, I thought that meant she was through with the business and the Sunview would never see another dawn. Then I understood that she was looking for a new person to run the restaurant. And then I uncovered that that someone had come along and was actually planning to the start up engines once more. Who? When? I don't know. It was a sad conversation and I didn't want to keep her.

I told her my desire to visit the Sunview just one time. She said she hoped I would very soon. So do I.

Some Stuff That's Not Getting Built

Calatrava's PATH station, the only decent thing that was ever designed for the World Trade Center area, is being scaled back.

Guess what? St. Vincent's can't do whatever it wants in the Village.

Moynihan Station is pretty damn dead.

Kellogg's Diner in Williamburg is closed for renovations and I don't feel very sanguine that it will reopen soon.

Nothing's happenin' in the grand lobby of the Williamsburg Bank Building. The new broker sees a big specialty store there or "a very important catering group" or "another great restaurant." Hey, I got a great use for this space. How about a bank?

Elaine's is old. Elaine is old.

Lawsuit happy Patsy's Restaurant is opening a branch in Atlantic City. Will they let you sit at the bar there?

A Good Sign: J. Josephs Sons Co.

If you're not taken in by the classic metal sign, perhaps you'll appreciate the New York Mets color choices. Of course, this sign surely date before the Mets existed. In Greepoint.

Sunny on Sidney

This brightly painted yellow carriage house on Sidney Place in Brooklyn Heights never fails to draw a smile from my face. It's designed to cheer a person up.

Long Island Restaurant Conundrum Continues

When we last checked in with the Long Island Restaurant on Atlantic Avenue—now closed for EIGHT MONTHS—we were informed by a strangely well-informed local vagrant that ancient owner Emma Sullivan was back from vacation overseas and planned to reopen the place when the weather got a little warmer, perhaps at the end of February or beginning or March.

Well......

Obviously, the diner is still shut up tighter than a drum. But someone's been in there recently. The front door used to bear a handwritten sign saying "Sorry, we're closed," with a number to call in case of emergency. That's sign has been removed (probably because too many people were calling the number asking what was up) and replaced with a standard-issue, mass-produced "Sorry, we're closed" sign. No phone number.

I looked around for my well-connected bum, but could find him nowhere. Local merchants seem to know nothing. I'm not very hopeful What goes on? What in freaking hell goes on?

I'm sorry to say it, but I have no choice but to now put the Long Island Restaurant on my Endangered Landmark list.

Show Time at the Rite Aid

If you find yourself feeling kind of grandish while shopping in the Rite Aid at 723 Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint, look up. It could be that enormous, two-ton mirrored ball hanging from the high vaulted ceiling that's giving you a spring in your step.

Duane Reades are famous for adapting any old space into a sprawling pharmacy. But Rite Aid beat them to this address, the former Meserole Theatre movie palace. A maze of twisting aisles lurk yards and yards below a soaring white dome. The outlines of what once was the proscenium can be spied on one side of the space, the closed off balcony (now storage space) on the other.

After the movie house closed down, the building lived on for a while as a roller rink. Thus, the mirrored ball. When I asked why the ball was not taken down when the pharmacy moved in (it was an Eckerd first, actually), I was told that if I could find a way to get the huge trinket down, I was welcome to it. I'm thinking about it. I then asked why they didn't get the damn thing spinning again, to give the store a more romantic atmosphere. Because I'm a smart-ass.

Yet More About Krauser Hardware

You know you want to learn more about an obscure, bygone Brooklyn hardware store. You know you do!

Yesterday, I posted an update of Krauser Hardware, which used to do business on Atlantic Avenue in days gone by, and whose sign was recently uncovered when the owners of the new restaurant The Moxie Spot started setting up their new digs at the former Krauser address. I had known little (OK: nothing) about Krauser until I was contacted by Rob Krauser, an actual descendant of said tradesman. He told me the store was founded by his grandfather, Benjamin Krauser.

But the saga's not over. Soon after meeting Rob, I was contacted by his father (Ben's son), Bob Krauser. Bob was good enough to fill in considerably more blanks in the story:

Krauser Hardware was formed as M. Krauser Inc in the early 1900's by my grandfather Mendel, who was previously in the retail hardware business in Warsaw, Poland. The first store was on the lower east side and then moved to Atlantic Avenue on the site of the current Brooklyn Queens Expressway. When the store was taken over by NYC under eminent domain, the current building was constructed in the late 1940's and consisted of three connecting stores with basements, a second floor for storage and a few rental apartments.

Mendel started the business with three of his sons; Simon, Benjamin and Irving. Benjamin was the surviving son and retired and sold the property in about 1982. Benjamin retired to Florida and passed away at the age of 87. The hardware store served the downtown Brooklyn area for both retail neighborhoood clients as well as diverse factory and shipping accounts. I remember making deliveries to Norman Mailer's brownstone on Willow Place as well as the piers of the Royal Netherland Steamship Lines; Long Island College Hospital and the original Goya Foods near the Gowanus Canal.

Norman Mailer bought tools!

Sophisticated Cocktail, Anyone?

Hello, urbane citizen. Do you enjoy a distinguished cocktail? Then you might enjoy The Distinguished Wakamba Cocktail Lounge, located on sunny Eighth Avenue near 37th Street.

Or maybe not. Hey, I love dive bars, but this is one even I avoid. This is the kind of bar where innocent men get shot by undercover cops looking for drug dealers.

Still, you gotta love that ridiculous name. The Wakaba, fyi, are a tribe in Kenya.

Ancestor of Lost Atlantic Hardware Store Comes Forth

A few months back I posted this picture of an old hardware sign on Atlantic Avenue, uncovered as a new owner was converting the space into a family friendly eatery called The Moxie Spot. I could find out nothing about Krauser Hardware.

Until today, that is, when Rob Krauser contacted me looking for the photo I had posted. Rob is the grandson of the man who founded the hardware store, Benjamin Krauser. His father was raised in Brooklyn.

As for the sign, the Moxie Spot owners didn't trash it. They made it into a table. Rob has a picture of it on his blog.

