Trader Joe's has fixed the clock!
Word comes to Lost City from a watchful reader that the Brooklyn branch of the hipster supermarket has finally mended the double-sided clock on the outside corner of the old Independence Bank Building which Joe's calls home. It had stopped working some after Independence moved out.
A Joe's spokesman had said earlier that he expected it to be running by the end of October. And here it is Oct. 31 and it's running!
Many, including yours truly, were pleased with the recent redesign of the House of Pizza and Calzone on Union Street in Brooklyn. It looks completely different from what it was, but the look is an attractive, tradition-conscious reimagining of the space.
What a disappointment, then, that the pizzeria's owner, Gino Vitale, didn't bring the same sense of style and appropriateness to the faux-Italianate piece of crapitecture he's erecting at 91, 93, 95, 97 and 99 King Street, corner of Richards Street, in Red Hook (below). According to a article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle that reads like an advertisement (a quote from the broker saying the building is beautiful and unique? Come on!), Vitale based the five single-family townhouses on carriage houses he saw during a recent trip in Italy. A guess a few arches makes for a palazzo, huh?
Granted, this creation of Vitale's (he designs everything he builds) is a notch about the usual callous pile of bricks that we see these days. But it's also more vulgar, because those pile of bricks don't pretend to be grand or artistic. They're just crap. He's built fancy crap and is calling it gold.
The one-to-three bedroom homes are going for $750,000 to $1.3 million. Buyers can enjoy "skylight-lit living areas and a full package of high-end appliances." Vitale thinks they'd be great for artists, given the high ceilings and large windows. He must mean established artists. What other artists have a mil sitting in the bank?
The worse news? "Vitale...plans 20 more similar carriage house-style homes."
Air travelers who follow the laws of Kashrut need not suffer at John F. Kennedy airport. In one terminal, there is a long row of kosher vending machines called Kosher Cafe. The delicacies inside—onion rings, french fried, vegetable cutlet, knish, extra cheese pizza—are called "Hot Nosh" with the cheeky subtitle of "24/6." (Not 24/7, because the Sabbath must be observed!) As that tabloid witch, Cindy Adams, says: Only in New York.
Cafe Un Deux Trois's new landlord, who apparently thinks Times Square is a posh, subtle place, is insisting that the longstanding eatery take down its classic signage in favor of a more subdued frontage.
The "Cafe 123" sign (seen below in happier times) that used to hang out front has already been removed, replaced by a sad little black and white cloth banner. The remainder of the glorious white-bulb signs that festoon the facade will follow it into oblivion. The restaurant owner told Lost City that there's nothing he can do about it; the landlord is adamant.
This is deeply unfortunate. The Cafe Un Deux Trois signage was a joy to behold, and one of the classiest, New York-iest day-for-night jobs in the district. Only an ignoramus would consider the signs vulgar.
The owner said he plans to sells the signs on eBay soon. So signage fans better keep an eye out. 
The New York Sun passed into New York newspaper history almost a month ago, but a reminder of its six-year existence remains on 43rd Street near Broadway.
It's kind of sad to see this lonely newsbox sitting there, never to be refilled. And there's still a newspaper inside, unbought! (Does that now rank as a collector's item?) The paper, however, isn't the Sun's last edition, which was Sept. 30. Strangely, it's the July 7 edition. Can't figure that one. Remember July 7? Lehman Brothers still existed. Our country still had an ostensibly sound financial system. And no one outside Alaska had heard of Sarah Palin. Happier times.
Ratner's had to go. I understand that. It was no longer a viable proposition. It served a public that no longer made the area its stomping ground. It was a relic.
But did it have to be replaced by a Sleepy's? I mean, the indignity. What was once arguably the Lower East Side's oldest and most famous kosher restaurant is now a mattress showroom, one link in a chain with a horribly garish red sign, an insipid mascot of a drowsy man in nightcap and nightgown, and the bizarre motto "The Mattress Professionals." (What does that mean exactly?)
I scanned the store to spy traces of the grand old dairy restaurant, but there's little left. The kitchen was gutted to make more room for Sealy and Simmons. The tiles outside the glass door are still obviously those of Ratner's, though heavily worn down. And there are decorative half-circle shapes were part of the Ratner's interior design. But that's it.
Ratner's opened in 1904 and had a run of 98 years, closing in 2002. The famous neon sign came down in 2004. (Anyone know where it is?) It was founded by Jacob Harmatz and his brother-in-law Alex Ratner on Pitt Street. To decide whose name would appear on the sign outside, they flipped a coin. Ratner won. It was a bad toss, because Ratner got out in 1918 and moved to California, and the Harmatz's ran it ever since. That same year, the eatery moved to Delancey. Harmatz's son, Harold took over the business in the mid-1950s; he worked there until it closed. His son Robert made a last-ditch effort to make the place hip by opening the hideaway bar Lansky's Lounge in the back. This irked many regulars, because the bar did not keep kosher hours.
Barley mushroom soup, perogies, blintzes, vegetarian chopped liver and the onion rolls were among the treasured specialties. Like Katz's still is, Ratner's was once a political whistle stop, a place for a photo op of a mayoral hopeful biting into a blintz. Every famous Jewish comedian there was ate there, from Groucho Marx to Fanny Brice. Certain waiters worked the floors for decades.
For one of the last cinematic glimpses of Ratner's, check out 2000's "The Boiler Room." Ron Rifkin and Giovanni Ribisi have brunch there. And there's a nice old picture of the interior here. 
HSBC is currently running a revoltingly stupid ad in the subways.
The ad pictures three containers of bottled water. One is labeled "Healthy," the second "Fashionable," the third "Wasteful." The tag line below reads "Different values make the world a richer place."
No, fuckers. The first two ideas make the company who makes the bottled water a richer place—not the world. The third idea actually makes the world a better place.
No doubt the bank thinks the ad wonderfully broad-minded. But it comes off as a stealth, wolf-in-sheep's-clothing job, disguising selfish, capitalistic behavior as just another valid "choice." Different, but not wrong. And besides, who looks to banks these day for exercises in moral relativism? 
This advertising juxtaposition at the corner of Rivington and Essex is quite interesting, culturally. It basically represents a clash of the Old Lower East Side and the New Lower East Side.
At the bottom, you have an aged painted ad for Schapiro's Kosher Wine, an old concern which until recently had a small plant on Rivington, providing sweet ritual wine to the observant Jews that once lived in the area. The Red Stripe ad, meanwhile, is cloth and relatively new, the "Hooray Beer" campaign being of this decade. Schapiro was/is all about service to Kosher laws. Red Stripe is all about having fun. Schapiro never cared about image, only that it was trusted by its consumer base. Red Stripe's ad is about as self-consciously hip as you can get, perfectly catering toward the demographic who will drink something based on an appreciably ironic tag line.
I doubt the Schapiro people have ever heard of irony.
There has been a active and dramatic aftermath to Bloomberg and Quinn's bum's rush of the third-term law through a deeply divided City Council, and none of the news speaks well of the action. (Can anything speak of the action?) Here are some select articles:
The gallery heckled City Council members as they voted for the the term limits bill. Councilman Tony Avella, as usual, spoke the truth. [The Daily News]
The battle over term limits now goes to court, with at least two suits challenging the motion, required further expenditure of the City's time and energies during a time of crisis. [NY Times]
Turncoat Councilman David Yassky tries to explain himself, unsuccessfully. [City Room]
The Council other last-minute vote-changer, Darlene Mealy, threw up twice before voting "yes" and they got in a car crash. Karma?
Clyde Haberman offers a stinging appraisal of what Bloomberg's victory means for his legacy. [NY Times]
Nobody wants to read Bloomberg's new book now. [NY Times]
Yesterday was the final day of the season for the Prospect Park carousel. The folks who run it had it decked out as a rotating haunted house for the month, in honor the Halloween it will not see. Instead of the usual songlist of 19th-century favorites, the accompanying music ranged from "The Monster Mash" to the themes from "The Addams Family" and "The Munsters" to the soundtracks from "Vertigo," "The Exorcist" and (oddly) "Twin Peaks." The eyes in the mummy's head moved.
My brother-in-law was in for the weekend. We were seeing a show in the East Village and I wanted to give him a quintessential New York dining experience. A natural choice came to mind: Katz's. No place is like Katz's. No place look like it, eats like it or has an even remotely similar payment system. So Katz's it was.
We passed by it at 5:30 PM and took a peek. Open and ready for business. But there was plenty of time, so we went strolling through the Lower East Side, sightseeing. We then returned to to Katz's at 6 PM, where the ticket-taker stopped us at the door. "Private party tonight."
What? A private party at Katz's? Sorry, but this is not right. Katz's is all about democracy. A big, sprawling place that could fit the population of a small village and where everyone is welcome and treated the same. It's very ambiance reeks of "the people." It should never be roped off for the benefit of some moneyed toffs. It's just wrong.
No idea what the even was. Maybe a City Council third-term victory party.
The colors haven't really started to turn in Central Park yet. But this one tree is a harbinger of what's to come. It should have some company by next week.
You've all seen a show in Central Park as a member of the Delacorte audience. This is a duck's point of view of the proceeding.
We probably make for a pretty good show for the ducks.
One thing that drives my crazy are New York businesses that advertise themselves as having been founded in some distant year, but show no signs of being old and are staffed by people who know nothing of the company's history.
There are two such places—side by side—on an otherwise anonymous block of Broadway between 38th and 39th. Peter's Flowers, founded in 1937. And Harrie's Bakery, there since 1948. Either of these names ring a bell?
They're both part of a sort of urban strip mall on that block. The construction looks like it was built in the '60s. Now, call me a stickler, but I say that if you're going to go around boasting about your age, you better have some evidence of your oldness on the walls inside. Old photos, newspaper clippings, anything. But there's nary a thing hung up to prove Peter's and Harrie's bonafides. I asked clerks and got a bunch of shrugs. I can find nothing on the internet about either business, except that Harrie's serves a bad breakfast sandwich. (I can attest to that.)
It's very possible that each business began elsewhere and subsequently moved to their present location. But I want proof. Because it's equally possible that the owners slapped those dates on the awning to draw in nostalgia-loving saps like me.
And "Harrie's"? What kind of spelling is that?
Very bright and bouncy. Very '70s. On Sixth Avenue, in Midtown.
