Fourth Trip of the Summer to the Red Hook Ballfield Vendors

Fried tacos from the Carrillo Guatemalan vendor. I seem to like Carrillo, don't I? What can I say? There's never a line and the food is good.

Rat-Squirrel Update: Plywood and Cinder Blocks

Squirrels, you'll have to find another flophouse.

149 Kane Street, the infamous wreck of a landmark that was raided two days ago by city officials, is being sealed up like a drum today. And not just the door, which was smashed down by the authorities, but every single window. By the end of the day, every opening will be covered with new plywood. Additionally, workman were handing cinder blocks through the first floor window. I assume this means the plywood with the fortified by a wall of cement, ensuring no more squatters ever find their way inside again.

I approached the head workman and asked if I might take a quick look inside. He said there was nothing to see, "just garbage." (I seriously doubted that.) I took a good gander through the wide open window closest to the door, however, and spotted a battered old wardrobe, and a chandelier hanging from a tin ceiling. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they found a lost original copy of the Declaration of Independence in there.

More Side to Walk

In my neighborhood, at the intersections where Union and Sackett Streets meet Hicks (both busy thoroughfares that cross over the BQE), construction workers have been ripping up the corners, installing new patches of sidewalk that cut more deeply in the road, thus narrowing the entry and exit points into the crossroads.

They're working quickly. One corner is finished and three more are on their way. From what I gather, the intention is to slow traffic traffic at these intersections. Another person told me this is happening all over Brooklyn. And another suspected it all had something to do with making bikers' lives easier, although I can't see how that would be the case. (Someone always suspects bikers' rights are at the bottom of everything.)

No LES, No Guss

Earlier I weighed in as not completely hating Guss' Pickles' announced move from the Lower East Side to Brooklyn.

I did not know all the fact at this point. Let me adjust my opinion.

I hate this.

Why? Because, when Guss' Pickles—a landmark for a century—leaves Manhattan, it will be forced by law to leave its name behind. It will became Someone's Pickles, Whoever's Pickles, anything but Guss' Pickles.

This is all due to the convoluted and ridiculous lawsuit that has dogged the Guss' legacy for the last few years, in which two parties—Guss' Pickles owner Pat Fairhurst and father and son Steve and Andrew Leibowitz of United Pickles—have both laid claim to the famous name.

Writes the Daily News:

[Keeping the name] just wouldn't be kosher under a 2007 settlement between Fairhurst and Steve and Andrew Leibowitz, a father and son duo who also laid claim to the Guss' Pickles name.

Both pickle peddlers insisted they had the true connection to Isidor Guss, the Polish immigrant who sold pickles from a pushcart in the lower East Side and later opened up the shop.

Fairhurst took over the institution from Harold Baker, who had purchased it from Guss' family after the patriarch's death.

But the Leibowitzes, who run United Pickle in the Bronx, also had a long relationship with the store and bought the rights to the name. Son Andrew Leibowitz's company, Crossing Delancey Pickle Enterprises, opened a Guss' Pickle shop in Cedarhurst in 2001.

Fairhurst sued him in 2006, then Andrew Leibowitz countersued. A 2007 settlement allowed Fairhurst to use the name only at her Orchard St. location.

That decision left a bad taste in Fairhurst's mouth, and she has nothing but sour words about it to this day.

"We have a following, they don't," she says simply.

The Leibowitz's hope the move will bring an end to the sticky pickle predicament at long last.

"I wish her all the luck in the world in her new location - as long as she doesn't use our name," said Steve Leibowitz.

That such a sweet and simple thing as a timeless Lower East Side pickle dealer should be ruined through greed and litigation is unforgivable.

I applaud the Curbed network for openly professing a boycott of United Pickles. I join them. Their claim may be tongue-in-cheek. Mine is serious. I don't know why I would ever go to Cedarhurst, but if I do, I'll spit in the Liebowitz's pickle barrels. The family has brine on its hands.

Rat-Squirrel House Excitement: Squatter, Ambulance, Kicked-Down Door!

It was the busiest day in the life of the Rat-Squirrel House since Feb. 27, 2008, when the DOB slapped a sidewalk shed and a vacate notice on the sad, dilapidated, falling-down, seriously, ridiculously run-down landmark Cobble Hill red-brick residence.

On Wednesday, July 29, the authorities smashed down the old front door of the 1901 building at 149 Kane Street, which has been an eyesore and a menace to neighbors for years now, home to squirrels, pigeons, (maybe rats) and one old woman who would not leave and would not fix the place up.

According to reports gathered by Lost City, inside they found a squatter and mounds upon mounds of garbage. Whether the garbage was accumulated by the squatter or by longtime owner Arlene Karlsen—who lived in the crazy, crumbling structure until recently—is unclear. Karlson, who apparently lived around the corner now, in another building she owns (not as badly kept up) was, accordingly to a witness, given the choice of being arrested or taken to the hospital. She left in an ambulance. Sad.

A DOB complaint filed that day noted "FAILURE TO MAINTAIN INTERIOR. BLDG OVERLOADED WITH DEBRIS." Past notices have only commented on the exterior. Another complaint, filed July 30, noted that the permit for the sidewalk shed had expired, and that it didn't meet safety code standards.

Today, July 30, a van and some workman were on the scene to re-seal the door. They had little information as to future of the four-story building, but speculated that its status as part of the Cobble Hill landmark district would make tearing it down a bit problematic. While I would love to see it restored, I am doubtful that can be accomplished at this point.

Your Choice

Tony Avella, whose priorities cause him to make sure he's doing his job as a councilman first before he spends time campaigning for mayor; who turned down an official parking pass because they smack of politics as usual; who thinks New York should be a haven for small businesses, not large developers; and who is still blasting City Council members for overturning term limits?

Or Michael Bloomberg, who spends millions and yet manages to lose support; instructs his puppet City Council to kill Coney Island; solves the growing homeless problem by buying indigent families one-way bus tickets; and is so power-mad and anti-Democracy he might already be thinking of a fourth term?

Think about your vote this fall.

Folks Talk About Mary Whalen Tanker at Waterfront Museum Tonight

Tonight, at the Waterfront Museum in Red Hook, PortSide's director Carolina Salguero and designer Tim Ventimiglia will talk about plans for Atlantic Basin and the Oil Tanker Mary A. Whalen.

They'll recount the history of a 1930's coastal tanker--featured often on this blog-- and "outline their vision for the ship as a platform for educational programming, exhibits and events and for the maritime hub in Atlantic Basin that will be her home. Based in Red Hook where the ship was built, the Mary A. Whalen has been host to a range of innovative programs including the first-ever performance of a live opera in a working container port. Over the last two years, thirty design students from the Parsons School of Design have been exploring creative ways to transform the ship, re-program its cargo holds and upper deck to interpret a wide range of waterfront themes.

For more info see www.waterfrontmuseum.org and www.portsidenewyork.org.

South Brooklyn Bike Thieves Caught

Brooklyn Paper reports that the local police have "collared two men last week that they believe are responsible for a spate of bicycle thefts in Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens this month."

Readers of this site will be familiar with the stolen bike problem. Thefts began to rise in late June, and people began carting their bikes inside rather than risk locking it up on the street.

The robbers apprehended were Adrian Figueroa, 37, and Gasper Alcade, 49, who were seen clipping the locks on two bikes on Wyckoff Street on July 20. According to BP, there were at least seven other cycles stolen between July 1 and 15 in the 76th Precinct. (I think the number is far higher than that. I've personally heard of at least 10.)

The article contines:

But since a cop cuffed the pair between Hoyt and Smith streets, there have been no reported missing penny-farthings, according to a community affairs officer in the precinct.

That said, the police have not linked Figueroa and Alcade to any of the earlier crimes.

“We’re still investigating it,” said Vincent Marrone, a cop at the the Union Street stationhouse in Carroll Gardens.

Good job, 76th! Thanks to Brownstoner, who picked up several of my stories on bike thefts, and Channel 12, who did a subsequent TV segment on the matter.

Comment of the Day

Sam: "Loved to see this sign. My family lived above the store -- before I was born. J. Josephs was my great grandfather. My Uncle and his cousins (my cousins too) ran the store -- and we went there a few times -- and i loved getting lost in the "back." The Josephs family still owns it, as you pointed out."

St. Paul's 80 Years Ago

The Luso-American Cultural Center on Henry Street in Brooklyn, near Rapelye, is a steady source of wonderment to me. I've yet to see the inside of what was once St. Paul's Lutheran Church, erected a century and a half ago.

However, I recently discovered this beautiful old picture from 1930. Below is the building today. Doesn't look like it's changed much, does it? Just lost its cross.

Unloved Fifth Avenue Building Gets Polish Job

242 Fifth Avenue near 28th Street is a building that's always interested me, maybe because its easily viewed from the waiting room of my son's doctor's office. So I've spent a lot of time staring at it, wondering about the provenance of a handsome cast iron building so far from SoHo, and why it has been allowed to rust and go vacant for so many years.

The other day, as sonny boy was getting a check-up, I noticed that it had been bracketed by a sidewalk shed, and a small army of workers were busy sprucing up the slender, four-story structure.

The reason for the scrub job is most likely that the old boy in on the block, as this LoopNet listing testifies: "4 story plus full usable basement with high ceilings, elevator loft retail and office building, 20 feet wide and approx 9000 SF with additional air rights. Delivered 100% vacant, needs complete gut renovation, except for the new roof. Huge ceilings and windows with bright light."

Price: $8.7 million.

This inspired some sleuthing. The building was erected in 1892. Architect, unknown. It was home to the once great hat concern Dobbs & Co. from 1909 to 1914, after which the company moved next door to 244. (I like any building that has a history with hats.) A tailor Rupert Ryley lived and worked there roundabouts 1904. That's about it.

The last business resident was C.T. Wan & Co. It's a beautiful structure, a graceful mix of glass and iron. Bet it looks great once they're done cleaning it up.

Place Where the Names Have No Streets Now Has No Names Either

For some years now, there were a couple street signs on Columbia which pointed to streets that no longer existed. Irving Street and Sedgwick Street. The green signs were there, but when you cast your gaze to the west, all you saw were stubby stretches of seeming driveway cut dead by a chain-link fence. Beyond that was a parking lot and a field of weeds. The street were demapped in 1991.

I enjoyed those ghost signs. So, apparently, did a reporter at the New York Time, who wrote a lengthy piece about them in 2004. Now, however, they've gone the way of the streets themselves and disappeared. I'm not sure when this happened. There's been a lot of construction on Columbia in recent years. But I suspect it has something to do with the Brooklyn Greenway project. An off-street bike and pedestrian paths on the west side of Columbia Street, that is serving as the Interim Greenway there, recently opened for business. Around the same time, all the old signs has vanished, save one. The Sedgwick Street sign pictured below, on the east side of Columbia, remains. I suspect it was overlooked because the sign is partially obscured from sight by a tree.

One of the places where the Irving Street sign once hung, meanwhile, now holds up a birdhouse (above).