Sity Can't Spell

Some dumbass city worker—who possessed a knowledge and appreciation of NYC history that we've come to expect from this administration—last week hung a new street sign at the corner of W. Houston Street and Mercer. Only the worker didn't check the spelling of Mercer before making the sign, and the guy who hung it apparently didn't look around to see all the other signs and businesses that said "Mercer."

Sometimes you wonder if City officials think Houston Street is pronounced like the city in Texas.

The worker who actually spotted put the stupid thing up was corrected by one
Beth Gottlieb, "who said she was ignored when she pointed out the error to an orange vest-wearing city worker installing the sign. His response? "I'm just doing my job.""

Let's see how long it takes them to take it down.

Like a number of streets in Soho, Mercer was named for a figure from Revolutionary times. Hugh Mercer was a Scottish-born surgeon and an Brigadier General in the Revolutionary War. He had fled his native land because he had been assistant surgeon in the army of Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745. When the Prince's army was crushed by the English, he went into hiding and eventually made his way to America. (You can understand why he joined to Revolutionary Army to fight the British.)

He fought in the Battle of Trenton with his good friend George Washington. He then advised Washington to march on Princeton, a move the resulted in the defeat of some of Cornwallis' forces and turned the tide of the war. Unfortunately, he was killed in that battle in 1777, apparently mistaken for Washington himself by the capturing British. He was 50. He lay dying under an oak on the battle field that later became known as the Mercer Oak and survived until 2000, when high winds blew it down.

For a forgotten guy, Mercer sure knew everybody who was anybody back then. In addition to Washington, he was a familiar of James Monroe and John Marshall. Mercer County in New Jersey is named for him, and his apothecary shop in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he settled, is now a museum. There's also a statue of him there.

Mercer's many descendants include both Gen. George Patton and songwriter Johnny Mercer!

A Good Sign: Manhattan Furrier

You don't see many streetside furriers anymore. Leastways, ones that are unafraid, in these p.c times, to advertise themselves in neon. Manhattan Furrier—which is not in Manhattan, but on Manhattan Avenue in Brooklyn—was founded in 1913 by the father of Irving Feller, who runs it today.

Feller's an odd duck. He is an abstract painter in this spare time and his works fill the walls of the small place. He is also obsessed with Native American culture. He visits the Kutenai, Shoshone-Bannock, Crow, Nez Perce, Apache, Navajo, Zuni and Hopi out west every year. In his store window are Native American jewelry he has bought from them; everything is for sale.

Manhattan Furrier also offers fur storage. I've got to wonder how many people in ramshackle Greenpoint take him up on that offer. Note the window still sports the old-school phone number EV-d-2920.

Post Office Update: Unsatisfactory

It's been a while since anyone's eviscerated the Brooklyn postal service, so let me take up the slack.

I recently paid a call on the Red Hook post office, which serves much of Carroll Gardens as well, despite the fact that it is way-the-hel distant from said neighborhood.

I was there to pick up a Legos toy my son's Uncle Joel has sent to his nephew. The post office had failed to successfully deliver it, and I was fearful it would soon be shipped back to whence it came. When we arrived, Window 5, which is set up as the package pick-up window in Red Hook, was dead to the world. So I took a place in the regular line, which snaked around nearly to the entrance. The entire time I was there, this line never had less that 25 people in it. And this was not lunchtime or the end of the workday. It was at 3 PM!

There were no egregious examples of arrogant, callous postal worker behavior. However, there was a tall young employee who kept smiling and singing a happy tune. Dude, when people are waiting in a hot, sweaty post office for up to 45 minutes, they don't want to see any worker who is happier than they are.

Luso-American Cultural Center Slightly Less Mysterious

Last August, I took time to lament the mystery that is the Luso-American Cultural Center at 619 Henry Street in Carroll Gardens. The former St. Paul's Lutheran Church (circa 1972) is forever silent and shuttered, yet the circular banner forever proclaims it a living mecca for Portuguese-Americans.

Today, for the first time in my 14 years in Carroll Gardens, I saw it open. I was so excited, I broke into a trot and, with little preamble, asked the wiry old man who was standing in the doorway if I could take a look inside. He adopted a mournful expression and shook his grizzled head. He then preceded to apologize. He was a caretaker of sorts, and it was not in his power to permit entry to anyone aside from members.

That's right. It's a membership-only outfit, is the Luso-American Cultural Center. How many members? Not many, said the old man. "The old ones are dying and the young ones don't give a damn," he said. Since I couldn't enter, I peppered him with questions. He told me that the group had owned the building for 65 years, putting them there during World War II times. The center is a remnant of the days when the neighborhood had a sizable Portuguese population. The building is only rarely used, for functions and affairs, and is in a state of disrepair.

I spied in the alcove beyond the door a few pictures on the wall, photographs of past events. Beyond that, nothing. The old man said the man who runs the place lives over on Bond Street and would have been happy to show me the place. But, alas, he wasn't there.

There's still more to learn, but there it is, for what it's worth.

Reasons Not to Trust Bloomberg

First is was the Presidency. Then the Vice-Presidency. Then the Governorship. Now the talk is of a third term as Mayor. City Hall denies Mayor Mike is moving to remove term limits from the City Charter. But they denied the guy was running for President for more than a year, didn't they?

Any way you look at it, Michael Bloomberg is not a man content to be without power. His billions are not enough. His two terms as Mayor are not enough. The 66-year-old must remain in charge of our lives in some way, shape or manner. The city, state, country do not yet meet his vision for them. The population does not wholly appreciate or love him as the benevolent genius he is. And if he's not in power, how will all those crappy, gargantuan plans he set in motion for the West Side and Atlantic Yards be realized? Some narrow-minded successor, bereft of his vision, might scrap them for the bad ideas they always were.

I remember back when Mike was busy buying the Mayoralty back in 2001. Everyone was telling me how rich dudes were the best thing you could have in terms of elected office. They can't be bought! They have enough money already. They're not beholden to donors or special interests, because they can foot the bill of their campaign themselves. They want for nothing, so how can they become corrupt. They don't need public office, so they're the best people to hold public office.