The proprietors of New York Beads Inc. actually own another store names Beads on Fifth (!). But the latter hasn't nearly as interesting a sign. I am in love with the text on their website (spelling mistake and grammatical weirdness all intact): "Over 13 years of Experience in Beads industry, we have a one-stop shop for all Beads Accessories like Castings, Findings, and Trimmings etc. Just to name few, our friendly staff will help guide and service customers. We welcome Amature beaders as well professional beaders to come to our store and experience our friendly environment."
As recently as two weeks ago, there was a find old New York newsstand here at the northwest corner of 79th and Broadway. Now: gone. The construction can only mean one thing: Cemusa.
And the clueless Spanish company is still mangling New York street names on their bus shelters.
James J. Walker. William O'Dwyer. William Magear Tweed. Michael Bloomberg.
Though hardly a sentimentalist about New York history, in one way Bloomberg perfectly embodies one great old New York tradition: corruption at the highest levels of government. (And that's the sunniest outlook I can take on this whole thing.)
I have thrown in a picture of Judge Crater, below, just for fun.
The City Council will vote on whether or now to tack on a third term to the current term-limits law will occur in an hour. I've posted enough about how I feel about this political game. Just wanted to link to an article in today's New York Times that I feel is a particularly apt. Take a look.
I swung by Chumley's the other night to see what was doing. Answer: nothing much. Doesn't look like anything's been done since the Times wrote an update on the old speakeasy back in August. The dispiriting new cinder-block facade looks to be at the same state of construction it was them. I guess the fact that people are still trying to resurrect the place at all after all this time is a sign of something hopeful.
Meanwhile, people are still discovering that the bar is closed and dismantled. A guy walking by me said, "Chumley's is gone? Man, that sucks. Gone? Wow. What a great place. That really sucks. I can't believe Chumley's is gone. That really sucks." Yeah. That about says it.
After a long, bitter battle, Bay Ridge's famous "Green Church" is gone. A demolition crew laid it low on Tuesday, Oct. 20, ending its 109-year-old life and robbing Bay Ridge of one it few true architectural treasures.
The green-serpentine stone-encased house of worship was formally called the Bay Ridge United Methodist Church. It was the congregation that wanted the building destroyed, sparking a long, tortured struggle with the surrounding community and preservationists. The church members insisted the decaying building was a burden, and would cost millions to repair—millions they didn't have. Activists suspected the structure was more sound than the congregation let on. The argument went back in forth for months. City Councilman Vincent Gentile led a push to preserve the church, but to no avail. The church and its pastor kept talking about needing to put their spiritual mission first, and leaving the building behind. I can see their point, but the decision still seems short-sighted. A community needs many things, including inspiring things to look at.
A smaller church will be built on the site—the corner of Fourth and Ovington avenues—along with the inevitable co-op building. My guess is no one will look at the high-rise and consider it evidence that God exists.
Below, a look at what was lost.
This post is somewhat thematically linked to the previous item, in that it shines a light on a detail lending a little touch of Europe in the middle of Manhattan. The Avignone Chemists on Bleecker Street advertises its presence with the help of a neon green cross. Those crosses are common sites in Paris and Rome, where they are the well-recognized symbol of a pharmacy. Avignone must have gone to a lot of bother to get one. Nice gesture.
Whoever built the 53rd Street/5th Avenue subway station must have been a fan of the London underground. Those who have been to the home of Big Ben and ridden the Tube will recognize the diagonal stream of frames advertisements—often advertising the same thing over and over again—as a characteristic feature of the London subway system. The 53rd Street stop is the only place where I've seen this sort of ad technique deployed. Every time I take that escalator from the V train platform to the street, I think of the West End.
It's not often I bestow a "Good Sign" designation on something of recent vintage. But there's something about this new one in the Village that just says New York, doesn't it? "New York Hot Dog & Coffee." That's what you want sometimes, isn't it? And so bluntly put, too. Looks particularly good at night, when a dog and a cuppa Joe might the only thing to save your sorry soul.
Thursday will be the day that the lights go out in Gotham. Boss Bloomberg and Captain Quinn (Be patient with me; I'm trying out derogatory names) are listening to NO ONE on this one. Should God, the Pope and Warren Buffett tell them they're doing evil, they'd plow forward. Mephistopheles, after all, is waiting in the back room with a pen dipped in blood. And he does NOT like to be kept waiting. From City Room:
Council Sets Term Limits Vote for Thursday
By Sewell Chan AND Fernanda Santos
The City Council has scheduled a Thursday vote on a bill that would extend term limits to allow Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and other city officials to seek a third term in office, nullifying the outcome of two public referendums, in 1993 and 1996, that imposed term limits.
The scheduling of the vote came amid a flurry of recent developments that suggested that public opinion might be turning against the mayor. A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday morning found that 89 percent of city voters believe that any changes to term limits should be decided by referendum; that 51 percent of voters oppose extending term limits altogether, even if it meant that they could elect Mayor Bloomberg to a third term; and that nonetheless, voters approve of the job that the mayor has been doing by 75 percent to 20 percent.
The developments raised questions about whether the Council’s speaker, Christine C. Quinn, would go forward with a vote on Thursday, as she had originally planned. In scheduling the vote, Ms. Quinn may be signaling that she believes she has enough votes in the 51-member to approve the measure. Then again, both sides continued on Tuesday to frantically lobby undecided lawmakers like Councilman James Sanders Jr.
The Governmental Operations Committee, whose chairman, Councilman Simcha Felder of Brooklyn, is a close ally of Ms. Quinn and Mr. Bloomberg, is now scheduled to meet at 10 a.m. on Thursday. If the committee approves the bill, it will be taken up by the full Council at its 1:30 p.m. meeting that day.
Over 19 and a half hours of hearings on Thursday and Friday, the committee heard testimony on two bills: the mayor’s and an alternative, sponsored by Councilman Bill de Blasio and Councilwoman Letitia James, that would require a public referendum on term limits.
But an amended notice posted on the Council’s bulletin board at City Hall showed that only the mayor’s bill will be voted on when the committee meets.
The council members have five sponsors: Mr. Felder, the committee’s chairman; Councilmen Domenic M. Recchia Jr. and Kendall Stewart, also of Brooklyn; Leroy G. Comrie Jr. of Queens; and G. Oliver Koppell of the Bronx. All are Democrats. (It is customary for the committee chairman to be a sponsor of a bill initiated by the mayor; Mr. Felder has not stated his position on the bill.)
Eric J. Kuo, a spokesman for Mr. Felder, who heads the committee, said that the de Blasio-James bill “will not be considered for a vote at this time.”
Also on Tuesday afternoon, Councilman James S. Oddo of Staten Island, who leads the three-member Republican minority on the Council, came out against the bill to extend term limits, known formally as Introduction 845-A. Mr. Oddo said in a statement:
After almost 20 hours of testimony, many conversations with colleagues, discussions with my constituents, and much personal reflection, I have decided to vote “no” on Intro. 845-A. “Process” does matter. Sometimes process matters a lot. In this case, process is not simply a philosophical exercise or some ethereal meandering; it is the essence of democracy. I recognize that honorable people can differ on this question and that I have come down on a different side than many friends and colleagues who I believe would be very effective continuing to serve their communities for a third term. I have not come to this decision lightly, but for me it is the right way to vote. As a Staten Islander, I vividly recall that in 1993, 65 percent of my home borough voted in favor of secession, only to have city and state political leaders ignore our will as expressed through our vote. I cannot vote in favor of a plan that would do the same.
The term limits debate has divided the Council — and, arguably, the public — like few other issues in recent memory. With the first round of voting on term limits only two days away, both sides continued to press their case.
Opponents of the plan — including nearly all of the city’s good-government groups — have argued that no matter what voters think of term limits or of Mayor Bloomberg, the issue must be placed before the voters, who twice approved limiting officials’ time in office to two four-year terms. The opponents note that the mayor and the Council could summon a charter revision commission, which could place the matter for a public vote in a special election early next year.
Proponents of the plan — including several labor leaders who support Mr. Bloomberg, as well as charitable and educational groups that have benefited from his personal largess — point to the mayor’s approval ratings, which are near their record high (about 75 percent), and argue that his financial expertise is more vital now than ever as the city faces the economic downturn and a sharp drop in revenue. A special election would be costly and impractical, they say.
A regular reader of Lost City took the write City Hall about the term limits brouhaha. In response, she was e-mailed a form letter from Boss Bloomberg himself (not that he actually wrote it or anything) which is interesting in its mealy-mouthed disingenuousness. Here it is. See if you can find any section where it seems like Bloomberg actually believes what he is saying. (Boldfaces are particularly egregious examples of bullshit. My comments are in CAPS and brackets.)
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts about term limits.
In recent weeks and months, I've listened to many different New Yorkers with lots of different opinions on the issue of term limits. But as Wall Street has entered its worst crisis since the Great Depression, and our economic situation has become increasingly unstable and worrisome, the question for me has become far less about the theoretical and much more about the practical. And that means asking a very basic question: Is it in the best interests of the City to give voters more choices in next year's election? [BLOOMBERG WELL KNOWS THAT HIS INSERTION INTO THE ELECTION WILL RESULT IN NO CHOICE WHATEVER FOR THE ELECTORATE. HIS VAST WAR CHEST WILL SEE TO THAT.]
I understand that people voted for a two-term limit, and altering their verdict is not something that should be done lightly. [ONLY WHEN HE RAN OUT OF OTHER WAYS TO STAY IN POWER, HE MEANS.] The City Council - a democratically elected representative body - has the legal authority to change the law, and if it does so [THE COUNCIL WOULD NOT BE CONSIDERING THE QUESTION IS BLOOMBERG HADN'T FORCED THE ISSUE. AND WHAT'S MORE DEMOCRATIC: THE ELECTED COUNCIL, WHICH REPRESENTS CITIZENS, OR A REFERENDUM WHICH TALLIES THE VOTES OF EVERY SINGLE CITIZEN], the final verdict would remain with the City's voters. On Election Day, it will be up to the people to decide which candidates have earned [READ: "BOUGHT"] their vote, and which have not.