Irving and Sedgwick were once happening places, if you liked crimes scenes. As the Times article indicated, the two roads, which ran west from Columbia to the docks, were the scene of non-stop factory fires, many of them suspicious, and one in 1862 so notorious (hundreds of Irishmen attacks a few dozen blacks inside a tobacco factory) that it was called The Sedgwick Street Riot by the press.

Payroll robberies took place. People fell off the piers and drowned. Illegal liquor was produced. A steamship plowed into Sedgwick pier and smashed it, injuring many. My favorite detail: a floating hotel moored at the end of Sedgwick where two couples were once married on the same night. Aww.

Guss' Pickles—Of Brooklyn

This should upset me more than it does.

Lo-Down, via Eater, reports that Guss' Pickles, one of the last old-school, Lower East Side institutions, is moving to Brooklyn. The new location is 39th Street between 14th and 15th Avenues, the Kensington neighborhood "in a few months."

Patricia says she's running out of room and can't afford rent for a bigger space in the neighborhood since it's changed so much. When the city put a Muni Meter directly in front of her pickle barrels, blocking customers' access, it was the last straw.

I'd like Guss' to stay on the LES, where it's always been. But I have to admit that I don't mind the shift. As long as the place stays in business. After all, Guss' has been quite the same Guss' for some time. The business has changed hands a couple times since Izzy Guss retired, most recently to Patricia Fairhurst. And there was the move from the old location on Essex to the newer, less charming one on Orchard. Throw in the whole tangled dispute involving the rights to the Guss name, and you have to wonder aloud: "What difference does a move to Brooklyn make at this point?" It's like hanging a picture with a few cracks in it on a different wall.

Besides, a place with a name like Guss' pickles sounds like it belongs in Brooklyn.

Cheese Fries. Ice Cream. Cold Beer. Pizza Slice.

Sounds like a meal to me. Not in that order, of course.

Christian Memorial No More

No. 236 President Street is a curious structure, one of the oddest buildings in Carroll Gardens. It's wholly out of keeping with the brick and brownstone dwellings that surround it.

Sturdy, four-square, ghostly white with a brooding black cornice (which lists its birthday as 1897) and adorned with various classical architectural touches, it looks a little like a giant mausoleum. It's handsome, but also overbearingly gloomy.

For a long time, I assumed it had begun life as some sort of pompous carriage house. Then, last year, I discovered that its grand, four-story, brick neighbor (now an apartment building) has once been the Faculty Home of the Methodist Episcopal Church, owned by the now-gone Simpson Methodist Episcopal Church on the corner of Willoughby and Clermont Avenue. It, too, was erected in 1897, so I thought, perhaps, that the two buildings might be related—even though they look nothing like each other.

Then, recently, I found another piece to the puzzle. Passing by one day as the light was hitting the doorway of 236 just right, I noticed a patch of the wall above the front door wasn't as smooth as it ought to have been. I looked closer. Some carved letters seems to have been scraped away from the edifice. On the left one could make out what used to be the word "Christian." On the right, "Memorial." "Christian Memorial." It had been a religious building.

Checking with DOB, a 1949 Certificate of Occupancy lists the inside as containing a sanctuary, Chancel, Pastor's Room and classrooms.



But it was not a memorial to all Christians, just one specific Christian: Hans S. Christian, a Norwegian immigrant.

According to this helpful site, 236 President Street was the Hans S. Christian Memorial Kindergarden, built in honor of a successful lime and brick dealer who was born in Norway in 1825 and moved to Brooklyn. His factory was on the Gowanus Canal at Second Street. He died in 1896. He was for many years president of the board of trustees of the First Place M. E. Church. He actually dropped dead after returning from a Wednesday evening prayer meeting, in a snow storm. He lived at 231 President Street.

Amazing what's hiding in plain site if you look hard enough. A shame about those scraped-away letters.

Two Pizzerias on Fifth

For the Avenue that wears its age with grace and not a lot of show, I give the prize to Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn, from Boerum Hill on down through Park Slope to Windsor Terrace.

There are very old bars on this strip that do not get a lot of play in the papers—places like O'Connor's, Smith's, Jackie's Fifth Amendment and Smolen Bar & Grill. Likewise, you'll find a lot of retail stores and diners which are quietly marking their decades, such as Eagle Provisions.

Here are a couple of long-serving slice joints which sit a few blocks from each other: Luigi's (since 21st), which was founded in 1973; and Lenny's (near 17th), which dates back from the 1950s. You can see what Lenny looked like it you walk on to the back. There's an oil portrait of the man in a suit, complete with boutonniere.

A Good Sign: actory

actory. Just actory. Used to be one, I guess—a factory, I mean. But producing what? On Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn.

Former Blockbuster on Court Street to Become a Grocery Store?

People in South Brooklyn have been wondering what's to become of the huge retail space at 288 Court Street ever since the Blockbuster Video closed down more than a year ago. For a while, the fear was that McDonald's would take over the storefront. But that never happened. (We got Dunkin' Donuts and Starbuck's, in different locations, instead.)

On June 5, Brownstoner reported that the property was sold off for $3.7 million to a firm called Broadmill Development, "which recently developed a Chelsea condo called The Carriage House. Eric Gray, one of Broadmill's principals, says the company has "no definitive plans" for the site yet, and it could either be redeveloped or leased to a retailer."

Today, I noticed there was scaffolding on half of the structure. The windows were papered over. And there were DOB notices on the doors. Something was definitely up.

Trumpet blast! Off to the DOB website! Sure enough, a filing dated July 7 states, quite plaintly, "RENOVATE EXISTING RETAIL STORE FOR USE AS GROCERY STORE." Another on July 14 says, "ERECT A TOTAL OF 30 LINEAR FEET BY 12 FEET APPROXIMATE HIGH HEAVY DUTY SIDEWALK SHED."

That could be good. Court Street needs a grocery store—has ever since Key Food became a CVS. Trader Joe's is nice and all, but a more general use food store would be of use.

But what grocery store will it be? Brownstoner says Union Market.

Bikes Stolen in Park Slope, Too, Apparently

So, a reporter from Channel 12 saw my recent story about a rash of bike thefts in Carroll Gardens. She contacted me, wanting to do a story, and asked if I could put her in contact with someone who had had their bike stolen recently. I suggested the owners of The Bike Shop as a likely authority, but they apparently didn't want to comment. I reached out and did find someone, but it turned out he was from Park Slope, not Carroll Gardens. They needed someone from Carroll Gardens. I didn't have time to find anyone else—I'm a busy guy, and have my own work to do.

So—ta da!—the story turned into: "Park Slope bike-part thefts on the rise." And that's how the news works.

New York Post Runs Article With Catchy Headline

The New York Post has run an article today that had a headline that's, I don't know, somehow familiar to me. It's just reminds me of something—can't say what. Anyway, it's written by Nick Carr, who runs a lovely site called Scouting New York. It's worth a read:

Hidden Gems of a Lost City

For four years, NICK CARR has been a film location scout in New York City, finding the perfect dark alleys, rooftop getaways and neighborhood bars for Hollywood. Carr, who chronicles his job at ScoutingNY.com, says, "What never ceases to amaze me about New York is how much there is to see if you take the time to look. Every street has a hidden gem or two: remnants of a bygone era, beautiful architectural flourishes, an interesting oddity or quirk. And yet, I find that most of it goes unnoticed by the hundreds, if not thousands, of daily passersby in too much of a hurry to pay attention." Here, Carr shares his 10 favorite finds, "the places that remind you that the city has a lot to offer those who take the time to slow down and appreciate it."

1.) The East Village Beach House

1st Avenue at 1st Street, Manhattan

It's as if a tornado blew in from Cape Cod and deposited a beach house onto the East Village. Perched on the roof of a four-story brick apartment building is a shingled cottage, complete with bay windows and a weathervane-topped cupola. The owner calls it "Up-Upon-It" (a joking reference to friends with cottages in Sagaponack), and rumors abound that it is surrounded with sand and lawn chairs.

2.) The River Below Manhattan

Visible at 2 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan

Hundreds of years ago, dozens of rivers, brooks and streams dissected the island of Manhattan. All were eventually filled in or diverted underground via manmade canals, the only remnants of their existence left in the names of streets traversing their former locations (Water Street, Spring Street and Canal Street, among others). Incredibly, at least one such stream, the Minetta Brook, continues to flow to this day. Once cutting a path from 21st Street and Sixth Avenue through the West Village into the Hudson River, the brook was driven underground by developers in the early 1800s (the odd angle in Minetta Street allegedly follows its original footprint). A glass fountain in the lobby of 2 Fifth Avenue with pipes reaching down to the Minetta offers a rare glimpse to its continued existence. Check it out after a heavy rainfall to see water barreling up as the brook rages deep below the streets of Manhattan.

3.) The Skinniest Building In Midtown

19 W. 46th Street, Manhattan

Measuring in at an astonishing 12-feet-wide, this four-story Midtown oddity can only be described as a brownstone that has been sliced in half. Towering office buildings on either side seem to be squeezing it out, as if desperate for breathing room. With only enough space for a single row of windows running up to the slated mansard roof, the interior is further reduced by a stairwell on one side of the building. As a fellow location scout once mused, "Perhaps this building came first, and everything else was built around it?"

4.) The Wizard of Park Avenue

470 Park Ave. South, Manhattan

With such landmarks as Grand Central Terminal and the MetLife building to steal your gaze, one could be forgiven for not noticing the ornately-decorated bronze clock overhead. Designed by artist William Zorach and inspired by the building's history in the silk trade, the clock is beautifully decorated in crawling silkworms and lush mulberry leaves (a silkworm's favorite food). However, the marvel here is a bearded wizard perched atop the clock. At the start of every hour, the wizard waves his wand, causing the man kneeling before him to swing a hammer against an anvil, tolling the hour. This awakens the "Queen of Silk," who rises up from a cocoon and remains aloft until the hour has finished striking. Incredibly, the clock is still fully powered by wooden pendulums (though due to the expansion and contraction of the wood, you probably shouldn't set your watch by it).

5.) 23rd Street and Fourth Avenue

Southeast corner, Park Avenue at 23rd Street

I love finding remnants of a New York that no longer exists. Fading brick-wall advertisements, train tracks to nowhere and stone-carved logos for defunct businesses serve as a reminder of just how hard it is to fully erase the past. One such telling artifact can be found at Park Avenue and 23rd Street. Here, bronze lettering on the southeast corner building identify the adjacent streets, but the Park Avenue side is strangely marked "Fourth Avenue" -- even though Fourth Avenue terminates downtown at 14th Street! In fact, Park Avenue was once entirely known as Fourth Avenue. In the early 1800s, a steam-engine trainline ran the length of it, bringing a sizable amount of filth and pollution to the avenue. The underground tunnel at 38th Street (now a car underpass) was once an old train tunnel, on top of which was planted a landscaped garden. This section became known as Park Avenue, a name that eventually spread in a bid to draw interest back to the heavily polluted area.