Well, Bloomberg apparently needs public office very badly, despite all his billions and independence. Next time anyone speaks warmly of his intentions, they should ask themselves why he needs it so much.

Caption for above: "Gosh, Dave, sure is a nice place you got up here?"

Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: Capri "Smoke If You Got 'Em" Social Club

The Capri Social Club, on Calyer Street, near Lorimer, in Greenpoint, is one of the few bars left in the city where you can smoke. That's because it is what it says it is: a social club, not a bar, with members et al. (Take that, Bloomie!) However, its private status doesn't prevent lowlifes like me from walking in off the street and copping a brew.

A visit is well rewarded by the untouched interior, which includes two long wooden bars on either side (only one of which is in operation); old, coin-operated peanut and candy machines; walls of aging signage, including advertisements for long-gone beers; an old 1930s-era radio; an ornate wooden partition that separates the bar area from a back room perfectly suited for larger partying; and the Pièce de résistance, an operating wooden phone booth, with wooden seat, overhead light and operated fan.

The place is apparently known locally as "Irene's Bar."



Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: Fedora
Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: Old Town Bar

Some Stuff That's Being Closed Down and/or Off

The Department of Building shut down 43 unsafe Brooklyn construction sites. Finally. Patricia Lancaster remains employed.

The Parks Department won't fix the decaying boardwalk on Coney Island, but they'll sure as shit erect an ugly fence that just might kill more boardwalk businesses.

Shakespeare's Sister on Court Street in Cobble Hill is closing. It's not very old, but it was sort of a harbinger of a lot of the gentrification the took place on Court and Smith Street in the past decade, so in that way is sort of historical. It once was the only hip cafe space in the area; had coffee, play and book readings, etc. Hasn't been what it was for many years.

An old-school barber shop in Soho is cutting back.

Queens Crap can't wait until Gallagher is gone. Me, too.

2 Columbus Circle looks different, but still ugly.

On a brighter note, Cherry blossoms sure are purty.

The Rat-Hat Story: An Eye-Witness Account

Yesterday, in my post about the past lives of Ludlow Street, I mentioned a bit of "urban folklore" about a rat that one night crashed through the ceiling of hipster Mexican restaurant/hangout The Hat and landed on a patron's table.

I stand corrected. The story is not urban folklore. It is true.

A reader, who was an eye-witness to the legendary incident, contacted me to verify the story. Laura Zambrano, who at the time worked at Todo Con Nada, the pioneering theatre space then across the street from The Hat, said she was sitting at a table with Nada founder Aaron Beall when the rat descended deus ex machina:

The "Rat in the Hat" story is true. I'm the former TD/house manager/light board op/etc of Nada and was sitting there, with Aaron Beall & some other people when it happened. The rat landed in the salsa, which splashed all over Aaron's glasses. Chico said we could have our margaritas on the house. Everyone thought it was pretty funny, especially since the rat disappeared into the kitchen...

Everyone had a good laugh about it for years. One of the ceiling panels had been removed and the poor rat fell through as he was scampering along (he was really huge, too). There was one other table occupied at the time, friends of Camden Toy, who had performed that evening. They wanted to know what happened when they heard our drinks were free. They were kind of pissed off that our drinks were on the house (not that a big rat had just gone running by). I think we told them to see if they could get the rat to come to their table.

That rat now lives in Jersey City, having been forced out by the high LES rents.

God Bless Us, Everyone

Hey, we all want our business ventures to succeed. By naming your bodega the God Bless Deli? I'm not sure religion and deli service should be mixed.

I'm willing, however, to give my personal blessing to that neon sign in the window, which depicts not just a steaming cup of coffee and a donut, but also a fried egg!

In Greenpoint.

"Luxury City": AM New York Assesses Bloomberg

AM New York's David Freedlander today published a cogent, perceptive and balanced appraisal the Big-Idea Billionaire who bought himself City Hall six loooong years ago. There's no denying the article's general thrust, that Bloomberg has reshaped the City. It's sadly true. This isn't the NYC we knew in 2002. Not by a longshot. Plenty people think that's a good thing. Plenty do not.

I still think the big wake-up call is yet to come, long after Bloomberg has left office and taken up his new job in Albany, when the City wakes up and realizes it has no working class, no artistic class, no small-business culture, no middle class to speak of, no younger generation that didn't come out of law school or business school, or clings to a trust fund.

My hero of the piece is author Fred Siegel, who tells it like it is in the closing paragraphs. "Luxury City" is what he called the new New York. Problem is, Bloomberg will consider that term not a criticism, but a compliment. Read on:

Bloomberg reshapes city, despite high profile setbacks

His congestion pricing plan is in shambles. His Olympic dream of a West Side stadium long-ago evaporated. But six years after he was sworn in on the steps of City Hall near the smoldering hole in the heart of lower Manhattan, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has molded the way the city will look and feel for decades, observers say.

The mayor has transformed much of the city by pushing through 76 rezoning initiatives, turning abandoned waterfront areas into thousands of new homes, and luring financial firms back to lower Manhattan with enticing tax breaks.

"Businesses are investing in parts of the city that they weren't before," said Jonathan Bowles, president of the Center for an Urban Future, an economic think tank. "People are buying homes and building homes in record levels in neighborhoods that were down and out as recently as five years ago."

Indeed, with the dizzying pace of development it can be difficult to remember how bleak the landscape looked in early 2002. Then high-flying financial firms threatened to leave the city. Broadway nearly went dark. The squabbling over what would replace the fallen Twin Towers was just beginning.

But the transformation of the city that has followed has triggered a backlash, too, with many feeling that the city has become too expensive or too precious for its own good and no longer a place where cheap rents permit creative types and other strivers to eek out a living on the margins.

Well before that critique of Bloomberg gained currency, during the dark days of early 2002, the mayor pleaded with his friends in the business sector not to abandon New York in its hour of need, pledging to "renew, rebuild, and remain the capital of the free world."