I've always supported term limits, and I continue to do so. [WTF? I MEAN, SERIOUSLY: WTF!!!!!] But I also don't want to walk away from a city I feel I can help lead through these tough times. [SO DON'T WALK AWAY, JERK! SERVE IT IN OTHER WAYS! DO YOU HAVE TO BE MAYOR TO SERVE YOUR CITY?] If the Council passes an extension of the term limits law from two to three terms, I plan to ask New Yorkers [WHOM YOU JUST DEFIED BY OVERTURNING THE TERM LIMITS LAW] to look at my [LOUSY] record of independent [OR DEMOCRAT. OR REPUBLICAN. WHICH IS HE NOW?] leadership - and then to decide if I have earned a final term. [YOU MEAN "ADDITIONAL TERM." THIS IS YOUR FINAL TERM, GENIUS.] Whatever the Council decides, I'll remain focused on doing my job [I.E.-PULLING STRINGS AND TWISTING ARMS TO OVERTURN TERM LIMITS] and finishing this term as I began it: by working day and night for New Yorkers [THE ONES WHO TOLD YOU TO GET OUT AFTER TWO TERMS, YOU MEAN?] and the City I love [TO RULE].
Thanks again for taking the time to write.
Sincerely,
Michael R. Bloomberg
Mayor
Lost City will be keeping you abreast of the daily onslaught of Bloomberg Power Grab news every day until the plutocrat STEPS OFF!
Ron Lauder just won't keep out of it.
Public polls are turning against the mayor's wish to stay on. Oh, but wait! I forgot—what the public wants doesn't matter.
Not every labor group supports Boss Bloomberg.
Speaker
Christine Quinn, Bloomberg's partner in crime, sensing they are losing the battle, may delay the term limit vote. Hey, better to delay it than lose, right Christie? That's the way to serve democracy!
I think it's time to point out that Quinn is easily Bloomie's match in duplicity, self-interest and back-room dealing. There's no call for justice or decent governance that will penetrate her eardrum. She's hand-in-hand with Mike on the term limits scheme. She's Buckingham to his Richard III. But she better watch out. Remember what Richard did to Buckingham when he ceased being useful.
And with that, please join me in a slightly revised verse of Dylan's "Quinn the Eskimo":
I like to do what the people ask,
If it keeps my slush fund sweet,
But clearing out after two terms,
It ain't my cup of meat.
Everybody best be 'neath my thumb,
Or I'll push them 'neath a bus,
'Cause when Mike and I say "Third term or die!",
All the pigeons gonna run to us.
You stay without, I'll stay within,
You'll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn.
A councilman's meow and a billionaire's moo,
I recognize 'em all,
Just tell me where your wallet hurts,
And Mike'll make the proper call.
Nobody will get no sleep,
While I'm standing on their toes,
But when Quinn the Politico gets here,
Everyone's will just done froze.
You stay without, I'll stay within,
You'll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn.
In the recent barrage of press concerning the fate of the former Tin Pan Alley buildings at 47-55 W. 28th Street, there has been some debate as to whether George Gershwin began his career as a song plugger at Jerome H. Remick & Co when the music publisher was on that street, or later when Remick moved uptown.
David Freeland, a music writer who's writing a book that partly concerns Tin Pan Alley, told the Times' City Room that he "believes Gershwin did not work at the company until after it had moved uptown."
A regular reader wrote into Lost City calling this assertion balderdash, and pointed to the Warner Chappell Music website. Warner absorbed Remick long ago, and publishes a history of the publishing house on the site. Part of it runs thusly:
In 1914 Jerome H. Remick and Company, now in a brownstone walk-up on West 28th Street, began hiring song pluggers to sell their tunes to performers.
However, there was always a musical salesman left on the premises to demonstrate songs in the shop and George Gershwin, becoming that type demonstrator, entered the song plugging field when he joined Remick in 1914. While at Remick, Gershwin composed many songs, hoping they would be published. He left Remick shortly after they finally published one entitled "Rialto Ripples" in 1917, with a lyric by Will Donaldson.
Politicians criticize Bloomberg for coercing nonprofits he's given money to into supporting his power grab. As they should.
Bloomberg defends his leaning on nonprofits to boost his bid for a third term. Of course he does.
Bloomberg vs. Bloomberg, via YouTube.
Every billionaire in New York State is involved in the term limit fight. Enter Tom Golisano, solidly on the anti-Bloomberg side.
Bloomberg to play Iago in upcoming Heights Players production of "Othello" in Brooklyn.
Just kidding on that last one
For as long an anyone can remember, City histories have pointed to the Nederlander Theatre on 41st Street as having begun life as a theatre in 1921 and remaining one ever since, though under various names (the National, the Trafalgar, the Billy Rose).
But now that long-running hit "Rent" has cleared out and the theatre is gearing up for a big renovation to clear out all the faux-distressed design elements that were brought in 1996 to give the place an East Village feel, experts are finally discovering that the Nederlander used to be something else.
James A. Boese, a vice president for the Nederlander chain of nine Broadway theaters,
and the president of the League of Historic American Theatres, told the Star-Ledger that the he had uncovered documents that proved the building underwent a big alteration in 1920, and before that was a "3 sty nonfp (non-fireproof) brick Carpenter's shop and storage, club rooms, shower, apts and tennis court." "An estimated $175,000 conversion added the stagehouse, proscenium, mezzanine and other theatrical necessities, including the fire escape," wrote the Star-Ledger.
Carpenter's shop and club rooms? Talk about mixed use.
I met up with an associate last week who works in Times Square. We were talking about the broken economy. She pointed out the old Lehman Brothers building, which is now draped in neon proclaiming "Barclays" as the new occupant.
"Yeah, I knew about that," I said. She then pointed out the LED stock quote zipper running around the Morgan Stanley building. "And look at those numbers," she said. "What about them? That's been there for years," I said. "The prices used to be three numbers long," she replied. "Now they're all two."
Queens Crap alerts me to the disappearance of a City landmark that I never experienced, but know I would have loved—if only for its name, Frozen Cup, and its appearance, seen above.
The Jericho Turnpike business was in operation for more than 50 years. A developer will replace it with a Days Inn. My guess is it won't offer "Hard and Soft Ice Cream."
It is regrettable and infuriating that, in a time of political and economic insecurity, times in which anxiety and concern for the future are daily spiking in the average heart, the City at large is forced to channel its energy, resources and attention on the selfish needs of one crybaby billionaire's need for extended personal power.
Boss Bloomberg tells us he's selflessly going for a third term as mayor because the City, in a state of turmoil, needs his sober judgment and the comfort of a familiar face in City Hall. Yet he inflicts untold additional stress on the apparatus of government, not to mention countless civic institutions he's pressured to support him, to achieve this extra term. The time City Council and many private citizens spent last week examining his would-be power grab—the machinations of the New Yorker who has the least reasons to worry what would happen to him if he lost his job in today's climate—could have been spent addressing the City's economic woes.
Further evidence of the widespread corruption underpinning Boss Bloomberg's bid came in the New York Post today. Seems Mike, by some coincidence, decided to use his now-defunct slush fund last year to reward City Council members who will have a great say in whether the term limits extension sails through or goes down. Doesn't it feel like were living in the days of Tammany Hall again? Here's the piece:
Mayor Bloomberg showered cash on key City Council members with the power to kill a term-limits extension bill in the last year.
Members of the council's Government Operations Committee have received millions from Hizzoner's slush fund, a once-secret pot of taxpayer money the mayor doles out to favored lawmakers for their pet causes.
All the members are Democrats who will decide whether the change in term limits - which the mayor needs in order to run for a third term - goes before the council for a full vote.
Five members of the committee secured $3.1 million from the $5.3 million stash in Bloomberg's 2008 budget. Only three other council members received funds from the mayor in the last year. Two are Republicans, and the third, Councilman James Vacca, received a considerably smaller amount, $20,000, than the other beneficiaries.
Government Operations Committee chairman Simcha Felder (Brooklyn) received $1.9 million from the mayor's fund, far more than any of his council colleagues. He has received funds from Bloomberg's fund every year since 2003, in which time the allocations have doubled. It is widely believed Felder supports a term-limits change.
Fellow committee members Domenic Recchia, Helen Sears, Erik Dilan and Peter Vallone Jr. each received between $50,000 and $625,000 from the mayor's fund..
"I think it's obvious that Bloomberg was trying to curry favor here. What else are discretionary funds for?" said one councilman against extending term limits. "Term limits is the most important issue out there, period . . . I think this is one way he laid the groundwork."
Bloomberg's slush fund was discontinued in June, after The Post revealed the existence of a separate City Council slush fund. Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser said the funding handed out a year ago had no connection to today's term limits debate.
Meanwhile, the committee members were favored with some of the most generous handouts from Council Speaker Christine Quinn - Bloomberg's closest ally in the fight to extend term limits - in this year's budget.
Recchia saw his council funding soar 19 percent, Dilan's rose 14 percent, Larry Seabrook's 25 percent, and Inez Dickens' 20 percent. The average council member's funding rose only 9 percent this year.
All but Dickens - whose public stance on term limits is undecided - have said they'll vote yes on allowing incumbents to run for a third four-year term.
Vallone and Sears, who are undecided on term limits, didn't see their allocations spike. But they still collected a combined $1.5 million for their causes. Felder received $432,000, a 5 percent increase.
A Quinn spokesman said that when you take into account the entire $30.7 million funding pool, the allocations to committee members were "insignificant."
But some speculate it was part of a heavy-handed campaign to entice lawmakers to support a term-limits extension, the aggressiveness of which came to light last week as:
* Union brass have personally lobbied council members to support term limits. According to a source, some unions have met with the mayor's office in hopes of getting perks in exchange for their support.
* City-funded arts groups have also pressed city legislators. One member said she received "dozens" of calls from "groups I really respect."
* Committee chairmanships have been promised by Quinn to several council members - at least two of whom have been offered the finance chair in exchange for a yes vote.
* A councilwoman was "offered the world. . ..rec centers, parks, affordable housing and more discretionary money" in a meeting last week urging her to support term limits.
Political shuffling in the spring also raised eyebrows.
Sears, who has backed Bloomberg on hotbed isSues in the past, was appointed to the Government Operations committee in May, replacing term-extension foe Councilman Joe Addabo Jr.
In June, as Bloomberg mulled a third-term run, Felder abandoned his city comptroller aspirations - which, if limits are extended, may have put him in a tough race against incumbent Bill Thompson. The mayor then endorsed Felder for a state Senate run.
"[Felder] respects the mayor but he doesn't vote the way the mayor tells him to vote," Eric Kuo, the councilman's spokesman, said.
Mayor spokesman Loeser said "absolutely no quid pro quos have been offered," but said the mayor's office has met with "all kinds of people who we've worked with" to "make our case and get the votes we need to pass it."