6.) The Little Building Under the Bridge

Vernon Blvd. at Queens Blvd., Queens

Once the headquarters for the renowned New York Architectural Terra-Cotta Works (suppliers of terra-cotta for Carnegie Hall, among countless others), the building became vacant after the company went out of business in the 1920s. It acquired landmark status in 1982, after which Citibank -- owners of the property since 1970 -- sealed it up and left it to rot. Recently, Silver Cup Studios announced plans to build a new studio on the lot behind the building, with promises to restore it. However, the plan seems to have stalled, and the little building under the bridge continues to decay. That it still stands despite decades of neglect is a testament to the quality of its construction.

7.) The Studebaker Showroom of Bedford Avenue

Bedford Avenue at Sterling Place, Crown Heights, Brooklyn

Studebaker, one of the first automobile manufacturers in the US, once had a sizable presence in New York, including this former car showroom. Made of white concrete and white terra-cotta, the building is in pristine condition. A recent renovation sadly removed the two-story wrap-around showroom windows on the ground level, but Studebaker emblems, logos and imaginative Gothic flourishes thankfully still adorn the exterior. The building dates back to a time when this area was known as Automobile Row. You'll find remnants from the era around the neighborhood.

8.) The Secret Owl at Columbia University

Columbia University Campus, 116th Street at Broadway, Manhattan

One of the most beautiful and pleasant places in New York City is the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University. Built on the site of the former Bloomingdale Insane Asylum (only a single red-brick building, which once housed wealthy men with mental illnesses, remains from this era), the campus covers an astonishing six city blocks without a single active cross street bisecting it. Located in the center of campus is the statue of Alma Mater, sculpted by Daniel Chester French and a symbol for the university. Inspired by Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, Alma Mater's arms are raised invitingly toward the campus as if welcoming in the knowledge around her. But Alma Mater harbors a secret: an owl, hidden in the folds of her robe and completely invisible at a distance. There are a number of legends about the rewards that will come to a student that finds the owl: marry a Barnard girl within the year, become class valedictorian, general good luck, etc. As I would hate to deprive you of any of these potential riches, I will leave you to find Alma Mater's secret owl on your own!

9.) The American Merchant Mariners' Memorial

Battery Park, northwest corner, Manhattan

One of the most moving public art pieces in New York City is a haunting tribute to commercial sailors who lost their lives at sea. The memorial, designed by artist Marisol, was inspired by a true event during World War II, in which a Nazi U-boat attacked an American merchant marine vessel. While the marines desperately clung to their sinking ship, the Nazis photographed the victims, then left them to the open seas. The memorial is directly based on one of those photographs. In the sculpture, two men are desperately crying for help atop a sinking boat while a third tries to pull a victim from the water. There is an unbelievable sense of desperation and frustration in the piece, as the drowning man struggles, veins bursting from his arm, to grab hold of the seaman above and salvation as the waters of the Hudson mercilessly lap at his head, often completely submerging him. The piece is rendered all the more chilling when one reads the final line of the historical marker: "Left to the perils of the sea, the survivors later perished."

10.) The Immortals of Times Square

TGIF Restaurant, 46th Street

at Seventh Avenue, Manhattan

Long before it was a TGI Friday's, the building was a showroom for Israel Miller, a famed shoemaker for Broadway shows. A motto from the period still lines the top of the building: "The Show Folks Shoe Shop Dedicated To Beauty In Footwear." But the real highlight here, my favorite hidden gem of Times Square, is the row of four statues positioned high up on the West 46th Street wall, each depicting a famed Broadway actor of the 1920s in costume as their most notable role. A public contest was held to choose the top actors of the day in the categories of drama, comedy, film and opera, resulting in such picks as Ethel Barrymore (Drew's great aunt) for her work as Ophelia. Despite being covered in dirt and grime and completely ignored by millions of tourists, these statues continue to stand proud in front of gold-leafed backgrounds, having attained the rarest of rare: a permanent place in Times Square.

This Week on Lost City

Carroll Gardens' Basil War Came to a Bitter End; While Carroll Gardens' Bike War Raged On; the Situation at Chumley's Got Worse; The Former Brothers Bar-B-Cue Continued to Decline; City Council's Land-use Committee Approved The City's Rezoning of Coney Island That Nobody Likes; Bloomberg Polluted the City With His Idling SUV; I Went to La Sevilla.

Is No One Safe?

Thieves continue to prey on Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens bikes. This plaintive message was posted on a bulletin inside the landmark Christ Church at Kane and Clinton.

If anyone out there has had a bike stolen recently in Cobble Hill or Carroll Gardens, please contact me. Big time TV reporters are interested in your story!

Who Needs Clean Clothes?

Another sign that New York is becoming a bourgeois place unwelcoming to people of more meager means: laundromats are disappearing.

This has been happening in my neighborhood for some time. Not The Villager reports it's happening in Greenwich Village where, apparently, everyone now has a washer-dryer.

Add to the list of closings the laundromat and cleaners at 302 W. Fourth St., run by the Lees, a husband-and-wife team who have been at this location for 26 years. The Lees said they were too busy to talk and didn’t want to draw attention to their leaving the area. Major Associates — the landlord, according to New York City property records — decided not to renew the lease...

The laundromats that have disappeared in the last few years include Harry Chong’s, at Waverly Place and Charles St., which closed after 60 years in business; the Stinky Sock, on W. Fourth St., and the Charles Street Laundromat.

Most recently, Cesmar Laundromat, on 11th St., closed earlier this year.

“The mom-and-pop businesses are important to a neighborhood because of the relationships we form with the people who own them,” said Barbara Morris, who has lived in the area for more than 10 years and brings her cleaning to the Lees. “I have relationships with people, not with corporate brands. The landlords don’t seem to get it that business is all about relationships.”

Despite the recession, monthly rents are still high in the West Village, said a small retailer who asked to remain anonymous. He looked around at his business neighbors and pointed across the street at an empty storefront with more space; the landlord wanted to charge the former merchant double when his lease expired.

Greed is good. Good for nothing.

Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Sevilla?"

It is hard to believe that I have lived in New York for 21 years and never dined at Sevilla. Certainly, I've passed the classically quaint, and ideally situated, Village restaurant easily 1,000 times. This week I rectified the situation with an Eater "Who Goes There?" column. I'm still a-gog over the ancient wall murals in the back of the restaurant. They should be in a museum. How is it that the interior of this restaurant hasn't been landmarked?

Here's the column:

Who Goes There? Sevilla Restaurant

Here we are, in sunny Spain once again.

Seriously, what is it with Spain and survival in this town? The Italians may have everyone beat when it comes to sheer numbers of New York restaurants. But when you step down to the level of anonymous, dust-gathering, timecard-punching joints, the Spanish give everyone a run for their money. Two weeks ago, I found myself at Spanish Taverna, the Cantina That Midtown Forgot. Now, here I am at the West Village’s Sevilla Restaurant for another heaping helping of sangria and the inevitable paella.

To be fair, Sevilla has more bonafides than many of the other Iberian eateries I’ve visiting in the last two years. The restaurant has been at the corner of Charles and W. 4th Street since 1941, making it one of the oldest Spanish places in town. For two decades before that, the address was an Irish tavern; the wooden ceiling, Art Deco bar and mind-blowingly old-looking wall murals date from that time. (The murals have darkened with time and are obscured with tacky oil paintings. You have to squint in the dim lighting to see them.) One caption: “The Dutch arrive and land on Manhattan to the cock-eyed amazement of the Natives.”

The restaurant has been run by a series of Spanish families since its founding, and has been under the command of Jose Lloves since the early ‘70s. Silver-haired Lloves, in suit and tie, still greets each incoming guest with a somber, slightly weary courtesy. These included plenty of loyal regulars and just as many tourists. Sevilla apparently feeds off both worlds. Several parties were evident first-timers, gawking at the surrounding, including a foursome of Japanese visitors. Others slapped Lloves on the back and sailed on to a familiar booth in the rear where loved ones awaited. Said one WASPy character in a yellow Tommy Hilfiger windbreaker upon entering, “Two of my daughters are back there.” A gay couple next to me spent half the meal talking in English and then, without apparent reason, communicated solely in Spanish for the remainder of the evening.

With Spanish restaurants of a certain age, paella is always the first item on the menu and the thing recommended by every waiter. I acquiesced and for once wasn’t disappointed. The rice was fresher than usual, the seafood not as rubbery. It was preceded by a decent iceberg salad held in place by a thick, pale wheel of tomato. I was still more impressed by the house sangria, a drink that typically depresses me as a wan, washed-out punch. But this spicy, lively potion had a revitalizing punch. It’s whipped up by Sevilla’s bartender of 25 years, Roberto. Lloves—whose hair didn’t go gray worrying out payments to pesky landlords; he owns the building—imparted the heart of its secret: “Brandy, prosecco and GOOD red wine.” By my taste buds, plenty of brandy.
— Brooks of Sheffield

Some Stuff That's Interesting

Ken Mac visits one of Lost City's favorites, the Clover Delicatessen. [Greenwich Village Daily Photo]

Where the Jefferson Theatre used to be. [EV Grieve]

Old Florent space gutted for new tenant. [Eater]

Ick and yikes. [Curbed]

More beguilingly skewed facades from Restless.

Forgotten New York visits Ditmars Boulevard.

The Berghoff Memorial Blog, honoring the bygone Chicago landmark restaurant, is gone, and I am sad.

What Your Mayor Is Up To

Calling himself a "green" mayor while letting his SUV idle for hours on end all over the City, because it's an "emergency vehicle." [AP, via Queens Crap]

Being taken to task by the Village Voice for the Deutsche Bank scandal. "Even Bloomberg's Department of Investigations (DOI) found last month, in a report barely noticed by the press, that it was a case of death by official dereliction." [VV]

Spending $72,000 on yogurt to fuel his third-term troops. [City Room]

Putting crap lawnchairs that fall apart in Times Square. [CBS]

A Good Sign: Eldorado Arcade

In Coney Island.

Horseradish and Cyclones

One of the things I like most about going to Brooklyn Cyclones games in Coney Island—aside from being able to get Magic Hat beer, kosher hot dogs and knishes, Nathan's french fries, the views of the water, the Wonder Wheel, the Cyclone and the Parachute Drop, the "Hot Dog Races," the breeze wafting in from New York Harbor, and, jeez, just about everything—are the ads that line the outfield.

There are a few placards for national, corporate products like Pepsi and the execrable Applebee's. But mainly the ads are homely jobs for wonderful, local (or formerly local) concerns like Maimonides Medical Center, Carvel Ice Cream, the Brooklyn Window & Door Corporation, the NYC Union of Carpenters and Contractors and the good old Wonder Wheel.

But my favorite of all the ads is the one for Gold's Horseradish out in far right field. I don't know. Something about their line of tear-provoking products just says "New York." Anyway, you can bet you're not going to see a Gold's billboard at some stadium in Sarasota or Durham.

The Only Reason I've Ever Liked Developer Joe Sitt

That reason? Because he's the only person in the city powerfully positioned enough to screw up the Bloomberg administration's ruinous rethinking of Coney Island.