They did not abandon New York, and, what's more, one out of every six square feet in the city has since been rezoned, the streets are a-clog with tourists, and newcomers are pouring into the city. High-concept street furniture and newsstands are replacing the untidy array of decrepit benches and bus shelters, and one of the city's last vestiges of grit -- the OTBs -- are about to go the way of subway tokens.

The city's very geography has shifted, with new neighborhoods springing in places people didn't know existed, and others carved out of existing communities as real estate agents search for new branding schemes.

"Places like Red Hook that were once a no-man's land are hipster havens, and Brooklyn is now a center for culture and art for the whole country," said Mitchell Moss, a professor of history at New York University and adviser to the mayor's first campaign. "Whoever thought people would want to live on the Gowanus."

"They always say the thing about real estate is that God isn't making any more, but actually, in a way, we are," said a Bloomberg adviser. "We are reclaiming unused land on the waterfront, building homes and stores and offices in places where there weren't any before."

But those transformations have exacted a heavy price, some observers say.

"There has been a pinching of people's sense of place, and a destruction of community identity," said Brad Lander, director of the Pratt Center for Community Development, which advocates for greater grassroots planning initiatives.

"They have accelerated the transformation of this place from a manufacturing city to a condo and office tower city, but a lot of people don't feel invested in that growth."

Fred Siegel, an expert on urban governance and reform and author of "The Prince of The City: Giuliani, New York, and the Genius of American Life," said the mayor's failure on congestion pricing revealed his great weakness as a mayor: his disdain for the middle class, underscored by the continued loss of Mitchell-Lama housing in Stuyvesant Town and elsewhere.

Siegel said, "You can sum up the Bloomberg legacy in two words: luxury city."

It's a Grand Old Name

I am strangely sad about the news on Curbed that a little-old Noho building I've never heard of or noticed before—but one that bears the mysterious tribute "Mary" on its pressed-tin cornice—is going to come down so that the new Crosby Street Hotel can attain its full architectural expression.

Just look at the thing! It was built in the 1860s. This is just the sort of small, understated, graceful, ancient, irreplaceable building New York is losing by the dozens. And how can we possibly allow the structure to be flattened until we discover the story behind the word "Mary." Cornices, when they bear a message, typically proclaim the year of construction, or the builder's last name. No one put a first name on the cornice. Surely, this was a romantic gesture of some sort. The architect or developer meant to honor his wife or sweetheart, or perhaps a cherished daughter.

A bizarre footnote: the building seems to have been owned by one Charles J. Ursitti, who, as far as I can tell, is a billiards historian who lives in Florida. His can be found as a talking head on the "The Hustler: The Inside Story." Is friends with Paul Sorvino. Ursitti's father, also named Charles, used to run a miniature store (doll house stuff, etc.) out of the ground floor space. Here's a 1988 story from the Times. Nothing in it about "Mary."

This Was Ludlow Street

I was on the Lower East Side the other night—someone made me go. Honest.

To make the best of a bad situation, I decided to stroll the northern-most block of Ludlow Street. It was a short trip down memory lane. Back in the early and mid '90s, I spent a good amount of time here. Ludlow is where the "rebirth" of the Lower East Side arguably began, with hip bars, restaurants, music clubs and boutiques springing up in the basements of old tenements. (It seemed innocent enough at the time; who knew then where it would lead?) So one might expect the street to be among the most utterly transformed by the area's recent gentrification and hipification.

Not so. Strangely enough, I found the block to be among the most unchanged in the neighborhood. Certainly, it is no longer even a shade of the LES of old. The pillow seller, the notions stores—every hardscrabble manufacturer in fact—are gone. But the street is a fairly well-preserved snapshot of how it looked in 1993 or so. There is, yes, a monstrous hulking condo thing at the north end of the street, inevitably christened The Ludlow (see above). But next to it are Max Fish and The Pink Pony (below), two hangouts that by now rank as ancient in LES years.

A few doors down is the even older El Sombrero Restaurant, better known to locals as "The Hat." Once upon a time, in the bad old LES, this was the only place you could get a cheap meal at 2 a.m. The salsa was amazing and the food was decent, if you ignored the urban folklore about the night a rat crashed through the ceiling and landed on someone's table. Poor musicians and actors ate there. It still seems to be a hipster hangout, just as it was then.


Other things are gone, or course. The anonymous black basement space above, a joint known as the Dark Room, used to be Todo Con Nada, a semi-legendary storefront theatre space that thrived in the 1990s, spawning a collective of minor downtown stage artists (the kind of people who win Obie Awards). The space often presented four different shows a night. It was run by one Aaron Beall, a Barnum type who lived upstairs and was once called the Joseph Papp of Off-Off-Broadway.

Next door is an old "Bar" sign, a remnant of the Ludlow Street Cafe, a bohemian music hall and popular brunch place which reigned at a time when you couldn't get brunch anywhere on the Lower East Side.

Pianos Restaurant and Bar has retained the old sign which once advertised an actual piano store. 15 years ago, while still a piano store, the space often hosted theatre productions in its back room. It was a venue in the first annual New York International Theatre Festival.

The 1990s history of Ludlow Street may not be as historically potent as the immigrant experiences that went down on the strip during the 150 years previous. But, for now, remnants of a genuine fringe artistic enclave are still visible. You take what you can get these days.

Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Spain Restaurant?"

Holy smokes! The picture Eater took to go with my latest "Who Goes There?" column makes Spain Restaurant, a faded relic in Greenwich Village, look vibrant and new. The photographer much have used Klieg lights. Believe me, those banquettes are much more dusty, those painting infinitely more dark in real life.

I go to these forgotten restaurants hoping to be pleasantly surprised with their charm and unsung cuisine. But sometimes restaurants are not talked about because people are just being polite. I don't know where Spain Restaurant gets its seafood, but each piece would nicely double as a doggie's chew toy. Still, that homey little bar is a trip. And, as with the other eateries examined in this series, one feels protected from the nastiness of the outside world once inside the door.

A Building of Valour

One guess where what neighborhood the apartment building is in.

But the residents of this address had one hell of a Purim, back in the day.