From City Room's live coverage of the City Hall hearing on a change to the term limits law that would allow Bloomberg to run again, an account of purchased and coerced opinions being congratulated by the Mayor's flunkies for falling in line. Among the cowards: Peter Gelb, artistic director of the Met Opera.
"Mayor Bloomberg has always been a great champion of opera and of all the cultural activities of New York,” Mr. Gelb said. He joked that while "it’s no secret that Mayor Bloomberg finds opera slow at times," all "kidding aside, the mayor understands the vital role that arts institutions play in the lives of our citizens."
Mr. Gelb spoke of the Met’s efforts to "bring opera to the people," and said, "Mayor Bloomberg’s unwavering support of the city’s cultural institutions has enhanced the image of New York across the nation and around the world, resulting in more visitors to our city than ever before."...
Outside the hearing, after Mr. Gelb testified, he told City Room that Mayor Bloomberg had been a supporter of the arts and of the Met, in particular. Asked whether there had been any coordination with the mayor’s office, he said, "I have an ongoing dialogue with the people in the mayor’s office. I made it known that I would be happy to testify on the mayor’s behalf." He had been waiting about 45 minutes, he said. "Of course, there has to be some kind of communication in terms of schedules regarding the hearing."
On the way out of the hearing room, he was greeted by a member of the mayor’s staff, who said to him: "Good job. Thanks so much for your help."
That same aide turned to a group of students and faculty from the Democracy Prep School in Harlem who had just testified in favor of the extension of term limits. Leading them down the stairs, the mayor’s aide said, “OK guys, good job, follow me this way.”
Once in the Council rotunda, the aide thanked the students and the principal. “You guys did a great job,” he said. “Thanks so much for coming.”
Mariana Mohylyn Blume, a Republican from Brooklyn: “With all my heart and knowledge, I believe that Mayor Bloomberg is truly indispensable.” She called him a “professional” who “from childhood,” has worked hard for his wealth and success.
Ms. Blume began shouting loudly at Councilman Larry Seabrook, who was leading the hearing, after he pointed out that she had exceeded her two-minute limit. For several minutes, she shouted at the assembled lawmakers, while the sergeants-at-arms — and, finally, a plainclothes police officer — stood by politely and urged her to move on.
His out-and-out villainy continues.
One of the best things about Bloomberg was always that way he quietly gave millions in charitable gifts to worthy city organizations and causes. Now, he is tossing his reputation as a philanthropist in the dustbin by coercing recipients of his past largess to come out in favor of his term limit increase.
Read this from the Times and prepare to pick your jaw off the floor.
Bloomberg Enlists His Charities in Bid to Stay
By MICHAEL BARBARO and DAVID W. CHEN
Michael R. Bloomberg, who says he strictly separates his philanthropy from his job as mayor of New York, is pressing many of the community, arts and neighborhood groups that rely on his private donations to make the case for his third term, according to interviews with those involved in the effort.
As opposition mounts to his plan to ease term limits, those people said, the mayor and his top aides have asked leaders of organizations that receive his largess to express their support for his third-term bid by testifying during public hearings and by personally appealing to undecided members of the City Council. Legislation that would allow him to run for another term is expected to come up for a Council vote as early as next week.
The requests have put the groups in an unusual and uncomfortable position, several employees of the groups said. City Hall has not made any explicit threats, they said, but city officials have extraordinary leverage over the groups’ finances. Many have received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Mr. Bloomberg’s philanthropic giving and millions of dollars from city contracts overseen by his staff.
An official at a social service group that receives tens of thousands of dollars from Mr. Bloomberg and has a contract with the city was startled to receive a call in the past few days from Linda I. Gibbs, the deputy mayor for health and human services. Ms. Gibbs asked whether the organization’s leaders would be willing to call wavering council members to argue for Mr. Bloomberg’s term limits legislation.
“It’s pretty hard to say no,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of upsetting the mayor. “They can take away a lot of resources.”
A spokesman for the mayor, Stu Loeser, said that many of the organizations that have publicly supported the extension “are groups that we have been working with over the last seven years to move New York forward, and the reason we are asking for the opportunity for another four years is to keep New York moving forward.”
Mr. Loeser said Mr. Bloomberg took pains to separate his charitable giving from his day-to-day management of the city.
Nevertheless, public hearings on Thursday and Friday and interviews with council members revealed the extent to which the mayor is relying on those who have received donations from him as he pushes for the legislation, which would permit officials elected citywide and council members to serve 12 years rather than 8. Several administration officials confirmed that top mayoral aides, including Deputy Mayors Edward Skyler and Kevin Sheekey, have encouraged groups to join the effort.
Officials from five groups that have received significant charitable contributions from the mayor testified on behalf of his bill — the Doe Fund, the Harlem Children’s Zone, the Public Art Fund, the Alliance of Resident Theaters and the St. Nicholas Neighborhood Preservation Corporation. In addition, other recipients of his philanthropic funds, including Safe Space, a charity that works to keep children out of foster care, and Jazz at Lincoln Center, have been lobbying council members behind the scenes.
None of the officials disclosed their financial ties to the mayor’s charity when they testified.
Mr. Bloomberg routes the money to the groups through large and technically anonymous donations to the Carnegie Corporation, but it is an open secret that he is a source of the gifts, which generally range from $10,000 to $150,000.
Since he was elected, for example, Mr. Bloomberg has given the Harlem Children’s Zone more than $500,000, according to records and interviews with those familiar with the process. The group’s president, Geoffrey Canada, vigorously endorsed Mr. Bloomberg’s legislation in testimony on Thursday.
Mr. Canada said that “if I thought it mattered to the Council, I would have disclosed” the contributions from Mr. Bloomberg. He said he supported the mayor’s campaign to remain in office because of his record as a manager and his courage to raise property taxes to strengthen the city’s finances.
Officials from other groups also said they would have backed Mr. Bloomberg’s plan whether or not he had given them money or solicited their support.
Susan K. Freedman, who heads the Public Art Fund, which has received more than $500,000 from Mr. Bloomberg, testified for his bill and praised his record of promoting projects like Olafur Eliasson’s “Waterfalls,” the East River cascades that were dismantled this week. “The mayor believes in what I believe in,” she said.
The Doe Fund, a homeless-services organization, has received about $150,000 from Mr. Bloomberg since he took office. At the request of the mayor, the group’s founder and president, George McDonald, testified for the mayor’s proposal.
Ken Frydman, a spokesman for the Doe Fund, said that Mr. McDonald “would have shown up to testify in any case, as a longtime politically active resident of the city, who cares deeply about extending term limits.”
At least 11 Doe Fund employees, including several senior officials, testified in favor of the mayor’s plan, but most of them did not identify their employer, describing themselves only as residents of their neighborhoods.
Mr. Frydman said there was no coordination by the Doe Fund, but he declined to answer further questions.
Kenneth Sherrill, a political science professor at Hunter College, said it was inappropriate for the mayor to be asking the groups that are so dependent on his good graces to take a position on his legislation.
“It’s distasteful. And what’s distasteful about it is leaning on weak people — people who are vulnerable,” Mr. Sherrill said. “The problem is in the implicit threat that if you don’t help, we’re going to remember.”
The mayor remains broadly popular, and many of those who testified before the Council over the past two days, including a former Time Warner chief executive, Richard D. Parsons, argued that Mr. Bloomberg’s experience was needed to help the city deal with an economic crisis that could be "frightening, perilous or even dangerous."
Still, the opposition Mr. Bloomberg has encountered over the bill has been more intense than anticipated. Despite the intense efforts of his staff to turn out a favorable crowd, a solid majority of the nearly 250 who testified during the two days said they opposed it, according to a tally by The New York Times.
Fred Siegel, a professor of history at Cooper Union who has studied New York City politics for decades, said Mr. Bloomberg had cynically “reversed the flow of money” in politics to build the illusion, if not the reality, of widespread support.
“The traditional politicians are bought by special interest groups, but Bloomberg buys special interest groups,” he said.
Mr. Bloomberg, in his radio program on Friday, said he remained “cautiously optimistic” that the Council would pass his bill, and he was pleased to see “democracy at work” during the two days of hearings.
Good job, City Room! The New York Times blog is reporting live as City Council hears testimony on a change to the term limits law that would allow Mayor Bloomberg to run again—thus providing me with access to some wonderfully negative comments about the Plutocrat-in-Chief. Here are a few:
Rick Herman Hackshaw compared Mayor Bloomberg to President Robert G. Mugabe of Zimbabwe... In four years, he predicted, “I guess 16 is the new 12, and 20 will be the new 16,” he said.
Laura Altschuler, co-chairwoman of the League of Women Voters of the City of New York, said "Your proposed action violates our basic principle of being a nation ruled by laws and not by men. We have a law which the voters enacted. It should not be bypassed by the very men and women who would benefit from changing it."
State Senator Eric Adams, a Brooklyn Democrat, said "You had enough time to discuss this," Mr. Adams said, reprimanding the Council. "You waited until the midnight hour to sneak it through the process. You’re all aware in legislative-land that it takes longer than two hearings to give the voters a choice." He called the process a “masquerade.” Mr. Adams likened Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Lauder to schoolyard bullies. "We are in a position to tell billionaire bullies that we are not going to be victims of child’s play and let our democracy be eroded.” He continued, "All across America people looked to the resilience of New Yorkers after Sept. 11. Even after Giuliani attempted to hijack democracy, we stood firm. And the irony is that many of you are here because of that." Mr. Bloomberg "woke up one day and realized he couldn’t be president or vice president or anything else," and only then decided he wanted a third term, Mr. Adams said. (HA!)
Cathryn Swan, an environmental activist who blogs about Washington Square Park, said that "term limits are only coming up now because Mayor Bloomberg has decided he wants to stay in office." The financial crisis is merely a rationale advanced by the mayor’s "P.R. machine," she said, pointing to an opinion essay in The Wall Street Journal that raised critical questions about the mayor’s failure to prepare the city for the downturn. "Frankly, I don’t think our city can survive with him."
More than a week after the Tin Pan Alley sale story broke here, the New York Times has finally addressed the issue, both in City Room blog and in the City Section. Only oblique mention of Lost City breaking the story in the former, none at all in the latter. Oh well. As long as it helps the cause. Here's the City Section piece (written by some guy—sorry, I really don't have time to mention his name):
STAND for a minute on West 28th Street, east of Avenue of the Americas, and listen. The sounds on the street are of hawkers selling bootleg movies and knockoff perfumes, and trucks backing up and beeping steadily — the usual urban noise of South Midtown.