Despite widespread, and unrelenting criticism (including protests from documentary filmmaker Ric Burns and Pulitzer Prize-winning historians Edwin Burrows and Mike Wallace (“Gotham”)) of it's awful rezoning scheme for the treasured Brooklyn neighborhood (More towers! Less amusement!), the City has steamrolled forward in typically arrogant, Bush-style, the-public-be-damned style with its plan. Yesterday, the City Council's land-use committee approved the city's controversial rezoning, meaning it is likely on track for full Council approval on July 29 (because when lately has the Council stood up to Bloomberg?).

According to City Room, "City officials and Councilman Domenic M. Recchia Jr. also hinted that the city may expand the amount of land dedicated to amusements between Surf Avenue and the boardwalk, as many critics have sought. But that will only happen if the Bloomberg administration comes to terms with the developer Joe Sitt before the full council votes on the redevelopment plan on July 29."

That's a big "but." Sitt, long a thorn in the side of both the public and Bloomberg, say thanks, but no thanks, to the City’s offer to buy his property for $105 million. He wants more dough than that.

Sitt's bad for New York. But Bloomberg's worse. And, unbelievably, in this dog fight, I'm rooting for Sitt. No one, not even that prevaricating skunk, shouldn't be threatened with having his land taken away via Eminent Domain, as the Bloomberg goons have done. Perhaps if he stands his ground long enough (and it's hard to make a mega-developer budge when it comes to money), he's scuttle the City's Coney plan, or at least force them to revise it. I mean, who the hell proposed erecting a high-rise hotel in front of the historic Wonder Wheel and thinks it's a good idea? The kind of person that should be stopped, that's who.

(Nice picture, above, via Amusing the Zillion.)

The Long, Slow, Creepy and Weird Decline of Brothers Bar-B-Cue

There once was a nice, little, Southern-styled restaurant called the Brothers Bar-B-Cue at 228 W. Houston Street. It was a homey, honky-tonk place. They served decent ribs and gave you a free basket of hush puppies to snack on when you sat down. And the space was curious, a crooked building with an entrance on both Houston and in the back on Downing Street. It made for a nice before-or-after place to grab a bite after a movie at Film Forum across the street.

And then it closed down. Brothers Bar-B-Q moved to a bigger space across Varick. Eventually, that closed as well. The old space stood derelict for months. Then years. The old signage remained. The windows grew dirty, the facade forlorn. Nothing happened. Then, recently, things got so bad that they just boarded up all the windows and doors on both the Houston and Downing sides.

What's going on here? The building, which is not landmarked, dates at least back to the 1890s. There used to be factories in the upper floors. It appears to belong to one William Gottlieb.

Back in February 2008 there was a complaint filed with the Department of Building that there was an "ILLEGAL CONVERSION COMMERCIAL BLDG/SPACE TO DWELLING UNITS" going on. The DOB took a look and found "WORK W/O PERMIT. WORK NOTED: AT 5TH FLOOR APT ERECTED FULL HEIGHT PARTITIONS. TO CREATE 4 CLASS 'B' APTS. WORK 100% COMPLETE. REMEDY: OBTAIN PERMITS OR RESTORE TO PRIOR LEGAL." CONDITIONS.

Then I found this, which appeared to explain the mystery a bit. Gottlieb died back in 1999 and left behind him a tangled estate of dozens of buildings, mostly in Greenwich Village.

Gottlieb was a strange man. A lengthy article in the Times said "Gottlieb was heavyset and invariably dressed in wrinkled pants and an old golf shirt, which some people suspected he seldom changed. He wore big, black-framed glasses and carried a pendulous chain of keys. During the 1970s, Gottlieb used to outfit his orange Volkswagen Thing with loudspeakers and drive it through the Village, blasting disco music. Later on, he trundled around in a green station wagon with a busted heater and a broken window, sometimes stopping to offer lifts to his tenants.... Bill Gottlieb never married or had children. Friends say the passion of his life was not money, but ownership. “He was a collector of buildings,” one associate says."

Gottlieb learned the cardinal rule of his eccentric business style from none other than Harry Helmsley, for whom he worked early on as a leasing representative for a Helmsley-owned brokerage firm: "Never sell." Gottlieb got a lot of his properties on the cheap, when the City was going bankrupt in the 1960s and '70s. And he never sold. Neither have his heirs.

He died suddenly, and, soon after, his family started bickering over the estate. Inheritance taxes were a big problem. "Ultimately, the family was able to work out a settlement with the I.R.S. over the estate-tax bill. The assessment, which stood at $50 million in 2004, is being paid in installments over 15 years." Could this be why 228 W. Houston stands idle? All I know is, last night, the lights on the upper floors were on.

Varick Eatery

Varick Eatery. Don't know when this Village entity came along, but: like the stark, red-brick look; like the punchy name. Like it!

I use the word "eatery" all the time in posts. This is the first time I've ever seen a business refer to itself by that slangy name, though.

What's New With Chumley's?

Absolutely nothing. Unless you count the odd bit of netting which is now draped like a canopy over the long-suffering construction site of the all-but-dead-and-buried former speakeasy. Otherwise, progress on the rebuild is at the same standstill is was three months ago.

There are also some gaps in the plywood now, so I was able to fetch the below shot of the inside.

The Diplomat Mystery Answered Two Ways

Some time ago, while looking for clues as to the history of the bygone Magic Touch restaurant, which has left behind a beguiling sign at the corner of Hoyt Street and Third Street in Carroll Gardens, one commenter left behind a message that sent me on a separate wild goose chase:

The Magic Touch was an Italian restaurant and bar owned by a man named Mike Maluso. The establishment featured live music nightly, and pretty good veal and pasta. While it was very popular with the boys, as was Monte's Venetian Room on Carroll Street and the Diplomat on 3rd Avenue, it was in no way a place where prostitutes could be found or any nonsense like that would be tolerated.

Whaaa? The Diplomat? What's that?

So I put up a separate post asking people for tips about the nature and history of The Diplomat (which had a great name, you must admit). Months passed. Not a word. But then, earlier this month, one "Jane" wrote:

The Diplomat used to be on the corner of 3rd Ave and Carroll Street. I used to live across the street from it. It was a very nice place in the 70s... The older Italian gents used to hang out there. I was a very young woman, and used to feel very safe in the neighborhood because they would watch out for me.

Very touching. But, perhaps, just one side of the story. By some fluke, I recently came across an alternative history of the Diplomat—the full name of which was the Diplomat Social Club, on the internet. It was headquarters for the Colombo crime family when it was run by Carmine "The Snake" Persico. (That's him, up top.) Persico operated out of the club after he was let out of prison and assumed the throne. Also to be found there: "the main players of the Persico faction of the Colombo faction: Carmine, when he was out of prison, his brother Ally Boy, Jerry Langella, Hugh MacIntosh, one of the family’s main enforcers, Carmine Franzese, the brother of Sonny, Greg Scarpa, Anthony, Vincent and Joe, Jr., the sons of Joseph Colombo, anybody who was part of the Persico faction or who had dealings with them.

I guess with those guys around, you would feel safe. If they liked you. If they didn't, well.....

No Surprise

In today's article in the New York Times on the record storefront vacancy rate in Manhattan, 6.5. percent, the highest point since the early 1990s:

The City Council is weighing in, too, considering a Small Business Survival Act that would require businesses to have the option of 10-year leases, renewals and the right to mediation if they cannot reach an agreement.

The legislation does not have the support of the Bloomberg administration, which argues that tracking lease negotiations would be too costly because of expenses like hiring staff, and that the need for such a law has “greatly dissipated” because rents have declined.

I wonder what would have to happen for Bloomberg to get behind New York's small, independent businesses?

Bloomblight. Bloomblight.

My Favorite New Word

Bloomblight.

As in the blight of unfinished and unoccupied condo complexes littering Bloomberg's New York in the wake of the Great Recession.

And the building goes on! Writes Miss Heather, reacting to a NY1 story: "As if this was not depressing enough this tome goes on to say that despite this glut of over-priced King’s crap, the building continues. It is projected 5,200 more luxury apartments will find their way onto the market in 2010. Clearly the cardinal rule of how to get out of a hole (stop digging) has been lost on these people."

Tony Avella: Start using it. "Bloomblight." Work it into every speech and press release.

Still No Totonno's

As of July 19. Is the Coney Island summer to pass without this sacred pizzeria reopening?

UPDATE: Slice has the new opening date as late August.

Carroll Gardens Bike Thief on the Loose

There are a lot of bike riders in my building. Some keep their bikes inside, some (like me) lock them to the railing or lamppost and traffic signs outside. It's always been a safe neighborhood. Few worry.

Lately, however, it's gotten very close just inside my front door. Everybody's brought their bikes inside. There are six or seven clogging up the ground-floor landing (including mine). Why? The word is out: there's a bike thief in the neighborhood.

I have heard of at least three stolen bikes on my block alone, one belonging to my neighbor. And the rash of robberies is not limited to my immediate area; it appears to be Carroll Gardens-wide. I went to the venerable Bike Shop on lower Court Street. This trusted business has been in the area for a couple decades. The owners said they had heard tell of many stolen bikes of late. And not just fancy new mountain bikes, either. Also old used bikes that many have assumed immune to robbery, given their limited resale potential.

We discussed possible culprits, and the Bike Shop owner made a suggestion that had never occurred to me: deliverymen. He said he'd noticed guys delivering food on bikes incongruously nice for their given duties. This seemed unlikely to me. Wouldn't people around the neighborhood notice them riding their stolen bike? The owner said bikes are easily disguised through paint jobs and such.

Who knows? But one thing's for sure. No bike is safe in Carroll Gardens at present.

A Good Sign: Plaza Mexico

Plaza Mexico, a taco joint just off the boardwalk in Coney Island.

It's a Grand Old Flag

Fort Defiance, the new cafe-bar on Van Brunt in Red Hook, has been open for a few weeks. But now it has a nifty new hand-painted sign on the wall. Nice. Also, I'd be willing to wager that this is one of the few hipster bars in New York to have an American flag hanging outside its door.

Third Trip to Red Hook Ballfield Vendors

The line for the Martinez Huaraches stand is always the longest of the Red Hook Ballfield Vendors. I suspect this is because their bill of fare is the most familiar to the uninitiated: tacos, quesadillas, etc. This past Saturday, however, I showed up at 11:30 and the queue was doable. I ordered a chicken Huarache, got a lemonades from the Vaquero Fruit Stand kitty-korner, sat down, and enjoyed.

Illicit Hooch Tunnel Once Ran Under Carroll Gardens

While doing some random searching through old articles in the New York Times' internet archives, I ran across a curious item from 1936 titled "50,000 Liquor Plant Raided in Brooklyn."

In September of that year, City police and federal agents raided 166 President Street between Hicks and Henry. They chased Paul Savasta and four or five others down a stairway from the basement level to the cellar. There they found "a 1,000-gallon still extending from the sub-cellar upward through the cellar, basement and parlor floors... They also found four 650-gallon vats of mash, several thousand pounds of brown sugar, a number of 5-gallon unfilled cans and several retaining cans."