Still Angry After All These Years

I was in Myers of Keswick, the beloved English food provisions place on Hudson Street, today to pick up a delectable Pork and Stilton meat pie (really, really good—trust me). The place was filled with Limeys, chatting ad nauseum about soccer or rugby or cricket or some such stuff. Lots of pale, pinky complexions. Not a Yank in sight. Could have been a corner shop anywhere in Blighty.

I waited patiently while a old guy regaled the counter boy with some unending yarn. He wasn't buying anything; just gabbing. The counter boy finally caught my eye, causing the large-beaked, balding, bespectacled elder to turn and look at me. "American!" he spat out, with what seemed like real disgust. "Took our country! Took our culture! Took our language!" I looked for a twinkle in his eye, for the corner of his mouth to turn up, indicating he was having me on. Nope.

"That's right," I replied, with a smile. "And we're not going to give 'em back."

The met pie was super yum. I'm not giving that back either.

A Good Sign: Bedford Street Laundry

In the Village, natch. Basic. Not even a phone number.

Cheyenne to Follow Moondance Out of Town?

The same folks who found the Moondance Diner a new home in Wyoming are trying to similarly relocate the Cheyenne Diner at 9th and 33rd, which closed its doors for the last time on April 6, the victim of a rent dispute.

Read a press release:

Preservationist Michael Perlman of Queens, who founded the Committee To Save The Moondance Diner in spring 2007, along with fellow Preservationist Kyle Supley of Brooklyn, are now campaigning to spare the Cheyenne Diner from oblivion, after sparing the Moondance last summer. Michael Perlman of the Committee To Save The Cheyenne Diner further discussed the proposal with property owner George Papas (owner of nearby Skylight Diner, 402 W 34th St, & developer for Cheyenne property) on Sun, Apr 6th, and effectively convinced him to work together. It will be a win-win scenario for all parties when Papas sells the Cheyenne Diner, and it is relocated.

Perlman has already received notification from potential buyers from Indiana & Ohio. While the Cheyenne can potentially land a good home out of state, many patrons are praying that a NY-based buyer will contact the Committee at unlockthevault@hotmail.com, so it can ideally remain closer to its roots than the Moondance Diner in WY.

Nice intentions here, of course. However, the Moondance story didn't end so well. After being carted out to Barge, Wyoming, the old diner collapsed under the weight of a bunch of ice and snow on its roof.

That's Just Not Kosher

The Lower East Side has changed in myriad ways over the past decade, some encouraging, some lamentable, some downright inappropriate. This particular change can be filed under inappropriate.

This narrow building on Ludlow Street just below Rivington is now home to the ludicrously named Chickie Pig's, a brick-oven pizza joint. Fine. Chickie has to operate somewhere, I guess. But its place of business was very obviously some place of Jewish observance in the past, based on the prominent Hebrew words carved just about the storefront, and the Jewish star on the top of the building. In fact, it was a Chevra Kadisha, a burial society that cleaned and washed the Jewish dead before burial. (Cue shudder here.)

And here it is in 2008 with the name "Piggie" on it! Not only that, but a sign shaped in the likeness of a big ol' hog! I wonder it the pizzaiolos are haunted by kosher-keeping spirits every Friday night.

A Good Sign: Economy Candy

One of the last remnants of the old Lower East Side. Get your old-time favorites!

I Just Like This House

That's all. Not much else to say here. It's on President Street near the BQE and it stands out. The brickwork on the facade is quite different from anything else around it. The closely set rows of three windows are unusual, as are the striking arches over the door and first-floor window. The double door is also attractive. Best of all is the way the owners have allowed the former powder-blue paint job to slowly fade away, revealing the red brick underneath. The weatherbeaten looks give the house a appealing dishabille air. Any artist, I think, would be happy here.

Universities, Hospitals and Other Public Emenies

This is probably a thought that has already occurred to a great many out there. But in recent months, as I watched events unfold in Greenwich Village, Noho, Harlem, the East Village and South Brooklyn, I've often thought that the greatest battles over New York City's soul that are to come won't be between the public and commercial developers like Bruce Ratner and the Joe Sitt. They will be with private institutions that, on the face of it, are benevolent forces, dedicated to the public welfare. That is, hospitals and universities.

Last week, St. Vincent's—longstanding preserver of Village life—laid out its whack-attack plans to take a buzzsaw to a largish portion of Greenwich's landmarked district—some to make a better (and bigger) hospital building, some to make a big residential building that will generate money to make a better (and bigger) hospital, and all of it to make St. Vincent's bigger and better and huger. "Me mighty hospital! You tiny bohemians! Me crush you, then later patch you up!"

Meanwhile, several blocks east, New York University, a past master at gobbling up real estate, has been up to its usual tricks. The august institution—which bestrides the blocks between Houston and 14th Street, and from Sixth Avenue to Second—is a behemoth that won't be gainsayed. It has an appetite and lack of scruple any rapacious developer would admire. Many still fault the bastion of higher learning for a host of crimes against nature, including: ruining the view from lower Fifth Avenue by building a boxy student center of the south side of Washington Square Park; and the abomination built on top of St. Ann's on 12th Street. (Thanks to Curbed for the photo.) Their latest shenanigans include plans for some zany "superblocks" just below the park, and a jacking up of rent that will possibly force Second Avenue's community-serving Met Food supermarket onto the street. N.Y.U. anticipates the need for a total of 6 million additional square feet of space by 2031 for academic uses, housing for undergraduate, graduate, professional and faculty personnel and for student services. Say your prayers, Villagers.

For all of NYU's chutzpah, Columbia University is perhaps even more gloriously arrogant and hard-hearted. The university recently ate up is East Harlem but good! The chowdown was part of its $7 billion expansion program. The school spent $1 million in lobbying fees, and had lots of fun abusing eminent domain to kick out plenty of teeny local land- and business-owners, and get a 17-acre swath of Manhattan's green earth renamed Columbialand. (Will they ever teach this case in Columbia Law?)