Near the middle of the block on Wednesday afternoon, sitting on a stoop in the shade of new scaffolding, a Korean man who owns a second-floor cellphone store recalled the street’s recent history. A decade ago, he said, it was home to a row of florists. A luxury apartment tower went up on the corner around that time, the delivery trucks started getting more parking tickets, and most of the florists moved away.
The man was sitting in front of No. 49, one of the buildings that once helped the block earn its reputation for a different kind of commerce, and a different kind of clangor. It was there, in 1893, that the music publisher M. Witmark & Sons set up shop, and soon, the ringing, tinkling sound of an army of pianos was echoing from windows all along the strip as other music companies opened. The sound, legend holds, earned the stretch of West 28th Street between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas the nickname Tin Pan Alley.
That was before the cellphone vendor’s time. “Never heard of it,” he said.
But Tin Pan Alley’s golden age, in which the careers of songwriting titans like George Gershwin and Irving Berlin began, has been back in the news this month, with the revelation that five of its buildings — 49 West 28th and four adjacent — are up for sale, presumably to a developer who will tear them down and build a tower.
Last week, as tenants and preservationists geared up for a fight, it was still possible to stand back, look up at the crumbling facades and picture their heyday, a time, historians remind us, when the march of commerce was as insistent as it is today.
“It was a wild place, because all of the publishers’ representatives used to hang out on the sidewalks to try to rope in the performers to hear the latest songs,” said David Freeland, the author of a forthcoming book titled “Automats, Taxi Dances and Vaudeville,” about New York’s lost cultural places.
The environment of the gambling houses and brothels in a larger district that was known as the Tenderloin was aggressive, Mr. Freeland said, a place for go-getters. With all the publishers side by side, he added, “they probably had a relationship that bordered on the malevolent, because it was such a competitive business, and everyone was trying to get an edge. It was pretty intense.”
What emerged, in the height of industrialization at the beginning of the 20th century, was an environment in which songwriting was industrialized, too: Songs were written for categories — sentimental ballads, patriotic songs, comedic ones — and marketed, then shipped on sheet music to department stores. That, Mr. Freeland said, was a product of hardscrabble 28th Street — not that the listeners could tell.
The songs the street produced, and those later produced by writers who got their start there, live on today, on the radio, at weddings and — like “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” — in the seventh-inning stretch.
“The melodies are beautiful and the lyrics are literate and passionate and the rhymes are pure,” Jonathan Schwartz, the radio host and music historian, said of the songs that the street’s brightest lights would go on to produce. “It’s just spellbinding, it’s absolutely beautiful, and nothing like it has followed.”
The roots are there, improbably, on 28th Street. “Look at the second-story windows,” Mr. Freeland said. “You can see where songwriters toiled, knocking out these songs and hoping for a hit.”
Vinnie's Iron Works in Cobble Hills has a little extra something going for it. Not location, not customer loyalty, not lucrative contracts. It's God!
Many places in South Brooklyn have little shrines or icons somewhere outside or on the premises. But Vinnie's is huge: an iron-framed, glass-enclosed display case holding a life-size statue of Jesus. Little cross on top, and a flood light in front. God Bless the Iron Mongers! They've also got a couple weathervanes up there. But when you got Jesus on your side, who cares which way the wind blows?
The Starlite, on W. 44th between Broadway and Eighth, is one of the older small businesses to be found on the sidestreets of Times Square. The interior is fairly modern and new, but the sign's stayed the same over the years. No doubt the name, when first conjured, had something to do with the various Broadway attractions in the surrounding area; quaint to think of stage actors as stars these days.
Oh, the opportunities to "Eat-In," as the sign offers, are fairly minimal, unless you like to stand while you lunch. And why "Eat-In" requires a hyphen, while "Take Out" does not, I have no idea. Actually, I think the other way around would make more sense.
Skeleton? Or a real estate broker trying to sell you a $2,200-a-month, second-floor studio "with balcony" in "Carroll Gardens West"?
At last, somebody built something of architectural and aesthetic beauty in New York City.
Yesterday, the new TKTS half-price ticket booth opened in Duffy Square, and around 7 PM the already famous illuminated Red Steps to Nowhere were lit for the first time.
By midnight last night, the steps had already taken their place as a new requisite photo-op for tourists. Folks speaking a gaggle of languages were busy taking pictures and films of each other assuming ridiculously theatrical poses. Who could blame them? The steps are impossible to resist. They're now as glowy as I expected, but they provide a picture postcard view of Times Square that we've previously only been able to enjoy in newsreels and on television during "Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve."
Here are a variety of shots of the new attraction taken last night.
The evildoers at Platinum, the 43-story Platinum condominium tower at 46th and Eighth that killed McHale's, have lit the long, fake fireplace in their lobby. Great work guys! When do the little red men with pitchforks arrive?
The formerly historic Boar's Head deli F. Martinella is getting ready to open on Court Street in downtown Brooklyn. It will open on Monday.
But gone from all the signs and advertising is Martinella's one-time boast "Since 1949." That piece of marketing was previously revealed for the fiction it is by this site, with a crucial assist from a reader. Guess the folks at Boar's Head decided it was best to let the matter drop and pretend it never happened.
No one can look at a bunch of pumpkins and not be happy for at least a fleeting second.
51 W. 28th Street—among the former Tin Pan Alley building threatened with demolition—was for two short years, 1905-06, the home of Paul Dresser Publishing Co. Those years were also the last of Dresser's life.
Paul Dresser was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, and it is for his song "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away," a million-seller that made him tons of money, that he remains best known. (It's the Hoosier state song.) He was hugely famous in the 1890s, writing more than 100 songs, including “Wide Wings,” “The Letter That Never Came,” “My Gal Sal,” “Just Tell Them That you Saw Me,” and “The Pardon Came too Late." He had quite the knack for the melodramatic title. He also wrote patriotic tunes with names like "We Are Coming, Cuba, Coming," "Your God Comes First, Your Country Next, Then Mother Dear," "Come Home, Dewey, We Won't Do a Thing to You," "The Blue and the Gray," "Give Us Just Another Lincoln," and "Wrap Me in the Stars and Stripes." McCain and Palin's crowd would have loved Dresser.
Dresser did a lot of things beside write songs. He was a playwright, producer, and, or course, a music publisher. (He was smart, and knew the money lied in publishing, not songwriting.) But he died without a penny, apparently having been too generous with his money. He was 49.
Paul's brother, Theodore—who spelled his name Dreiser (It was Paul who changed his name)—would eventually eclipse his sibling's fame, writing classic novels such as "Sister Carrie" and "An American Tragedy." He depicted his brother's life in "Twelve Men."
Dresser's life was depicted in the 1942 Hollywood biopic "My Gal Sal." Victor Mature—who looked absolutely nothing like the balding, stout, slightly cross-eyed Dresser—played the songwriter. Weirdly, the movie was based on Dreiser's tale from "Twelve Men." Even more strangely, there was no character in the film based on Theodore.
The Historic Districts Council has launched a website to draw attention to the plight of the imperiled row houses at 47, 49, 51, 53 and 55 West 28th Street, formerly home to much of what was Tin Pan Alley. You can find the site here. There's a petition you can sign in support of the preservation of the buildings.
Writes Simeon Bankoff, Executive Director of HDC:
We have also been in touch with a tenant who informed us that the tenants recently won a court case which granted the current residents legal status (the buildings are zoned for commercial or manufacturing use). The current scaffolding has been erected so that the owners can do necessary repairs to the buildings (they are now required to bring the buildings up to code after decades of minimal maintenance). The immediate danger is that without appropriate oversight, the repairs could potentially damage or disfigure the historic facades of the buildings.
Additionally, HDC has been touch with the Landmarks Commission and alerted them to our concerns about the row. We understand that the agency has a file on them, and over the years, some requests for landmarking have been received. At the very least, in 2001, HDC recommended incorporating this row in the Madison Square North Historic District when it was being considered for designation. The next step is to raise public awareness of this significant row and get the agency to act.
Actually, you get a lot of barber poles in Chinatown. More than in any other part of the City, I think. Not sure why that is. This pointy one is particularly charming, though.
The Theatre Development Fund will finally (after three years) open their newly designed shiny, glowy, red-steps-to-nowhere TKTS half-price Broadway ticket booth in Duffy Square on Thursday around noon. Bloomberg will cut the ribbon and probably answer some questions about term limits. In the meantime, it's all roped off. But the statue of song-and-dance man George M. Cohan is all spruced up and ready to eyeball. Looks mighty nice silhouetted up against the neon Coke sign.
I took the time the other day to fully take in the inscription under the Herald Square statues of Minerva and a couple Bell Ringers honoring the founders of the New York Herald newspaper. Learned a lot about the figures, which used to sit atop and Herald Building back in the day. Also learned that the inscription couldn't possibly have been written by one of the Herald's reporters of copy editors.
Check out this near-unintelligible run-on sentence:
"They [the statues] were given by William T. Dewart of the New York Sun to New York, through whose generosity in 1939 they entered on permanent loan, the care of the Department of Parks of the City of New York, that they may be here restored to their original area of pleasant service and to their place in the hearts of our citizens."
[He] liked to announce his arrival in a restaurant by yanking the tablecloths from all the tables he passed. He would then hand the manager a wad of cash with which to compensate his victims for their lost meals and spattered attire.
The folks who run "One Hanson Place" have to do a little better in the clock maintenance department. The four faces of the timepiece atop the old Williamsburg Bank Building are not in sync. In this picture, the clock on the right, reading 1:30, is correct. The one on the left, reading 5:45, is most definitely wrong. Get your act together guys!
I went to the up-for-sale strip of former Tin Pan Alley buildings on W. 28th Street late last week to see if any architectural details remain denoting the structures' former functions as hives of musical invention.
Alas, nothing on the facades would give you any hints that the edifices once housed famous music publishing houses which introduced the world to the wonders of Berlin, Warren and Gershwin. The buildings are suitably old and many of the windows have old-style, wooden-framed panes. But there are no initials in any of the cornices that might belong to a formerly famous publisher, no faded, painted advertisements on a side wall.