But that wasn't their most interesting find. There was a hole in the rear of the sub-cellar. Climbing through this and down a ladder about six feet, they encountered a large wooden door, which opened to a tunnel, "with shored walls and ceiling and high enough to walk through." The 100-foot tunnel took a diagonal path to the backyard of 542 Henry Street, between President and Carroll. At that end, there was another ladder and a trapdoor. "The tunnel is equipped with electric lights and at each end there is a button and buzzer for signaling."

Totally cool.

I have to imagine the whole apparatus was build during Prohibition and the owners just kept on using it in order to avoid paying taxing on their homemade hooch.

I went and checked out both addresses and neither exists any longer. 166 President (above) is a new construction, bracketing by older buildings on either side. 542 President (below) is a parking lot, also of recent pedigree. Mysterious. I wonder if the tunnel is still somewhere underground.

Carroll Garden's Basil War Comes to Bitter End

The basil thieves of Carroll Gardens are hurting tonight. Their quarry has been removed.

Two weeks about it emerged that a window box brimming with fresh basil, sitting outside a green-brick building on President Street near Henry, in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood, was being regularly robbed of its herbal bounty. The owners fought back with a shaming sign: "PLEASE Stop taking our BASIL!" cried the sign on President. IT IS VERY Cheap AND YOU CAN buy you own. P.S. The children are quite disturbed by your actions. And so are the adults." [Capitalization and punctuation, theirs.]

It was still there as of mid-week last week. But tonight it is gone. And so is the basil.

Plunked down in the dirt of an empty window box (and oddly set off by what seems to be a white picture frame) is a considerably less ostentatious sign made of brown cardboard and black magic marker, which reads, "No more basil for you to take. The End."

A little bit of Soup Nazi syntax there if I'm not mistaken.

Now, how am I gonna make my pesto?

Kidding. Kidding.

Some Work at Tripoli

Tripoli, the grand old mainstay on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, is having a little work down. A number of laborers were hard at work chipping away at the facade this weekend. Seems the place, which never had an awning, is getting a new awning. I kinda like it the way it is. An awning might obscure the quasi-majestic frontage.

Hey, Mr. Monteleone. Where's Mr. Cammerari?

Does anyone know what happened at the bakery hitherto known, since it's grand reopening in early 2007, as Monteleone & Cammareri Bakery & Cafe. Sometime recently, in the quiet of night, the red sign was switched to one that only lists the Monteleone name. (See above.)

Of course, the space previously belonged only to Monteleone, which has been in the neighborhood since 1902, when it was founded on Columbia Street by Harry and Frank Monteleone. Somewhere along the way, the brothers took on two unrelated partners, moved to Court Street and passed away.

Monteleone closed up shop in 2006. But they teamed up with another name from the past, Cammareri (of "Moonstruck" fame and formerly on Henry Street) and came back. Cammareri closed up its storefront sometime around 2000 but still survived in a wholesale fashion.

Anyway, Cammareri ain't around no mo'. See the new sign below.

Huge B61 Bus News

Earth-shaking news regarding the infamous bus known as the B61!

Word has come through Craig Hammerman, through the Word on Columbia Street blog:

"After much consideration, NYC Transit has finally agreed to split the B61 into 2 routes -- one from Red Hook to Downtown Brooklyn, and one from Downtown Brooklyn into Long Island City, Queens (which would become a new B62 route). This move is intended to improve the reliability and timeliness of the B61 route, particularly as it serves our district.

The change would go into effect in January 2010, assuming it receives approval of the MTA Board which it is scheduled to come before later this month. We should be receiving our formal letter from NYC Transit within the next week."

Could it be that Brooklyn's worst bus line is about to enter a new era of improved service? Doubtful. But it's got to get better than it is now!

Faded Ad Decipherers Wanted

I have been looking at this faded ad for some time now. It sits on the side of a brick building on President Street, between Hicks and Columbia. It's obviously been there for some time. But for the life of me, I can't figure out what it used to say or what company or product it used to advertise.

Can anyone out there give me a hand? Maybe you have better eyes than I do. The best I can figure is we're dealing with four large letters, then an apostrophe, then an "S." So, it's a good bet it's someone's name.

Part of the problem may be that we're looking at two faded ads here, one painted over the other, thus obscuring the lettering of both ads.

If anyone's got a guess, please write in.

Belltower of Columbia Street Not Only Ugly, But Self-Important

Having overcome a previous setback in which the community challenged the legality of its strange, medieval structure, the Belltower of Columbia Street has chugged along toward completion. The two-story tower at the top of the thing—which, it turns out, is actually an elevator shaft to house a fancy glass elevator, to be used by the buildings residents—is now wholly covered in brick.

What's more, it now bears a stone plaque, engraved with a large "V" and the dating "Est. MMVIII." Roman numerals! So the creators of this monstrosity are not only vulgarians, but pompous as well. (They also got the date wrong, obviously having ordered the plaque early on, when they thought the building would be completed last year.)

Piccolo Cafe Finito?

The teeny-tiny, and super bizarro Piccolo Cafe attracted some attention when it opened on Columbia Street, Brooklyn, last January due to its piccolo menu. Three items, to be precise.

It bulked up the menu over time, advertising each new addition in bold red and white signs outside the door. But the joint never caught on—possibly, as many readers pointed out to me, because the food was processed and lousy, and the fries routinely undercooked.

Piccolo's story may be told, now. Walking by today, the signs are gone and the inside is ripped up. No staff in sight. It may be a renovation, but I'm guessing it's doneski.

Edison Cafe Loses Its Host

Sad News. Harry Edelstein, longtime proprietor of the theatre district coffee shop and hangout, the Edison Cafe, has died at 91.

He and his wife Frances opened the diner in 1980 and it quickly became the favored chowhouse of people like August Wilson and Neil Simon, not to mention plenty of poor young actors. He was a gracious, jolly, no-frills host who served up a mean bowl of matzo ball soup.

He wife Frances remains, as does his son-in-law, Conrad Stahl, who has done the heavy lifting at the cafe for many years. So the tradition will continue. But sad to see him go. He served the theatre community and the City well.

What the F. Martinella Happened?

Cobble Hill Blog reports that downtown Brooklyn deli, and Boar's Head front, F. Martinella has closed up shop.

That was quick.

The deli gained early infamy last fall by hanging out signs and advertising with the boast "Since 1949." That piece of marketing was revealed as fiction, the work of Boar's Head meats, which was using the deli as a showcase for its products. A Lost City reader came up with this theory:

Boar's Head:
CEO: Robert S. Martin
President: Michael Martella
Martin + Martella = Martinella

To this, I added my own bit of detective work as to the initial "F." in "F. Martinella": Boar's Head was founded in 1903 by Frank Brunckhorst. As in F. Brunckhorst. The "Since 1949" bits were subsequently removed.

The place had the bad luck to open right when the recession hit.

Some Stuff That's Interesting

Whole Foods announced it's not coming to Gowanus. Nobody is surprised. [Curbed]

The New York Police Department still uses typewriters. Some people are surprise. (Not me. I'm pleased. And not only because the story caused the Post to run a picture of "Barney Miller.") [NY Post]

Someone wants to put the screws of Joe Jr.'s former landlord. Hey, I'm all for putting the screws to landlords, whatever the reason. [Eater]

New screw-up named to lead MTA. [City Room]

The Museum of the City of New York is opening a speakeasy, which is about the coolest thing the Museum of the City of New York has ever done. [City Room]

Tony Avella tells off CB7 in no uncertain terms. [Queens Crap]

Bye Bye Middle Class

To file under "Duh," this none-too-eye-opening article in the New York Post:

NEW YORK CITY'S MIDDLE CLASS IS VOTING WITH THEIR FEET

New York City's 700,000 middle class families are being squeezed as never before, and they are leaving.

Although their earnings are far higher than the US middle-class average, their cost of living expenses far exceed the national average.

A family of four in the five boroughs is considered middle class with a median income of $105,000, and the figure for a single is $67,500, according to the Drum Major Institute.

As most city residents know, the city is far more expensive to live in than any other US city. A NYC household earning $80,000 would not have the comforts of living; in fact it would barely cover basic needs.

The city's middle class wealth is tied to home values, yet the average home sale price in New York City dropped 22 percent in the last year, according to the Real Estate Board of New York.

"The New York area [home price decline] has gone from a moderate level to an elevated level because of the big hit from the financial crisis," LaVaughn Henry, senior economist at PMI, the fourth-largest US mortgage insurer, told Bloomberg.

The outer boroughs have lost more than 40,000 families where a member held a bachelor's degree - a factor in determining middle-class status, in 2007, according to the Center for an Urban Future.

More than 151,000 middle-class residents left the city in 2006 alone, according to the study. Many have opted to take the much longer commute from the Poconos or Philadelphia in order to live middle-class lives.

A union job was once considered the entry point to a middle class lifestyle in the city. But as a result of the rising cost of living, the city's largest municipal union, DC 37, is campaigning to exclude its members from city residency requirements in future contracts.

Me? I got smart. I have managed to remain in the city by dropping out of the troubled Middle Class and joining the growing poor. All in one year!

A Little Brooklyn in New Orleans

Found in the French Quarter's famous Central Grocery: Sahadi Falafel, straight outa Brooklyn.

CUNY Gets Stern With Stanford White

The new blog Architakes, which is already proving itself quite the preservation watchdog, has uncovered another one of CUNY's crimes against New York's architectural heritage.

The site reports that ground has been broken on a new Bronx Community College building that will throw the historic and majestic, Pantheon-like Gould Memorial Library by Stanford White severely off-balance. The library is part of a historic quadrangle inspired by Thomas Jefferson’s design for the University of Virginia. The structures built to White’s design are Gould Memorial Library, two flanking academic halls and the crescent-shaped Hall of Fame colonnade centered behind them. It all makes a pretty, cohesive picture, and has for the last 100 years.

Problem is that, while the library is landmarked, the Great Lawn isn't. According to Achitakes, "Buildings introduced since White’s time have roughly followed his master plan on the south and east sides of the quadrangle, producing the Great Lawn he planned. The north side of the Lawn has remained vacant, used as a parking lot, until now."

Now, here comes the new North Instructional Building and Library, designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, which, of course, is an oversized piece of goods that will stand as a modernist insult to White's work.

I'll let Architakes take it from here:

Stern’s design will cover not just the area allocated for buildings in White’s master plan, but much of the Great Lawn as well. Encroached upon by the new building, what is left of the Lawn will be off-center with the library, destroying the fundamental premise of White’s master plan and devaluing one of the nation’s most architecturally significant campus cores...

The Lawn and the structures were conceived as a piece, open space and buildings reinforcing each other’s importance. As the exterior focus of the campus, the Great Lawn is intentionally aligned with its interior focus, the library’s great rotunda, their classically symmetrical spaces linked and sequentially experienced by way of a processional path centered on Lawn and buildings...