As for other instituions that are supposed to do the public good, but just as often do them ill, I've complained before about Long Island College Hospital's deleterious effect on the life of South Brooklyn. (Thanks for the new Clarett building, LICH!) Part of the reason these corporations—let's call them what they are—get away with the amazing shit that they do is they pose as beautiful, shining beacons of near-altruistic goodness. They feed the very life of the City, they do. NYU and Columbia educate, improving our young 'uns' minds and creating generation after generation of thinking, productive citizens. St. Vincent's and LICH keep us in fine fettle, deliver our babies, watch over our old folks, and fix our broken bones so we can live to walk another mile. They wouldn't hurt us. Why, they wouldn't hurt a fly! They're all for the greater freakin' good, you insignificant ingrates!

Don't believe it. NYU would build a dorm on your sainted grandmother's grave, and St. Vincent's would sell a penthouse suite to the rat bastard CEO who's responsible for your high prescription-drug bill. They're bullies and connivers and moustache-twirlers. It's time City Hall gave them the same fish-eye they'd give a Wal-Mart or a relocating Virginia gunseller. Our healers and teachers are stuffing dynamite under the feet of New York's renters, landowners, small businesses, history and heritage.

A Good Sign: Bob's Grinding Service

A traveling sign, anyway. For one of the City's few mobile knife-grinding services. Wonder how many people come out with lawnmowers to be "sharpened by lathe"?

What Cafiero's Looked Like

I've posted on this blog before about a legendary eatery (at least in my nabe) that used to exist on President Street between Hicks and Columbia. It was called Cafiero's, and apparently function from the 1920s until sometime in the 1960s. It was a favorite both of Brooklyn judges and politicians and local mobsters, as well as the occasional celebrity, like Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe.

Unlike some famous restaurants of the New York past, it seems to have disappeared without a trace, aside from the remembrances of local oldtimers. It's never mentioned in articles or books about Old New York, or even ones about Old Brooklyn. The building, 97 President St., is still there, which is a marvel in itself, since the construction of the BQE and extended digging along Columbia in the 1970s destroyed many of the original structures in the area.

To get a better idea of the place, I sent away to the Municipal Archives for a tax photo of the address. Looks like a quaint, cozy little place, complete with cloth awning and the restaurant's name in handsome (I assume gold) script above it. I can't imagine they had room for more than 10 tables inside, which perhaps lent to the joint's reputation for exclusivity. I've run across some some posts about Cafiero's on The South Brooklyn Network—a chat room for old Red Hook and South Brooklyn residents to shout out "Hey, Joey!" and "How's cousin Francis?" and talk about the teachers at Visitation Catholic school and their favorite bygone ice cream joints. People talk about having their Confirmation dinner there, or it being their first fancy dining experience as a kid. They all seemed to like it. Wish I could get ahold of an old menu. (Then again, it was probably the kind of place where the waiter told you what was available that night.)

I'm intrigued by the old guy in the picture, hands on hips, listening to some fella's spiel. Could it be old man Cafiero himself? The photo shows a barber shop to the left, a grocery store to the right, both long gone.

Below is how the Cafiero's building looks now. It's a private residence. I have a hunch that the large piece of metal screwed to the section of wall about the door hides the original Cafiero's sign. It looks like a quickie job. There are other remnants of the building's old life, as well.

These cast borders on either side of the structure are evident in the old photo (if you quint your eyes).

And the old awning was probably strung through these fixtures.


Finally, I have a good feeling that these few ornamental, pale-blue tiles were part of the Cafiero's front stoop.

Sonny's Sign Fades Away

At the corner of Union and Hicks, on other side of the BQE from Carroll Gardens, has long sat a little corner store without a sign but known locally as Sonny and Nancy's. It's always been a bare-bones, old-school place. There are pictures of the old Columbia Street on the wall, before it was wiped away by the waterfront's decline and a big dig along Columbia that killed commerce. There a case of cigars on the right hand wall. Old Italian guys hang out there for hours, and people who aren't old Italian guys aren't encouraged to linger.

Nancy is still there behind the counter. Sonny passed away a few years ago. To tell the truth, I found him an intimidating presence, blustery and vaguely menacing. I got the feeling he was some sort of unofficial mayor of the block. But others in the neighborhood obviously respected him.

For many years, the side of the building was adorned with a large, plastic banner that proclaimed the Sonny and Nancy's was "home to four million-dollar lotto winners." Over time, as the sun beat down on Hicks Street, the wording faded. For the past year, the poster has gone completely white, the letters disappearing from the scene just as surely as Sonny had. I often wondered why the sign was allowed to deteriorate that way.

Yesterday, I was walking by and saw that the sign had been taken down for good. It was being replaced by Old Brooklyn Wine & Liquor Co., a new wine shop down the block. Sorry, Sonny.

***

(Note: There seems to be some understanding about my post in certain corners. Sonny & Nancy's shop is still there as always; just the sign advertising the lotto winners has gone.)

Some Stuff About New Yorkers Flipping Out

Village resident railed against the evil that is NYU, which wants to squash Second Avenue's longstanding Met Food by tripling the rent. One resident yelled, "Are you a real estate company or a university?" That's what we all wonder.

Brooklynites expressed their fury last night that Bruce Ratner ("Liar," "Con Artist," "Vampire") was being honored at a gala by the Brooklyn Museum.

Bloomberg's Parks Department is making sure there won't be a second Tompkins Square riot on its watch.

(Priceless photo courtesy of Brit in Brooklyn. Looks like a '60s shot, huh?)

Meet Big Black: Clarett's New Carroll Gardens "Mausoleum"

Carroll Gardeners met their new neighbor—known as 340 Court Street and coming to you courtesy of developers The Clarett Group and architects Rogers Marvel—and guess what? They didn't like it.