The oldest-looking part of the buildings are perhaps the enterways at the top of the flights of stairs leading from the sidewalk. None of the addresses up for sale, aside from No. 47, appear to have modernized doorways. Just the old, huge, wooden kind. The paneling, transoms and details seem to be original. One can easily imagine a hungry songwriter passing through these portals a century ago, on his way upstairs to try and sell a new ditty to the big boss.
I'm so used to the "F" train being the neglected stepchild of the MTA, I was stunned the other day when a sleek, silver number slid into the Bergen Street station. "Must be lost," I thought.
But, no. It was a shiny new "F" train, one of those nifty jobs that you get on Lexington Avenue line in Manhattan with the digital readouts; the backlit maps of the subway line; folding, Paris-Metro-like seats; and the soothing, mechanized female voice clearly announced each coming stop. It was not in service. A sign in each window said "Test Train." But surely this means these new trains are in our future! The East Village, Lower East Side, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens and Park Slope are moving up in the world.
On East Broadway in Chinatown.
Check out the wine casks with the Chinese letters on them. Plus the urns sporting the address.
In case you haven't noticed from my postings, I've been spending a lot of time in Chinatown lately. I've unfairly ignored this neighborhood as a tourist trip for years. But lately, as the City gentrifies and homogenizes, I've come to recognize Chinatown as one of the few Manhattan neighborhoods to retain a fierce grip on its historical identity. Things change slowly here. Old buildings survive, and a low-scale architecture dominates. There is also still a sense of mystery and willful isolation to the area which one simply does not get in neighborhoods brimming with chain stores and fresh condos. One really doesn't know what's going on behind certain doors and hesitates before entering an unknown establishment.
I've mainly been walking around the tight knot of street that once represented the heart of old Chinatown: Mott, Bayard, Pell and Doyers. The other day, though, I went further south to the stretch of East Broadway between the Bowery and Manhattan Bridge. I've learned since that, in the past 20 years or so, this street has been a commercial hub for more recent waves of Chinatown immigrants. Vibrant and teeming, it certainly is.
But I was most struck by how the strip reminded me, more than any other street in Manhattan I can name, of what an immigrant commercial stronghold must have been like a century ago. People rushed to and fro, communicating mainly in their own languages. Liquor stores, countless barber shops, restaurants, a hole in the wall tea purveyor featuring a wall of wooden drawers, each containing a different blend. The street throbbed with an activity all its own that didn't have anything to do with the rest of the metropolis. The district seemed akin to an Essex Street or Hester Street circa 1900. (Granted, I can only base this opinion on photos I have seen and written accounts of the time.) 
A block south was Henry Street. It, too, impressed me as a time capsule. The north side of the street boasted was an unbroken, unmodernized sting of tenements that surely had not changed in more than 100 years. Take a black-and-white picture of this streetscape and you could well imagine you were looking at the Lower East Side of the late 19th Century.
The details on many of these buildings are quite singular. One, well-maintained, five-story tenement bore twin carvings of roaring lion's heads on each floor and a cornice that read "Manhattan." Another has two rather lurid carytids on either side of the front entrance. I think the families living in that building have had to do a lot of explaining about those figure to their small children over the years.
People look at 47-55 W. 28th Street—the group of addresses that made up part of Tin Pan Alley and are now in danger of being destroyed—and see a clutch of grimy tumble-down buildings. Since there are no historical plaques outside each structure, or nearby museum to educate the curious, it's hard to understand the wealth of cultural history that took place beyond each door.
So, let's amend that a bit. 49-51 was once the home of M. Witmark & Sons, a hugely powerful music publisher 100 years ago. M. Witmark has nothing to do with the company. It was all about the "Sons": Jay, Julius and Isidore. They used their father's name, Marcus, in the name of the company because the three ambitious sons were all minors (the youngest 11, by some accounts!) when they founded the business in 1883—with a toy printing press won by Jay in an arithmetic contest! Marcus was a character himself. Though a New Yorker, he was a captain in the Confederate Army.
Jay was the businessman. Julius gained fame as a singer. Isidore was a songwriter. (Isidore and Julius were both on Broadway in 1902.) The Witmarks published 30 operettas by Victor Herbert—the Broadway heavyweight of his day. Also, scores by Sigmund Romberg, another operetta king, and the George M. Cohan. They published songs everyone still knows, though few now remember their composers: "My Wild Irish Rose" (Chauncey Olcott); "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" (Ernest R. Ball); and "Sweet Adeline" (Harry Armstrong). Irishman across New York City should thank God for the Witmarks every St. Patrick's Day.
By 1900, the firm had branches in Chicago, San Francisco, London, Paris, and Melbourne. Warner Brothers bought Witmark (along with a bunch of other publishing houses) in 1929. Jay went along for the ride, but retired in 1931. But Jay probably made his most lasting mark in music history by co-founding the ASCAP.
Isidore died in 1941, Jay in 1950 and Julius in 1929.
New York history can surprise you. You might assume that the oldest standing townhouse in Gotham might be somewhere in the Financial District, where the City began, or in Greenwich Village, which was really a separate village once upon a time, or a lonesome home near the north tip on Manhattan. But no.
Recently I discovered that the oldest surviving townhouse in Manhattan sits at the corner of the Bowery and Pell Street, surrounding the human tumult and riotous signage of Chinatown. It's 18 Bowery and, despite some Chinese letters on its austere red brick facade, it looks like a building from another planet, completely out of context with its surroundings.
It was built sometime in the 1780s for one Edward Mooney, in a mix of the Georgian and Federal styles. (Owing to the Great Fire, that's as old as Manhattan gets.) How it survived all these years, I'll never know. Being a brothel in the per-Civil War years perhaps helped a little bit. It's a pristine little building I must say (it was restored in 1971). Being a brokerage helped it hold on to its dignity. The spiderweb window above the door is pretty fantastic, as are the ornate windows on the side. It's doubtful that any of the tourists who venture down here for a meal, or the trendoids on their way to the new cocktail joint Apotheke, know what they as passing by.
The potential loss of what was Tin Pan Alley has struck a chord in the press. Here's another article on WCBS-TV.
Original Tin Pan Alley Put Up For Sale In N.Y.C.
NEW YORK (CBS) ― Tin Pan Alley, once the home of Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin and dozens of other great American songwriters, is up for sale.
Five buildings in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood are being offered as a group for $44 million. A listing on a real estate Web site, Loopnet, recommends that the buildings at 47, 49, 51, 53 and 55 W. 28th Street be torn down and that a high-rise be built in their place.
Preservationists and tenants are not happy.
"These buildings are incredibly significant to the development of New York City. They helped launch the careers of songwriters and musicians who are still popular today," said Simeon Bankoff, executive director of the Historic Districts Council.
Although there is no indication of it today, Tin Pan Alley housed a concentration of music publishers and songwriters from the 1890s to the 1950s. It is the place where Berlin wrote "God Bless America" and where George M. Cohan wrote "Give My Regards to Broadway." "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" was another tune written there, helping establish the area as a significant contributor to the great American songbook.
Among the other more recognizable songwriters and lyricists who spent time in Tin Pan Alley were Hoagy Carmichael, Scott Joplin, Cole Porter and Fats Waller.
The real estate listing has been active since September, but appears [EDITOR NOTE: "Appears," my ass; it was] to have been first reported this week on a blog, Lost City, which describes itself as "a running Jeremiad on the vestiges of Old New York as they are steamrolled under or threatened by the currently ruthless real estate market and the City Fathers' disregard for Gotham's historical and cultural fabric." The blog reports that in addition to songwriters, 55 W. 28th Street was also the home of "Mother Earth," the magazine started in 1906 by anarchist Emma Goldman.
Here is a partial list of standards that were written in Tin Pan Alley:
* "The Band Played On," 1895
* "A Hot Time In The Old Town Tonight," 1896
* "Hello! Ma Baby (Hello Ma Ragtime Gal)," 1899
* "Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home," 1902
* "In The Good Old Summertime," 1902
* "Give My Regards To Broadway," 1904
* "Shine Little Glow Worm," 1907
* "Shine On Harvest Moon," 1908
* "Take Me Out To The Ballgame," 1908
* "By The Light Of The Silvery Moon," 1909
* "Down By The Old Mill Stream," 1910
* "Let Me Call You Sweetheart," 1910
* "Alexander's Ragtime Band," 1911
* "God Bless America," 1918
* "Swanee," 1919
* "Way Down Yonder In New Orleans," 1922
* "Sweet Georgia Brown," 1925
* "Ain't She Sweet," 1927
* "Happy Days Are Here Again," 1930
The name Tin Pan Alley appears to have been originated by a newspaper writer who visited the area circa 1900, according to music historian Rick Reublin on the Web site parlorsongs.com.
"Monroe Rosenfeld ... coined the term to symbolize the cacophony of the many pianos being pounded in publishers' demo rooms which he characterized as sounding as though hundreds of people were pounding on tin pans," Reublin wrote. "According to the story, he used the term in a series of articles ... around the turn of the century (20th) and it caught on."
Well, people do care about the fate of Tin Pan Alley. At least superficially, anyway. My post yesterday, about how five buildings on W. 28th Street that once spawned some of the greatest songwriters and music in American history are now on the brink of being sold and demolished, has been picked up by the New York Post (with a vital assist from Curbed). Here's the article:
There's a blue note for Tin Pan Alley, the birthplace of American song.
Much to the dismay of tenants and preservationists, five of the buildings on West 28th Street between Broadway and Sixth Avenue - a block that for 60 years was the heart of the songwriting industry - have gone up for sale.
The buildings, at 47, 49, 51, 53 and 55 West 28th Street, are being sold as a group for - hold on to your hat in these cacophonous economic times - a mere $44 million.
A listing on Loopnet, a real-estate Web site, recommends that the buildings be demolished, "yielding over 111,000 square feet of prime Chelsea property."
The listing includes an architectural rendering of - what else? - a high-rise.
The buildings were listed last month, but most people only found out about it yesterday, when items appeared on the Lost City and Curbed blogs.
"It's a very, very disturbing prospect," said Simeon Bankoff, executive director of the Historic Districts Council, a housing preservation group. "These buildings are incredibly significant to the development of New York City. They helped launch the careers of songwriters and musicians who are still popular today.
"The notion of Tin Pan Alley entered into our idea of New York and our idea of America. The buildings deserve to be protected."
Leland Bobbe, 59, a photographer who has lived at 51 W. 28th St. since 1975, echoed Bankoff's words.