This double-talk can’t hide what’s on clear view in any drawing of the new campus plan; the catastrophic impact of Stern’s building on White’s plan, and its competition for primacy with his library. The new building isn’t just in the wrong place; its scale is far greater than what White had envisioned and suggested by way of the academic halls he designed on either side of Gould Memorial Library. (Had CUNY only heard of Stern’s academic credentials and not his ego?)

What kind of building does the College get for $56 million and an imponderable loss of cultural heritage? A phoned-in giant knockoff of Henri LaBrouste’s Bibliotheque Ste. Genevieve, with minimal effort made to accommodate new program and site... CUNY would certainly have better spent the public’s money finding a way to put Gould’s spectacular interior to more vital student use.

See the rendering for Stern's building below. Nicely deceptive cropping, guys!

More Ways to Make Times Square Better

As you have probably heard by now, the City has painted large swathes of Times Square red. This is apparently the aesthetic follow-up to the cordoning off of a chunk of the area for pedestrian traffic and the migration of hundreds of lawn chairs.

Here are a few of the other things Mayor Bloomberg is planning to make Times Square just about the best it's ever been!

1. Hundreds of garden gnomes will be placed along Seventh Avenue. (One looks like Waldo! Look for him!)
2. A Jazzercise session will be conducted in Duffy Square every day at 11 AM. Bring your own mat.
3. Tiki lamps and Chinese lanterns will brighten up the place at night.
4. The Naked Cowboy will be replaced by a mime.
5. A ball cage for the kids will be installed on the triangle just below 46th Street.
6. Roving waiters will take orders for non-alcoholic Mojitos, which are just as good as the other kind.
7. The TKTS booth will be replaced by a take-out-only Applebee's franchise.
8. A giant remote control, roughly the size of a twin bed, will now control the Jumbotro. Tourists can work it by jumping on the buttons—just like Tom Hanks danced on that giant keyboard in "Big"!
9. The name of the area will be changes to Ye Olde Times Square Village.

Joe Jr. Before It Was Joe Jr.

I happened upon an item in an old August 1937 edition of the New York Times:

Jacob Kaufman and his wife, Ida, proprietors of a pharmacy at 482 Sixth Avenue, were held in $10,000 bail each yesterday by Magistrate Ford in Felony Court on a charge of suspicion of grand larceny after Irving Mendelson, Assistant District Attorney, declared they had been connected by the police with four men accused of having stolen jewelry and clothing from women.

That's the address of Joe Jr., the longstanding diner that closed for good recently. The Pharmacy was called Kay Laboratories.

Lost City Asks: Who Goes To Spanish Taverna?

My latest "Who Goes There?" column for Eater:

Who Goes There? Spanish Taverna

Spanish Taverna, which hides on a corner of W. 38th Street and Seventh Avneue, used to be a whole lot more anonymous, and forbidding, than it does now. The façade was dusty and unwelcoming. One looked at the place and wondered about its standing with the Health Department. Someone must have said something, however, because a new awning’s been installed in the last year of so. And a smaller sign over the door now reads “Spanish Tavern Restaurant,” a helpful nudge for those who couldn’t figure out what Taverna meant.

The inside, however, is as drab as ever. Tan, brown, yellow—the colors of the 1970s. There’s a nook of a bar up front, and an oddly airless, somewhat depressing dining area in back, with rows of booths on either side. A wealth of mirrors on the sides and in the back lends the illusion of space, as do the unusual plastic arcs which hang from the ceiling and partly divide one booth from the next. I’ve never seen this latter design feature in any other restaurant. It must have seemed terribly modern 34 years ago when Spanish Taverna opened.

Those who come here (Garment District workers, who like to haunt the bar; foreign tourists from Australia, Spain and elsewhere; a few elderly pre-theatre diners) seem to regard it as a hidden gem purveying some of the most authentic Spanish grub in the metropolis. Indeed, the food, while hellishly expensive (entrees range from $18 to $30; a glass of sangria is $8) is more than decent, and undeniably bountiful. I particularly like the mariscadas—various kinds of stew brought to the table in weathered pewter kettles. And everything is served with a dish of very nice, thinly slice fried potatoes. The menu may, in fact, be TOO authentic for some. One tourist quartet—including a woman all in white with Dolce & Gabanna eyeglasses on her face, and Dolce & Gabanna sunglasses perched on her head—were utterly stymied by the utter foreignness of the menu.

There may be another tourist danger here. The prices on the menu posted outside are a few dollars lower than the menu that’s handed to you inside. This may be an oversight. However, on one visit here an item I hadn’t ordered appeared on my bill. The staff was apologetic and corrected the bill. Though it felt suspicious, I let it go. But, the next time I came I noticed that the table next to me found an item they hadn’t ordered on their bill. Again, the staff was apologetic and amended the bill. I’m not saying—I’m just saying.
—Brooks of Sheffield

Previous Who Goes There Columns

Recipes of the Lost City: Trader Vic's Mai Tai

New York had a fine place to get all faux tropical and order tall, ornate tiki cocktails in Trader Vic's, before Donald Trump began his ignominious reign as owner of the Plaza Hotel and decided the restaurant was too "tacky" for his tastes. (Imagine Trump, the King of Bad Taste, finding something tacky.) It closed in 1989.

The Trader Vic chain, once mighty and nationwide, was founded and owned by Victor Jules Bergeron, Jr. He opened the first of his Polynesian themes restaurants in Oakland. At the height of the tiki craze, there were 25. (There has been a resurgence of late, with many international locations opening.) One of the classiest addresses in the chain was in the basement of the Plaza.

Bergeron's most lasting contribution to world culture was the Mai Tai. While there has been some dispute over the years as to who invented this drink (Donn Beach of Donn the Beachcomber claimed authorship as well), lately it's been pretty well resolved that Bergeron came up with the formula to the most popular version of the cocktail. Here it is, as printed in a 1972 reprinting of his bartender's guide.

MAI TAI

1 lime
1/2 ounce orange curacao
1/4 ounce rock candy syrup
1/4 ounce orgeat syrup
1 ounce dark Jamaica rum
1 ounce Martinique rum

Cut lime in half; squeeze juice over shaved ice in a double old fashioned glass; save one spent shell. Add remaining ingredients and enough shaved ice to fill glass. Hand shake. Decorate with spent lime shell, fresh mint, and a fruit stick.

Notes of preparation: Don't skip the orgeat (you can find it at Astor Wine & Spirits) or use anything other than fresh lime juice. They are critical, as are the two kinds of rum; 2 oz. of one kind of rum is not the same. For the rock candy syrup, simple syrup will do. As to the fruit stick, it's safe to skip that. Don't even know what it might be.

Previous Recipes of the Lost City

Basil Thief Post Inspired Dozens of Bad Jokes

Brownstoner picked up my recent post about a Carroll Gardens basil thief this morning. Now, I know that the venerable Brooklyn blog regularly attracts many comments--but 120! About basil?!

For some reason, many of the comments have taken the form of bad puns. I guess the topic is so inherently ridiculous, this is to be expected. But there are so many. Here's a sampling of the worst.

Set a trap and "Pesto" your problems will be over.

Part of a larger scheme, or just a capresious act? Anyway, they should leave it alone next thyme.

In that hood it might well be an oreganosed crime syndicate.

sage advise from slopefarm.

but what is really at the root of this problem?

Pinching the top leaves does produce a fuller bush.

Basilly, I don't care.

Is it safe to cumin to this conversation?

Only if you want to curry favor, Biff.

Is anyone going to Scarborough Fair this eeekend???

This thread is allspice now.
Its driving me nutmeg.

Back to the security issue, we'd better cardamom off the area, before any more unsuspecting herbs are, ah, salted. Anyway, you know what I mint.

A Good Sign: Barney's Hardware

Since 1929, the sign says. In Greenwich Village on Sixth, near 11th.

For Those Heartsick Over Joe Jr.'s Closing

During all the Sturm and Drang surrounding the closing of the beloved Greenwich Village diner Joe Jr. last week, I was surprised that no one mentioned that there's another diner of the same name on Third Avenue and 16th Street.

Both diners were once owned by the same family but operated independently. (No one has yet discovered the identity of the diners' namesake.) The two have had nothing to do with each other for some decades. But the remaining Joe Junior (which spells out the name for some reason) has much of the same classic diner-ish appeal as the deceased Joe Jr. For those aching for their lost Village diner, they may want to give the remaining, estranged sibling a try.

Basil Thieves Rampant in Carroll Gardens

Some gourmet, locavore thieves have been relieving a law-abiding, pesto-loving Carroll Gardens gardener of his or her hard-won fresh basil. And it's just horrible!

"PLEASE Stop taking our BASIL!" cried the sign on President Street near Henry. "IT IS VERY Cheap AND YOU CAN buy you own."

This is true. Also, you can buy your own seeds, which is even cheaper.

But here's where your heart breaks. "P.S. The children are quite disturbed by your actions. And so are the adults."

Won't someone please, please, think of the children!

Another Landmark Leveled In The Name of Higher Education

The new blog ArchiTakes, subtitled "on architecture in New York and beyond," tells us that everybody's favorite New York preservation watchdog—The City University of New York (almost as good at NYU and Columbia)—has demolished a 1914 garage on its LaGuardia Community College campus that was part of the historic Loose-Wiles Sunshine Biscuit plant in Long Island City.

The building had been protected by its formal status as “eligible” for listing on the State and National Registers of Historic Places until the New York State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) issued a Letter of Resolution allowing its demolition in January. The ground on which the building stood will be paved for parking.

The garage was built to house trucks for the adjacent main building of the Loose-Wiles Sunshine Biscuit Company, the world’s largest bakery from its completion in 1912 until 1955. The bakery’s famous 1000 windows allowed for a daylit workplace and gave the Sunshine brand its name. It is now part of LaGuardia’s Campus...

A 2000 inspection report estimated the cost of restoring the 63,000 square foot garage at $6.5 million and the cost of replacement at $7.9 million... The 2000 report was updated in 2005 to say that “the overall condition of the building has not significantly changed in 5 years”, but that “the cost at this time will have mushroomed to $9 million given escalation and increased construction costs generally”.

DASNY’s letter proposing the building’s demolition to SHPO cites this $9 million restoration estimate and asserts CUNY’s mission “to provide higher education to those who may not have any other opportunity for college”. It states that “repairing the Garage does not fulfill the mission of CUNY or LGCC” and concludes that demolition is “the only reasonable, prudent and cost effective alternative”.

Vile, dissembling insects. They're like rampaging robots who can only understand they're pre-programmed mission. "Must destroy garage. Does not fulfill mission. Must fulfill mission. Destroy. Destroy. Destroy."

A Good Sign: Day-O Restaurant

I know a lot of people thought it tacky and were glad when it closed down, but I always thought Day-O Restaurant on Greenwich Village had a certain charm. Certainly, it's sign did.

Remembering Steak Row

Some time ago I posted an item about how one measure of the paling character New York is that its streets used to have more interesting nicknames (Swing Street, Newspaper Row, The Bloody Angle, etc.)