The Rogers Marvel design (Rob Rogers himself was on hand, as well as Clarett's David Hollander) runs 70-feet high and comes right up to the sidewalk on Court. That is, it's 70 feet without the "mechanicals"; we'll get to those later. It has two setbacks of 5 feet, one occurring around the 50-foot mark (where the current zoning law requires builders to have a setback), the other happening at 60 feet. The overall design will feature six brownstone-like townhouses on the Sackett Street side, four on the Union Street side. Parts of the bigger building appeared in the rendering to kind of flow over the roofs of some of the townhouses, like cement lava. The underground parking, which will serve 72 vehicles, will have its entrance and exit on the Sackett Street side, just a few feet from Court. The main entrance of the place, which will feature apartments as big as four-bedrooms, will be on Union.

The townhouses on Sackett looked all right to me, fairly in harmony with the street; the ones on Union not so much. But they will likely not be the issue with the neighborhood organizations. No, that honor will go to the big, boxy, black thing that will sit on Court like a giant outdoor barbeque pit. (Sorry about the quality of the picture; it's a shot of a film projection.) One speaker in the audience called it a "mausoleum." Others signified the color of the building was depressing. Rogers said the substance used was a kind of "fabricated cement board" meant to simulate stone (whatever that means), and commented that it was a "lively material." Since Rogers Marvel did seem to have made a thorough study on the neighborhood (based on their film presentation), it did seem an odd choice of color and material. I don't know of any other buildings on Court Street of that color or gloomy appearance.

The height, of course, bothered many. Clarett signified (as you knew they would) that they could have built much higher, but didn't out of consideration for the area. They also made a comment (that made no sense to me) that they chose to have the building come up to the lip of the sidewalk so that it wouldn't appear monolithic. To my eyes, they've achieved the opposite effect.

I almost feel sorry for developers and architects at these sort of public gatherings, because they're up there completely exposed and the audience usually lets them have it with both barrels. But then they start spewing deceitful bilge and that sympathy evaporates. Take those "mechanicals," which can include a variety of roof objects, such as air-conditioning units, elevator towers and bulkheads. These are allowed by law. But development-watchers known bulkheads can be monstrously big and awfully ugly. An audience member asked how tall the bulkheads would be. Rogers actually replied "No taller than they need to be." My God!! How's that for a response to set a crowd against you? Pressed with a few more questions, he admitted some with be 10 feet and others 14 feet. So that's effectively an 84-foot-tall building, not a 70-foot one.

It's funny. Rogers began his film presentation with a survey at Rogers Marvel's other projects around Brooklyn. Many of the previous works involved the incorporation of old structures with new building, including undertakings at Pratt and on State Street. Some were quite impressive and attractive. The Court Street building was by far the worst of the creations on view.

It's Moses All Over Again

This paragraph in the Tom Robbins article in the current Village Voice got me thinking:

Essentially, current buildings-department regulations create a race between aggrieved citizens and corner-cutting developers: Neighbors have to muster all their energy to stop illegal work, while builders try to outrun them, getting foundations in the ground and walls up before anyone throws a red flag. Then the developers' lawyers go to work, arguing that so much money has already been expended that civic decency should allow them to continue.

That argument—"You can't stop me now! I've already done so much!"—sounded familiar. What rapscallion had used it in the past? I turned to me copy of Robert Caro's biography of urban planner and public scourge Robert Moses, "The Power Broker." Sure enough, on page 219:

[Moses had] the insight of a political genius, that physical development would help rather than hurt his cause—the risk had been magnificently justified. And he had understood the significance of that justification. Once you did something physically, it was very hard for ever a judge to undo it. If judges, who had to submit themselves to the decision of the electorate only infrequently, where thus hogtied by the physical beginning of a project, how much more so would be public officials who had to stand for re-election year by year?... Once you physically began a project, there would always be some way found of obtaining the money to complete it. "Once you sink that first stake," he would often say, "they'll never make you pull it up."

Robert Moses. Role model to today's developers.

Hot Tongue Is Hot

Checking back in at Eisenberg's Sandwich Shop—where the #9 sandwich, "The Spitzer," (hot tongue on rye), has been on offer since our former Governor landed in the soup—I was a big surprised to see the sign and sandwich still in evidence. Haven't we moved on to the next news cycle by now?

I inquired. Apparently the sandwich is "very popular," according to the staff. Hm. Maybe some good can come out of this mess after all.

"Chow" Shines Again

As loathe as I am to say anything good about the business that took the place of Second Avenue's late great Chop Suey joint Jade Mountain—as heartbreaking a closure as any this blogger has ever had to face—well, here I go. I'm going to say something good. A couple things, actually.

First and foremost, the bar, called Shoolbred's, has kept Jade Mountain's iconic Chop Suey/Chow Mein sign hanging, and, what's more, kept it lit—at least the half of it that lit during the last days of Jade Mountain's life. Second, Shoolbred's has replaced the great Jade Mountain neon sign with an almost equally great neon sign saying Shoolbred's. Look at it. You've gotta admit, if someone told you that sign was 50 years old, you'd think it was fantastic.

Additionally, the new bar has a weird and wonderful New York provenance. It's co-owned by William Ivey Long, a longtime Broadway costume designer and a true New York eccentric. (Read this profile.) Long collects houses, mainly down in the Carolinas, and many of the antiques in the bar are from his several homes down there. And the name of the place isn't a goof. It's the last name of Long's Scottish grandfather. Not a bad selection of scotch, either.

All that taken into consideration, I have decided not to boycott the place. Just a hunch, but the owners seem like the kind of guys who would have actually appreciated Jade Mountain.

Some Stuff That's Interesting, and One to Make Your Blood Boil

Florent will not go into that goodnight quietly, but in singularly quirky fashion.

Soil is coming to the High Line.

Harlem City Council Member Inez Dickens is my new hero. Anyone who pisses off Bloomberg rates in my book.

Read this article in the Village Voice and then tell me Bloomberg, Doctoroff and Lancaster aren't enemies of the people.

One Day Before the Clarett Showdown, 340 Court Starts A-Comin' Down

Not sure what it says about tomorrow's meet between the Clarett Group and the good people of Carroll Gardens over the fate of the property known as 340 Court Street—perhaps it says nothing—but bright and early this morning, said real estate titans were busy tearing down the International Longshoreman's Association building on that site, brick by off-white brick. Funny timing.