"This makes me sick," he said. "This whole neighborhood has lost its uniqueness. It's just another symbol of what New York was and what it will no longer be."
From the 1890s to the 1950s, Tin Pan Alley was the place where music publishers and songwriters - including Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer - were concentrated.
The sale is being handled by Lois Thompson, of Coldwell Banker, who said she couldn't provide specifics because she was about to begin observing Yom Kippur.
"Catch me on Friday," she said.
Public records say the buildings are owned by Jo-Fra Properties, of Bayside, Queens.
The buildings are well-kept four-story brownstones that have stores on the first floor and apartments above. Tenants pay about $1,000 a month for 1,000 square feet. Residents at 51, 53 and 55 W. 28th St. said they hired a lawyer and had the zoning of the buildings changed from commercial to residential. Bobbe said this means the tenants can't be evicted and that the buyer will have to negotiate with them to get them to leave. They plan to ask for $1 million per apartment.
Other than selflessly offering himself up for a third (illegal) term in office, in order ferry us financial simpletons through the financial crisis:
1. Use his personal wealth to single-handedly save a failing bank, and secure all the jobs that would otherwise be lost. Or two banks. How about two banks?
2. Use the $70 million he would undoubtedly use to win re-election and donate it to the City coffers.
3. After he second term ends, go down personally to Virginia, buy every gun in the state and destroy them, thus decreasing crime in the City.
4. Help New York become a greener city by selling his Bermuda and London homes, therefore cutting down on his airline travel and decreasing his carbon footprint.
5. Take ten friends out to dinner each night at a fancy restaurant so as to bolster the flagging restaurant trade.
6. Create new jobs by ordering the immediate demolition of every condo tower and apartment building erected during his administration.
7. Let people smoke in restaurants again, so we all can take the edge off a little.
8. Get married finally, settle down and make his 99-year-old mother Charlotte happy for once.
9. Work on his self-esteem, so he doesn't need 8 million people to goose his pride every four years.
10. Go back to Boston.
A reader has alerted Lost City to a threat to five of the assortment of buildings along W. 28th Street which were once collectively known as Tin Pan Alley, the early-20th-century wellspring of much of America's musical heritage.
The five buildings at 47-49-51-53-55 West 28th Street has been put up for sale as a group. The Loopnet listing recommends that they be demolished, "yielding over 111,000 sf of Prime Chelsea property." The listing also provides a proposed architectural rendering of what might be built there instead (seen below). The usual thoughtless, anodyne, everyday pile of bricks. The cost to commit this crime: $44,000,000.
The listing has been up since September. One can only hope that, with the current economy, the seller doesn't have a chance in hell of making that price. Lost City has previously decried the fact that these buildings—once home to music publishers that fostered the talents of songwriters Gershwin, Berlin, Donaldson, Carmichael, Warren, Waller, Kahn, Cohan, Mercer, Youmans and dozens more—have been left to rot, with nothing marking their significance to American culture save a small plaque. They don't enjoy landmark status. No pocket museum or tourism bureau marks their presence. It's a positive shanda!
55 W. 28th Street was also, incidentally, the address of famed American socialist Emma Goldman's magazine Mother Earth. If only Goldman were around today. She's organize a hell of a protest against this sale.
What could possibly have been behind the naming of this Chinatown laundromat? Sure, it's on Henry Street, but "O'Henry"? Are they trying to say the laundromat is "of Henry" Street, but using the whimsically abbreviated "o'" instead of "of"? If so, it doesn't quite work. The spelling comes off like an Irish surname (though I've never encountered anyone with the name O'Henry). Could they be honoring the candy bar? (Unlikely, I know.) Or weirder still, could they actually have named their laundry after famed short story writer and one-time New York resident, O. Henry, and have gotten the punctuation wrong?
Or could the name be a play of words on some or all of the above ideas? Whatever the answer, this is safely one of the strangest named laundromats in town.
You hear the one about the New York billionaire who played the other New York billionaire?
Our Fair Mayor, Mike Bloomberg, helped pave the way to his bid to knock down term limits by drafting cosmetics mogul Ronald S. Lauder to his totally altruistic cause. (The City must be saved!) This was critical because Lauder's the dude who "bankrolled the 1993 campaign to create term limits in New York City and is considered the single biggest threat to changing the law, since he is willing to open his wallet to defend it," as the Times' City Room blog puts it.
Lauder agreed, except he thought he had agreed to a one-time-only waiver of the law, one that would benefit Bloomberg only. Only the Mayor and City Council suddenly found out afterwards that they couldn't do that legally; they would have to make the changed from a two-term limit to a three-term limit permanent. Awwww. Sorry, Ron!
Lauder's rich, though, and rich people don't like feeling like fools. He told The New York Times that he would oppose a permanent change, calling it "a terrible mistake."
Uh-uh. Trouble in Bloomieland!
Caught in London at No. 10 Downing Street (what's he doing there? I thought we needed him to save the City!), Bloomberg tried to explain the situation. You ready? Listen to this (I have boldfaced the laughingly bullshitty segments:
Ron and I had a conversation. He wanted to change term limits one time — from two to three. Not get rid of term limits and not do anything other than change it one time, from two to three. When we talked to the lawyers, the lawyers said that has a significant probability of not standing up in court, but a solution we worked out with his lawyers, and he and I on the phone, was you change term limits, and I promise to appoint a Charter Review Commission, and ask them to put on the ballot — not this coming November, not November 09, but of November 2010, because you don’t want it the same time as a general election. The issue plain and simple: should it be two terms or three terms and leave that up to the public. Not to revisit the issue of term limits — that was voted in by the public, and then reaffirmed by the public, and I understand that — but to say whether it should be two or three going forward. So it’s not bait and switch. It was something that we both agreed to, and I think it will work out fine. I’ll talk to Ron when I get back; I’ll be back in the morning.
Residents of Hoyt Street in Carroll Gardens have in recent months decried restaurateur Jim Mamary's plans to open an Oyster Bar on that lane, insisting it would spoil the quietude of that retiring residential strip. At one Community Board 6 meeting, one local declared: "Bottom line: Hoyt Street is residential."
Which I pretty much agree with. But which was not always the case. To anyone with eyes, it's clear that Hoyt was once—and not too long ago—a commercial strip as busy as neighboring Smith Street. Nearly every corner building between 3rd Street and Sackett Street has the look of a former storefront. I've learned from recent conversations with locals that there were at least two German bakeries on the street and many other businesses aside, including whatever concern once operated out of the Oyster Bar space (a grocery, as I remember). So, in one way of looking at it, Mamary is returning the strip to its historical roots. Not that there were any oyster bars back then.
Cafe Roma in Little Italy. Sign needs a little mending. Though "Ma Roma" ("Mother Rome") has a certain lilt to it.
"Those guys on Wall Street, they couldn't run a hot dog stand! Give them $220 million? They should be lined up against a wall and shot!"
Not subtle, but succinct.
I went down to Chinatown this past weekend to enjoy the wares of the newly reopened Nom Wah Tea Parlor on Doyers Street—only to find it still shuttered!
Last week, the owner told me it would reopen last week after a month-long, enforced closed by the Department of Health. Don't know what happened. Maybe they failed their inspection again. Or maybe the DOH guy didn't show up. Frustrating.
A friend was good enough to treat me to dinner at Frankie & Johnnie's Steakhouse on 45th Street the other night, giving me a chance to enjoy the former speakeasy and Theatre District staple before the Death March of Progress yanks it down.
I was surprised to find the place thronged, packed to the gills with noisy, happy diners. According to my friend, it's always that busy. We sat in a corner banquette with a full view of the actions, under a photograph of Robert Preston dining with Sandy Dennis (!) at the eatery back in the 1960s. Tables and chairs are packed tightly together in the small room and the seasoned waiters swan in and around the narrow spaces between with ease. We were mothered over by a veteran waiter whose mindful, decorous manner made us feel quite cared for. We both ordered the Filet Mignon with Mushroom Cap, along with sides of garlic mashed potatoes and spinach. I'm not much of a steak fan, so I was surprised how happy the entree made me. It was a beautiful piece of meat from start to finish, tender and flavorful. The mashes potatoes were a dream. We downed it with a superb half-bottle of 2004 Grgich Cabernet Sauvignon. 
It's quite a cozy room and it's sad to think it will be gone by January (according to our waiter). It still has a secret, sequestered air to it, and the vista looking through the blinds down on the busy Broadway side street of W. 45th Street is a bird's-eye close-up you can't enjoy anywhere else. The spot shows its age, with the stairs up to the restaurant, and another flight up to the bathrooms, visibly slanting and sloping at curious angles.
The trip up to the bathroom is worth a visit. I wondered if this stairwell once served as an escape route to a secret room or passage when 1920s guests were surprised by unwelcome visits from the police. There is also an old Daily News clipping hung next to the men's room that is worth a perusal. It concerns an 1963 encounter between Jason Robards and Richard M. Nixon in the F&J bar. A drunk Robards was singing old Irish tunes when he spied Nixon at the bar with some government men and let go with "Trick Dick! What the hell are you doing here?" He continued: "You were a lousy football coach. You were a lousy Vice-President, and you'll never be President." Nixon tried to laugh off the encounter by offering to pay for a round for the room. He put $20 on the bar, but kept his arm around the bill. Sure enough, when he left, he surreptitiously repocketed the $20, therefore stiffing Frankie & Johnnie's.
Bet Robards thought of that night often when filming "All the President's Men."
An eagle-eyed Lost City reader noticed on Friday (Oct. 3) that some dramatic work was being done of the long-aborning Strong Place Church condo conversion project in Cobble Hill.
Workers at the Cobble Hill site were taking hammers to what were once the arched, stained-glass windows in the 1852 Gothic church. "Under the protective glass I could swear there is some of the original stained glass being broken," said our scout. "Probably badly damaged but...I don't think it was a big deal. At first it looked like a bunch of old glass fell down. I think it was just a few small pieces and the rest was gone years ago and covered with wood." Our reader (who also took these photos) admitted it could very well be the case that not a single shard of stained glass remained in the windows. Well, either way, nothing like a bunch of guys smashing cathedral windows to get your attention.
Trade has picked up at Trader Joe's in Brooklyn since it opened a week ago. I hear weekdays after 5 PM get pretty hectic. There's only one more thing Joe's has to do to make its arrival fully welcome by the community: fix the damn clock.