One I forgot is Steak Row. East 45th Street between Lexington and First used to have so many red-meat joints that it won this moniker. By most accounts, the "Mayor of Steak Row" was John C. Bruno, the owner of the Pen and Pencil at 205 E. 45th Street. Also on this strip were Joe & Rose's and The Pressbox, The Editorial and Danny's Hideaway. These last three were founded by former Pen & Pencil employees.

Bruno died in 1965, and Steak Row started to fade soon after. A few joints still merited a mention in the 1976 New York Times Guide to Dining Out in New York. The Press Box Steakhouse at 139 E. 45th Street was termed to have the "atmosphere, neither elegant nor simple, [of] that of a slightly rundown businessman's pub." Joe & Rose (which was actually on Third) was said to have "the air of an old-timer," and a place where "you don't feel really welcome unless you're one of the gang."

Nowadays, there's hardly a trace. Remnants include Pietro's, which used to be on 45th but is now on 43rd, and The Palm. The Palm was never on 45th, but, being just around the corner on Second Avenue, is was somewhat considered part of Steak Row.

Read this article from 1959 for more:

NORTH, EAST, SOUTH, WEST, YOU'LL FIND THE "NEW YORK CUT" IS BEST

LIKE steak?

There are more good steak houses in one small area of New York, specifically between Lexington and Second Aves. in the East 40's, than you'll find in the average city of a half million population. There are so many steak houses in that neighborhood, in fact, that East 45th St., within those boundary lines, has become known as Steak Row.

It all started back in 1923, when CHRIST CELLA, a former plasterer, opened a tiny basement kitchen in an apartment house and gave it his name. A fellow immigrant from Parma, Italy, Colombo Pecci, followed suit by converting a Chinese laundry and shoe store into the present COLOMBO'S steak house. Next in line was John Ganzi, who opened THE PALM on the site of a former funeral parlor. Pietro Donnini then established himself in an upstairs room on the northeast corner of 45th St. and Third Ave. as PIETRO'S. SCRIBE'S was opened by Louis Agazzi, another immigrant from Italy, further up the street.

These men, along with Joseph Resteghini, John C. (PEN & PENCIL) Bruno, Dalmo Pozzi, Lino Conti, and Pio Bossi are the pioneers of Steak Row. Resteghini opened JOE & ROSE's in 1915 as a delicatessen with a tiny back room which became a restaurant. Resteghini's son, Fred, present owner of JOE & ROSE's, recalls that when Prohibition came in, JOE & ROSE's became a speakeasy, serving regular customers and all the other restaurateurs who patronized the place in their off hours. After repeal it reverted back to a legitimate Italian restaurant.

Charles Stradella owned a liquor store on Ninth Ave. which he sold in order to buy a small restaurant, in 1938, for his son, Danny. He took over a beer joint at 203 E. 45th St. and with the aid of his son-in-law, Dalmo Pozzi, created the original PEN & PENCIL, then known as Charley's Rail.

In 1939 John C. Bruno left the Hotel Lincoln's Blue Room to become headwaiter at the PEN & PENCIL (his wife was Frances Stradella, Danny's sister). With him, Bruno brought along Henry Castello. In the years that followed, Bruno's PEN & PENCIL was to become the spawning spot for three rival steak houses on Steak Row: The PRESSBOX, the EDITORIAL, and DANNY'S HIDEAWAY. They were founded by PEN & PENCIL employees who had been trained by John Bruno.

Danny's Hideaway (& His Inferno), at 151 E. 45th St., started as a one-room bistro seating six, with Mamma Rosa doing the cooking and Danny acting as his own waiter and barkeep. Within the next dozen years the operation was to expand to take in three four-story buildings, with 11 dining rooms seating 300, two separate kitchens and two completely stocked bars on different levels.

Outside, a 60-ft. awning proclaims it the home of DANNY'S HIDEAWAY and His Inferno; His Music Room; His Menu Room; His Key Room; His Nook. Celebrity parties have become his specialty and everything has been celebrated there from the signing of a new TV contract to the taking of a bride.

One of the youngest restaurateurs on Steak Row, and certainly the smallest—he weighs 130 pounds, stands 5 ft. 2 inches on tiptoe—Dante Charles Stradella, as he was christened (Stradella means "little street"), is also probably the most photographed. The walls of his restaurant are adorned with some 2,000 photographs of celebrities of stage, screen, TV, radio, sports, advertising, magazines and newspapers, and in at least 90 per cent of these pictures Danny appears as a host.

DANNY'S HIDEAWAY still is largely a family affair. Mamma Stradella died several years ago but sister Dora's husband, Pete Berutti, is Danny's maitre d'hotel; sister Josephine's husband, Dalmo Pozzi, is treasurer and general manager; and Frank Longo, the office manager, is a cousin.

The secret of Danny's success, aside from good food, is his gentleness of manner and his quiet charm. He is a hard-working host who doesn't find it beneath his dignity to clear a table or pinch hit in the kitchen during rush hours. His own explanation is simpler. He merely says, "I like people."

Danny's success spurred Henry Castello and Harry Storm, both PEN & PENCIL bartenders, to team up with former VOISIN waitercaptain Fred O. Manfredi and open the PRESSBOX. ChaLles Fallini and Lino Conti, onetime chefs at PEN & PENCIL got the same notion and they, too, teamed to open the EDITORIAL, next door to Danny's.

Bruno's Pen & Pencil expanded from 203 E. 45th St. to a larger location at 205, on the premises of a former soda fountain. John redecorated the new place to include watercolor paintings by Milton Marx of famous writers, from Lord Byron down, and at least two great newspaper publishers—Joseph Medill Patterson and William Randolph Hearst.

(It was, incidentally, the pre-World War II patronage of newspapermen and magazine employees in the neighborhood which inspired the local restaurants to take such names as PEN & PENCIL, EDITORIAL, PRESSBOX, FOURTH ESTATE, LATE EDITION and FRONT PAGE. In those days a steak dinner could be had for $1.75. Today, the same platter costs nearer $7.00.)

John C. Bruno, tall, still slim and handsome, is an opera fan (owns a box at the Metropolitan every sea-son) and indulges in an expensive sideline—horse racing; but can still take time out to tell you how to cook a steak. Several seasons ago, to introduce his restaurant to a newer set of patrons, he employed publicist Michael Sean O'Shea to stage semi-annual champagne-and-steak supper parties for celebrities of the stage and screen. At one memorable affair that went from mid-night to dawn the guests included Ethel Merman, Joan Crawford, Tallulah Bankhead, Shirley Booth and Ginger Rogers.

Around the corner from Steak Row is THE PALM on Second Ave., originally a newspaperman's hangout (its walls are decorated with cartoons) but now too expensive for most newspapermen unless they have expense accounts.

Across the street from THE PALM at 834 Second Ave. is MIKE MANUCHE'S and that was formerly CAMILLO'S. (CAMILLO's is now at 160 E. 48th St.) Mike is a former Air Force pilot who took up the restaurant business more or less by accident after the war and made a success of it. He is, incidentally, the husband of Martha Wright, the TV star who succeeded Mary Martin as Nellie Forbush in South Pacific on Broadway and played the role for three successive seasons.

The Assembly, at 207 E. 43rd St., is another steak house, and a good one, under the management of a young man with the picturesque name of Ronnie Drinkhouse, who learned the business from his father. The ASSEMBLY is a favorite lunching place for United Nations personnel.

Stella D’oro Factory In Bronx to Close

Stella D'oro, a sweets brand known to all New Yorkers and a rare food product actually made in New York, will close its factory in the Bronx in October. The baked goods will continue to be made, but elsewhere, announced Brynwood Partners, the private equity company based in Greenwich, CT, which bought the company in 2006.

Last week, a federal judge ordered Stella D’oro to reinstate 134 workers after a protracted 10-month strike. This week, the company invited the workers back. It also announced that it would close the factory in October.

The decision to close Stella D’oro’s only factory, which is based in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx, was made by Brynwood Partners, the private equity company based in Greenwich, Conn., which bought the company in 2006. The closing appears to be the result of a labor dispute that has festered over the past couple years. Writes City Room:

Last week, a federal judge ordered Stella D’oro to reinstate 134 workers after a protracted 10-month strike... The workers had gone on strike on strike last Aug. 14, two weeks after their contract had expired. The owners maintained that the hourly wages of $18 to $22 an hour and nine weeks of paid leave made the factory unprofitable. It wanted significant reductions in wages.

Last week, an administrative law judge with the National Labor Relations Board in Washington found that the company had improperly refused to bargain with the union by declining to provide the union with a copy of its 2007 audited financial statement.

Stella D’oro was founded in New York in 1932 by an Italian immigrant, Angela Kresevich, and her husband, Joseph, who came from Trieste, Italy. The company was sold in 1992 to Nabisco and then to Kraft, before it was bought by Brynwood Partners. Stella D'Oro's bakery is on West 237th Street at the north end of Kingsbridge, Bronx. Stella D'Oro always has a big following among Jews, because some of their desserts were made with no milk or butter, making them "Pareve" and acceptable at both meat and dairy meals. In fact, when Kraft took over, they stupidly removed the Pareve designation from Stella D'Oro's baked products, and then saw sales drop. They put the insignias back.

The factory, which used to have a restaurant next door, once employed 575 people in New York. No more.

New Painted Ad Covers Old Painted Ads

The faded ad crowd went ga-ga last year when these two old hand-painted jobbies appeared on the side of a building on W. 32nd near Broadway. Forgotten New York, citing Walter Grutchfield, explained: "Protective Ventilator is more or less definitely 1910. The one above (Alliance Press?) is probably slightly older. The Manhattan telephone directory has Alliance Press at 114 W. 32nd St. in 1907. They were printers, but seem to have been founded by the Rev. Albert B. Simpson. Both he and a couple of colleagues lived in Nyack, N.Y."


A couple months ago, the wall was taken over by another ad, also painted, for Jack's discount store. Not an unappealing ad, if you ask me. Bold colors. Simple, but engaging imagery. The painters made an interest made an interesting choice, though, by not painting over the two old ads completely, but just painting over the half of them that got in the way. Kind of makes the old ads cooler, and more mysterious. Kind of.

Some Stuff That's Interesting

Fireworks destroys Rosenwach Tanks warehouse in Williamsburg. Rosenwach makes all those great wooden water tanks you see on top of New York buildings. This can't be good. [Brooklyn 11211]

Squatters help fix up the East Village's beloved, but violation-laden Ray's Candy Shop. [The Villager]

The Food Emporium in Union Square is a lousy, cheating scofflaw. [Restless]

Joe Jr.'s—the gutting begins. [EV Grieve]

Di Fara has reopened. Yeah! But hours have been cut. Aw! And slices are now $5. Hey! [Grub Street]

More anti-bike propaganda, because, you know, car drivers are totally innocent of having destroyed the planet, and brake for puppies and shit. [NY1]

Downtown Brooklyn: Scaffold City

Downtown Brooklyn is generally an ugly place, badly kept up and populated by decaying old buildings and charmless new ones.