The Cat backhoes were working feverishly high atop the boxy structure at the corner of Union and Court, seemingly ensuring that the modernist piece of architecture would surely be gone in a matter of weeks.

On Thursday at 7 PM, Clarett will present their plans for what they believe will be a bee-yootiful, 7-story wonderment, with setbacks (maybe like this), underground parking and room for ground-level retail. The sure-to-be-capacity crowd will no doubt be at the ready with bugged-out eyes in their heads and ripe tomatoes in their fists.

The meeting will be at 7 PM at P.S. 58 Carroll School, 330 Smith Street.

Savior of St. Savior's

By some ridiculous miracle, St. Saviour Church of Maspeth, Queens, is going to be saved.

I confess that I long ago consigned this 161-year-old, unlandmarked Richard Upjohn country church to the dustbin of history. Months and months of outcry from citizens and the media seemed to do little to inspire local politicians or City Hall or the Landmarks Commission to lift a finger to stop the forces of development that wanted to steamroll this structure into the dusty ground.

According to the The Daily News, preservationists somehow came to an understanding with Tomer Dafna of Maspeth Development LLC, which owns the property bounded by 58th St., 57th Road, Rust St. and 57th Drive, where the church has long sat. The church and its tower will be either hauled a few blocks down Rust Street to a site owned by Phil Galasso, president of the Maspeth Industrial Development Corp., or taken apart and reassembled on the same site. It will stay there until it reaches its final destination to be at All Faiths Cemetery in Middle Village.

The preservationists efforts were not enough to save the trees (many between 60 and 100 years old), a parsonage and a meeting hall which were recently leveled.

Copious praise should go to the blog Queens Crap, which never stop hounding the people who would have demolished the church, and whose coverage of the story was unflagging.

It's a good outcome, but also depressing one, since it took years and untold sweat and toil and hollering to get a thing done, the rightness of which should have been recognized immediately.

What I Learned at Coney This Weekend

I can order Mozzarepa, "A combination of sweet ground corn and Mozzarella cheese."

This slightly horrifying-sounding treat is apparently a variation on the Columbian arepa. The "sweet ground corn" are probably better described as cornmeal cakes. So the thing is sort of like a grilled-cheese sandwich, only different.

At amusements parks and street fairs, you can order food you can't get anywhere else, and wouldn't even think of eating anywhere else. Corn dogs, foot-long hot dogs, funnel cakes, candy apples, cotton candy, sno-cones. Every food is a carnival act, a stunt, a gimmick. The food must be part of the fun. No prosaic snacks. Deep-fried this and caramel-dipped that and frozen the other. Food shaped like clouds, and snowballs and rockets. Coney Island food.

Ouroussoff Sounds Off

There's a must-read piece in the New York Times today by Nicholai Ouroussoff, addressing the coming battle over St. Vincent's plan to tear down several buildings within the Greenwich Village Historic District in order to throw up a couple very tall towers, one to house the hospital itself, one chock full of co-ops.

Here are a few tastes:

Sadly, the hospital’s application reflects the pernicious but prevalent notion that any single building that is not a major historical landmark — or stands outside the historical mainstream — is unworthy of our protection. Pursue that logic to its conclusion, and you replace genuine urban history with a watered-down substitute. It’s historical censorship....

In patronizing fashion, hospital officials have suggested that preservationists are choosing buildings over lives, as if the two were in direct opposition. This is the kind of developer’s cant that is ruining our city. The addition of up to 400 co-op apartments is about money, not saving lives. There are plenty of other ways that the hospital could upgrade its facilities....

...the O’Toole Building is part of a complex historical narrative in which competing values are always jostling for attention. This is not simply a question of losing a building; it’s about masking those complexities and reducing New York history to a caricature. Ultimately, it’s a form of collective amnesia.

At St. Vincent’s, the damage is likely to be only compounded by the design of these new co-op buildings, a sentimental faux version of the past.

If we continue down this path, we’ll end up with the urban equivalent of a patient on meds: safe, numb, soulless. Is this choosing lives?

Nice to see someone at the Times come out swinging. The blogs and the tabloids can't do all the work.

Another Diner Goes Down

The Daily News reports that the Cheyenne Diner, the 68-year-old eatery at Ninth and W. 33rd, will shut its doors on Sunday. Ironically, the place's landlord is the Skylight Diner down the street. George Papas, owner of the Skylight, said he plans a nine-story building housing 13 one- and two-bedroom apartments. Spiros Kasimis, a fellow Greek-American, is the owner of the Cheyenne.

The Cheyenne will follow the Moondance and the Market down to death (though there are reports that the Market will return.) NYC gets less noir by the minute.

Clarett's Day in Court

The Clarett Group plans to finally unveil their plans this Thursday for 340 Court Street, which promises to be the most controversial Carroll Gardens address since 360 Smith. Team Clarett owns the big 'ol chunk of land at Court and Union where the International Longshoreman's Association still stands (for now), and plans to erect a seven-story, 70-foot building on the spot. As the nifty illustration above shows, the building will have a couple setbacks, as well as a national retailer in the ground floor space and parking spaces under the building. It will easily be the tallest, biggest thing in the area (not counting certain church steeples.) Since, under current zoning, they have the right to build as high as 20 stories, I guess we should count our blessings, but still...

I plan to be there, because, well, I just hate progress and change! Not in MY Backyard—that's what I say! This isn't the way things were done back in my native Kansas!

But seriously, I'm going to check it out, if only to see what Clarett's got in mind. The meeting will be at 7 PM at P.S. 58 Carroll School, 330 Smith Street.

(Thanks to Gowanus Lounge for the picture)

Wooden Phone Booth Sighting: Fedora

Haven't spotted one of these in a while. The wooden phone book at the half-century-old Fedora Restaurant in the West Village sits just to the left as you enter the joint. This particular booth may be singular in the City in that it contains an actual working rotary pay phone. That's right, folks. Your credit cards and phone cards won't work in this baby!


Previous Wooden Phone Booth Sightings:
Old Town Bar
Capsouto Freres
Sam's

Throwing Trash Away Is Fun at Astroland