The double-sided clock on the outside corner of the old Independence Bank Building stopped working the day Independence stopped working. For a year, it's only been right two times a day, giving B61 riders no way of telling exactly how late their bus is.
A devoted Lost City reader recently did me the favor of asking Joe's "Captain" when the clock would again be in working order. Amazingly, he said "everyone" had been asking him that question. (Guess I'm not the only one bugged by the stopped clock.) Anyway, he said he expects it to be running by the end of October.
Once a month, I have occasion to meet some colleagues at Felidia, the celebrated Italian restaurant on E. 58th Street. Each time, when I exit and make my way down Second Avenue, I pass by the weird old relic known as Les Sans Culottes, a French throwback that couldn't be more different from the contemporary, polished Felidia. Les Sans Culottes has collected more eccentricity in a mere 32 years than this City should bestow on a restaurant. I suspect it was never grand, the way other neighboring French places like Le Veau d'Or, were. It was always a little kooky, a little kitschy. It's endearing to its regulars, though, I dare say. And those sausage trees!
Here is my take on Eater.
Who Goes to Gene's Restaurant?
Who Goes to Villa Mosconi?
If you think the no-fault treatment being given today's Wall Street higher-ups is a new phenomenon, go to the southwest corner of Canal and Orchard Streets and stare up at the S. Jarmulovsky Bank Building, which amazingly still stands, given its history.
Sender Jarmulovsky, who began his career as a pushcart peddler, was a big local financier in the late 19th century. He founded his bank in 1873 and built this building as monument to his achievement in 1895. Banking regulations were pretty non-existent back then, so he did what he pleased, and immigrants showed their trust by putting their savings in the bank. But the outbreak of WWI precipitated a run on the bank, when depositors sought to withdraw money in order to help relatives overseas. This caused the institution to fail. There was a riot. Thousands of immigrants were ruined. Six committed suicided.
Sender Jarmulovsky received a suspended sentence. And so it goes.
There are pictures of everyone from Bill Clinton to Rob Reiner to Soupy Sales on the walls of Katz's Delicatessen. But here's one I never noticed until a recent visit. FDR!
I don't know about you, but FDR doesn't strike me as a pastrami-on-rye type of guy. Katz's is now a political whistle stop. Carter and Giuliani and Bloomberg have all made a stop. But in the 1930s?
The picture looks like the FDR who was elected in 1932. But honestly, it's not a photograph, but an illustration. I doubt FDR knew anything about it. It appears to be the cover of a giveaway menu or something. Roosevelt's name isn't even on it. "Compliments of Katz's Delicatessen/Known as the Best," it says. Then there's some Yiddish, that I wish I could read. Anyway, a neat artifact.
Actually, I don't just like the sign. I like the whole facade. A set designer going to Chinatown authenticity couldn't have done it better.
This intriguing old clock sits in the window of a old gold jewelry shop on the corner of Canal Street and the Bowery the south edge of the Lower East Side. It must have hung outside the shop at one point, and, by the looks of it, dated from the 1930s or 1940s.
It pointed to a bit of a mystery, though. The signage on the store, which looks to be of newer vintage, reads Crawford Fine Gold Jewelry. But the older clock has the names Crawford and Norman. Makes me think there was a name change somewhere along the life, and make me wonder who Norman was. An original partner in the firm?
I'm not sure why a great chunk of the metropolitan population, when thinking about Michael Bloomberg, don't remember his many mayoral failings, but only that they kinda like him for some reason. So, as Mayor "I-know-you-need-me" Mike jockeys for a third term, I thought I'd jog some memories with 13 reasons why he doesn't deserve one more single day.
1. Atlantic Yards. That gaping hole in downtown Brooklyn is as much his fault as Ratner's. He allowed it to happen, funneling money from the City coffers to the developer and looking the other way as Ratner twisted every law in the book,including that of Eminent Domain, in his favor.
2. The West Side Stadium. This bad idea—which would have choked the West Side and burdened Manhattanites with crowds, traffic, smog and congestion—had its only important champion in Bloomberg. It was his pet project, a legacy-making ego trip, and he has never admitted that he was in the wrong when he pressed for it.
3. Every Ugly Condo Tower and Every Dangerous Construction Site You See. Bloomberg unlocked the gate of the City's corral of avaricious developers, pointed them in the direction of every neighborhood in Gotham and said "Have at it, boys! I ain't watchin'!" To further mollify them, he put a puppet in charge of the Department of Building, leading to a body so corrupt and ineffective, it resulted in a rash of construction deaths.
4. Unaccountability. Bloomberg refuses to let the City know when he leaves for vacation in Bermuda. He thinks this is acceptable policy.
5. He's Too Charitable for the City's Good. Bloomberg gives thousands and thousands of dollars to many organizations and peoples. This is not a bad thing in itself. But it makes it difficult for many quarters to criticize his policies, for fear of reprisal. A cynic could said he's buying silence on a daily basis.
6. Every Chain Store You See. Giuliani ushered in the era of chain stores in NYC. Bloomberg accelerated the pace, killing indy shops left and right. If neighborhoods like Yorkville and the Upper West Side have been completely scrubbed of character, you can blame Mike.
7. Amanda Burden. He hired this lifelong socialite as Commissioner of Planning. She's never seen a neighborhood zoning that she didn't think needed more tall buildings.
8. Big Vision Projects. Cristo's Gates. Olafur Eliasson’s Waterfalls. These gargantuan art projects are here to beautify the City or increase tourism. They're here to make Bloomie look like a Big Vision Man, which is what he wants more than anything.
9. Wall Street Melted Down on his Watch. There are a lot of people to blame. There are a lot of reasons why. But Michael Bloomberg was the Mayor of New York City when it happened. This is not a small detail.
10. He Buys Elections. $73 million on the first election. More than that on the second election.
11. He Changes Stripes. Bloomberg, a lifelong Democrat, became a Republican in order to win City Hall. He then became an Independent when he hoped to run for President. THE MAN HAS NO CONVICTIONS EXCEPT PERSONAL ADVANCEMENT!
12. He's a Fake Subway Rider. Bloomberg loved to trumpet his use of the subway as a bonafied of his man-of-the-people status, until the New York Times revealed that three shiny SUVs ferry him every morning from his Upper East Side townhouse to an express Lexington Avenue station many blocks away.
13. He Allowed This Picture to Be Taken of Him.
Term limits were made for this man.
In 1991, I was living on the Lower East Side. It was still the Lower East Side then, though just barely. Essex was fairly lined with old Jewish businesses and there were small, dusty manufacturers on the side streets. Not a club or bar or trendy restaurant in sight.
I was in the early months of dating my soon-to-be wife. I decided to impress her by cooking her a Rosh Hashanah dinner. Only three years removed from the Midwest at that point, I knew nothing about Judaism or kosher cooking, but I figured I could muddle my way through. My main undertaking was to be a pot of matzo ball soup. I knew enough to understand that I needed a kosher chicken, but I didn't realize the importance of shopping ahead. It wasn't until late in the afternoon of the appointed night that I went out to purchase the fowl. Sure enough, most local grocery stores didn't carry kosher chicken, and those that did had been picked clean by smart forward-planning shoppers.
I began trudging down Essex in the drizzling rain looking for an open butcher. It soon started to dawn on me how hopeless my prospects were. Of course, kosher butchers closed early on Jewish holidays, as they did every Friday evening. The light was failing. My chances of finding a chicken were next to nil.
I walked the length of Essex and did not find an open store. Locked doors and roller shutters. Not a soul on the street. But I couldn't give up; I had no back-up plan, foodwise. And I promised matzo ball soup. I was also well aware of how foolish I would seem: A Rosh Hashanan chicken soup cook who thought he could buy a chicken on Rosh Hashanah.
I turned left down East Broadway and passed the old Forward building, Seward Park and Jefferson Street. Then, on Clinton, just a few doors south from East Broadway, a saw a dingy little storefront with a light on and no sign, but some of the earmarks of a butcher. I walked in. An old, stout, graying man was busy closing up shop. There was a large bloodied counter to the left, some meat hooks along the wall, and a large, ancient, walk-in fridge at the back with its door open. White, red and gray were the only colors on display.
The man eyed me up and down with a look of weary disbelief. "Who is this fool?" he seemed to be saying. I looked around. Not a piece of meat in sight, though it was clearly a butcher shop. A butcher shop that saw no need for niceties or decor, but a butcher shop.
"I need a chicken," I said, with little hope in my voice. The butcher sighed and looked around at the vast amounts of nothingness that surrounded him. "Do you see a chicken," he said, without saying anything. Then he shrugged and walked back into the fridge. A minute passed. He miraculously came back with the yellowish, rather misshapen carcass of a hen that looked as though it had lived a long, colorful, exhausting life. It was not one of those pretty, perfect, symmetrical birds you see in the supermarket. It was a real, dead, plucked chicken. A working-glass Friday night chicken.
And it was the only chicken I was going to find on the Lower East Side that eve of Rosh Hashanah. I bought it and he put it in a clear plastic bag. The soup I made from it was delicious.
I walked back to Clinton Street a few months later to check in on the butcher and he was gone. I should have guessed by the look of the place and look on his face that the shop was on its last legs and the owner was ready for retirement. Both man and business were from an era on its way out.
Above is a picture of the address where it once stood, now home to L's Beauty Salon.
From the New York Times, about Michael Bloomberg bid for an illegal third term at Mayor of New York: “What this represents is the complete collapse of “small d” democratic politics in New York under the Bloomberg monarchy,” said Fred Siegel, a professor at Cooper Union. “He is becoming our Berlusconi. He owns the press and he is not accountable in ordinary ways.”
The fox is in the hen house, New Yorkers. We're in more trouble than we know.
Pardon Me for Asking has uncovered the possible reason would-be Brooklyn Borough President Bill DeBlasio has been relatively silent on the subject of zoning-buster 360 Smith (aka Oliver House), after remonstrating against the development strenuously last year. 360 Smith developer Billy Stein has been lobbying Councilman DeBlasio to the tune of $35,000!
Hey, isn't Stein the sharp-suited guy who pleaded hardship to the Board of Standards and Appeals in order to push his 70-foot Oliver House past new Carroll Gardens zoning regulations? Things can't be too hard if he has 35 grand to toss over to lobbyist George Arzt Communications, Inc.
So which sleazeball cares less about the community, Stein or DeBlasio? Tough one.
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