Lately, however, it's more of an eyesore than usual. As I emerged recently from the Borough Hall subway stop recently, it dawned on me why this is. Downtown Brooklyn has become Scaffold City!

There is major scaffolding at each corner of the intersection of Court and Joralemon Streets, except for the the curve where Borough Hall sits. Enormous scaffolding. There's another scaffold further up Court, and a couple others a bit down Court towards Atlantic, including one that masks the beautiful 66 Court from sight. For a couple blocks—blocks walked by thousands every day—there is barely a building you can see.

Nothing depresses an area like scaffolding. It's horribly unsightly in itself, and it uglifies everything around it. It creates shadows and darkness where there was none, and replaces sometimes handsome storefronts and stone and brick building facades with cheap plywood and dull metal poles.

There seems to be a lot scaffolding around New York these days. It always baffles me how, when the building community seems to have plenty of money to erect awful new buildings, they can't find any to promptly fix the beautiful old ones.

Last Meal at Joe Jr.

As I post this, Joe Jr., the timeless Greenwich Village diner at Sixth Avenue and 12th Street, it locking its door for the last time. Though usually open until 1 AM, the owners chose to close at 3 PM on this, the final day in a tenure that began shortly after Kennedy was elected.


If there was any doubt that the corner diner is beloved by Villagers, it was dispelled today. There was a line outside Joe Jr. at 11:45 AM. I don't know about you, but I've never seen a line outside a greasy spoon before. Everyone made comments to the general effect that it was as low down dirty shame that the place was closing, that the landlord was a louse, that rents were too high all around, and that the Village was going to hell in a handbasket.


One youngish couple talked about how they had had their first date in New York at Joe Jr. some 12 years ago. A woman with kid, a German Shepherd and a skateboard in tow complained—to a woman looking for people to sign her petition to get a Cy Vance on the Democratic ballot for District Attorney—that "people under 30 don't understand what they're losing."


Inside, people expressed their condolences and sign the petition to save the eatery on the counter near the cash register. Customers took pictures of themselves posing with busboys. A woman nursing her coffee, and looking downright dejected, said she had been there for dinner Friday night and would be back before the place closed. The staff was stoic, doing their job with efficiency, as if it were any other day. Gregory, the beefy son of owner Eleftherios "Teddy" Hondros, wore an expression of grim resignation on his large, sweaty, unshaven face. Loyal customers asked if there wasn't another space in the neighborhood he could move to.


The Hondros family has owned the restaurant since 1977, and its thought the diner has been at the location for 45 years. No one know who Joe. Jr. was.

I ordered a bacon cheeseburger, well done, and a Coke. It was a good diner meal. That such a quintessentially American business should on July 4th is bitterly ironic.

This Week on Lost City: Say It Ain't So, Joe!

La Bonne Soupe Reopenes After Three Months Closure; We Lose Classic Greenwich Village Diner Joe Jr.; You Can Soon Have Your Tacky Wedding in the Classy Williamsburg Bank Building Lobby; The Sofia Brothers Set Me Straight; More Folks Hating on Bloomberg's Lawn-Chair Times Square.

No, Wait: THIS Is the Quote of the Day!

Again from the Times, via Gothamist:

At last night's Working Families Party mayoral forum with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, City Comptroller Bill Thompson and City Councilman Tony Avella, Bloomberg defended his campaign spending, "I made every dime that I have... I've used my money only to talk about what I would do and what I have done. There's nothing wrong with that as far as I can see... Rich people don’t always win...You can't buy an election. The public's much too smart for that. You can use it to get a message out." The NY Times, though, found the explanation "drew some hisses and even laughter."

Said the man who bought two elections.

Quote of the Day

In the Times, from a cabbie, regarding Bloomberg's widely derided pedestrian Times Square:

“If you have one fare to go to the theater district, your day or night is finished,” said Fhahidul Hossain, a cabdriver and part-time dispatcher at City Transport Management. “A 10-minute fare is going to take you an hour or so. It’s a nightmare.”

And Mr. Hossain offered what amounted to a cri de coeur for drivers who believe that the union of automobiles and Midtown — in all its exhaust-filled, horn-honking glory — is a coupling that cannot be quietly undone.

“In Manhattan, you have to move, man. You cannot do it like this,” he said. “This is not Europe. This is New York City, for God’s sake!”

Meanwhile, Janette Sadik-Khan, the Bozo transportation commissioner, called it a "Picasso" in the making.

La Bonne Soupe to Open July 4!

While we mourn the coming loss of Greenwich Village's Joe Jr. diner, we can at least dab our eyes and blow our noses with the napkins at the newly reopened La Bonne Soupe.

The Midtown legend, which was felled by a fire three months ago, will reopen on July 4, according to the restaurant's website.

How's that for celebrating the nation's birthday?!

More Sadness from Joe Jr.

It's all true.

Eater reports that Teddy Hondros, owner of the classic Village diner, and his son, have confirmed they have lost their lease and will close on Sunday. From Eater's reportage:

'It hurts. I'm trying to to cry right now—I grew up here'... They have over 300 signatures on the petition, but it was started at customers' behest, not the owners, so it doesn't mean much... What they're saying: there was old electrical systems in the building that the restaurant had been asking to be fixed for years. Landlord didn't fix it. Then there was an electrical fire and the buildings owner wants the restaurat to sign a new lease asking THEM to pay for $750,000 in repairs... The owner has gone in the back. The guy's heartbroken... The place is packed. People are really moved. There's even a pair of Japanese tourists!... There's a dude in here that's been coming for 40 years: 'It's a standard. A staple. This place is a part of my life!'

An Eater tipster adds:

It's not just about real estate apparently though the deal they had offered him is supposedly double his current rent. They want him to be responsible for the entire bldg in case of fire etc.

I'll be going for a last lunch there tomorrow or Sunday.

Bad News for Joe Jr.—And All of Us

Rotten news from Joe Jr., the homiest, most haimish of West Village diners. The 45-year-old landmark, a fixture at Sixth Avenue and West. 12th, is in trouble.
According to Eater:

Joe Jr's has lost its lease, and, barring divine intervention of some sort, will close. Per an email from author David Kamp to Ed Levine: "They have big handwritten signs in the window saying they've lost their lease. They are asking people to sign a petition to save Joe Jr. and to 'spread the word,' I guess in hopes of pressuring the landlord not to cut them loose."

How many more of these shuttering do we have to suffer until the Powers That Be are satisfied that New York no longer has any annoying thing you might call character?

Williamsburg Bank Building, Reception Hall--Same Difference

The beautiful, soaring, grand, ground-floor lobby of the Williamsburg Bank Building has finally found a new lease of life, after sitting idle and empty for years.

Manhattan promoter Jennifer Blumin is leasing the space use the space as a catering hall for weddings and other large events.

Kind of a comedown for the landmark. It's hard to think of people doing the chicken dance under that great ceiling. But I guess it's a better fate than the place becoming a Borders.

Rental prices will start at $15,000 a night, which Blumin calls "Brooklyn-sensitive pricing." Hm. Maybe "Brooklyn Heights-sensitive."

More Press Piles on Bloomberg's Shabby New Times Square

The NY Post hated it. The Daily News hated it. And now, finally, the NY Times hates it:

A Times Square for Our Time, Pedestrian in More Ways Than One

Open since late May, the pedestrian mall at Times Square, where the city boldly closed off traffic, has a rough, slipshod feel — if anything, more slipshod now that the folding lawn chairs the Times Square Alliance provides are starting to show wear and tear, their plastic strips poking out below seats that sag so much they all but touch the ground. With yellow tape roping off discrete areas and the tacky chairs inviting passers-by to have a seat, sections of Broadway now look like something between a crime scene and an audience, which may be an inadvertent tribute to the culture of the space, but does not offer much in the way of aesthetics.

Granted, the chairs and orange barrels demarcating the pedestrian space are temporary. In fact, the entire project may be temporary: the city will not decide until December whether to keep the street closed to traffic. In any case, on Tuesday workers began painting parts of the pavement red, and there are plans to add a gravel surface in the coming weeks.

But right now, the pedestrian mall, it must be said, looks a little unworthy of New York. The city may be reeling from recession, but the huge orange plastic containers and tatty hardware-store chairs give the sense that it’s already letting itself go, like some Lehman Brothers wife who has not just forsaken her golden highlights, but given up on grooming altogether. Surely someone at Ikea could have helped the city ease this transition — maybe some witty, oversize umbrellas (sure, weighed down), or at least chairs that do not look like they are lonely for the company of pink flamingos.

Or maybe the problem is not the quality of the seats. Maybe the problem is all the people sitting in them. New York is a city of walkers, not sitters; a city of motion, not repose. In Times Square, tourists should be looking at New York, caught up in the swarm of activity and lights and commerce and theater; instead, New Yorkers find themselves looking at the tourists, a cordoned-off display of the temporarily sedentary.

“Is that what you think?” asked Gulshan Mia, 30, who was sitting on one of those chairs between 43rd and 44th Streets one recent morning, listening to music on her iPod. “But that’s because you’re from New York.” Ms. Mia is from South Africa, and was living up until a few months ago in Taiwan; even now, with an apartment in Jersey City, she would not necessarily call herself a New Yorker.

But she is not a tourist, either. Ms. Mia works at Toys R Us in Times Square, and is what you might call a pedestrian mall regular. She wakes up every morning a half an hour early just so she can get to Times Square, sit in one of those seats, listen to music and people-watch. She comes there on her work breaks, too.

She said she enjoyed the meandering pace of the tourists, and the international sign language of couples bickering over who gets the one chair that’s open at any given time. She watches global diplomacy in action as the Germans bum cigarettes from the Italians and the Italians bum a light from the British. At lunchtime, she makes eye contact with fellow nontourists on their lunch breaks. “I don’t know if you know the nod,” she said. “I’m starting to feel like I belong now that I get the nod.”

The landscape designer Diana Balmori said she thought of the makeshift mall as a kind of “tidal marsh,” a place where the land and water push up against each other, and it is not clear which will take over. For Ms. Balmori, the phrase represents Broadway’s new tentative divide between a street for cars and a space for people. It’s also an apt description for Times Square itself, a space half-defined by the city and half-defined by the tourists who inhabit it. And it captures the people like Ms. Mia, someone living in New York but not of it, like a few of the other self-described regulars parked in Times Square that morning: a restaurant manager with a thick Argentine accent, a hitchhiker lounging on a chaise who said he lived in New Orleans but summered in Manhattan.

Sitting beside Ms. Mia, I was starting to rethink my impression of the pedestrian mall, appreciating some of its merits, messy though they may be. But only for a minute.

“I just really like it here,” she said. “I find it strangely peaceful.”

We’ve come to accept the multitudes of adjectives that rotate in and out of use for Times Square depending on the era: gritty, dangerous, commercial, touristy, kitschy, overpriced, overcrowded, flashy, tacky, corporate. But peaceful?

That’s just wrong.