Manganaro Grosseria Italiana to Close

We seem to be in one of those periodic spells where the New York landmarks fall like dominos. Monte's Venetian Room definitely gone for good. O'Connor's Bar to be changed beyond recognition. Karl Ehmer leaves Ridgewood and its building becomes a storage facility. Carmine's gives up finally.

And now we hear that Manganaro's Grosseria Italiana, one of the bedrock institutions of Ninth Avenue in Midtown, with roots going back to the late 1800's, will close, and the owner will sell the building. The frozen-in-time place will shutter as soon as a deal is sealed. So hurry up. This is obviously not the usual circumstance of a rent hike, since the Manganaros own the building. Business has been slow, said owner Salvator Dell'Orto. I'll post more about this in the future. For now, read more here.

The shop began as a wine store in 1893 and expanded into hero sandwiches—they are said to be the inventors of the form by the way—and red sauce fare during the Prohibition, attracting garment workers, Italians in the neighborhood, and the patrons of the then Metropolitan Opera House. Business began to decline with the arrival of the Lincoln Tunnel (which forced the demolition of much of the neighborhood) and the more recent arrivals of places like Whole Foods and Zabar's. The notoriously surly attitudeof the waitstaff may not have helped.

THE UNION STREET PROJECT: 135 Union Street

This is the third post of "The Union Street Project," in which I unearth the history of every building along the once bustling Brooklyn commercial strips of Union Street between Hicks and Van Brunt, and Columbia Street between Sackett and Carroll.

I seem to proceeding east from Columbia toward Hicks on the north side of Union Street. This building is just to the right of the bank building I discussed last week. I found out a lot about that bank building. Not so here. I knew going into this that, with some buildings, I'd run into a brick wall (so to speak) and discover little. Some addresses leave a long paper trail. Others don't. Also, there are some buildings, I imagine, in which nothing terribly interesting ever happened. 135 Union Street appears to be one of those buildings.

The place is currently home to the Bluebird Midwifery. Before that, it held the Brooklyn General Store, a knitting supplies shop that moved to bigger quarters across the street a few years ago. Beyond that, I have heard from many sources that the bottom two floors were possessed by a small printing company. The building once had a long vertical sign running down the front that, I presume, advertised the place. It was taken down about seven years ago. Before the printing company? I have no idea. But the structure dates from at least 1855, when it is shown in a map of the time.

Not too exciting, I know. But I was told this by an old timer, however: "My friend Lucy lived at 135 Union St.. She married one of the owners of the original House of Pizza." The House of Pizza and Calzone is still there, across the street. I remember the two old men who used to own it. I wonder which one Lucy married.

PREVIOUS "UNION STREET PROJECT" ENTRIES

Jay & Lloyd's Kosher Deli

The genuine Jewish Kosher Deli is, as we all know, a dying New York institution. You can count on a couple hands the ones that remain. I thought I knew all the old delis, from Riverdale to Borough Park. So Jay & Lloyd's Kosher Deli on Avenue U in Sheepshead Bay came as a surprise when I passed it by the other day.

Hickey's Bar Owner Dies After Death of Hickey's

While we're on the subject of New York's dive bar genocide, let's talk about Hickey's.

That this long-standing tavern on 33rd Street recently gave up the ghost has been already reported. But the story gets sadder. As owner Jim Hickey was preparing to turn in his keys to the bar he had run for 44 years, and close up for the last time last month, he collapsed and had to be rushed to the hospital. He died on Feb. 7. He was 75.

Hickey was forced to leave because the landlord had hiked up the rent, and the bar owner couldn't afford the new price.

According to DNAinfo: "'Everyone thought he collapsed because [losing the place] just overwhelmed him,' said James Donovan, 47, a long-time bartender at the Blarney Rock pub that had stood next door to Hickey's for more than 40 years. Friends and colleagues later learned that doctors found Hickey was suffering from late-stage colon cancer. Matty Burke, 58, who said he had stopped by Hickey’s nearly every day for the past 20 years, said that, for Hickey, losing the bar meant losing everything. 'That killed him,' said Burke, who has since relocated to the Blarney Rock along with a handful of other Hickey's regulars driven from the now-gutted space next door. 'It was his baby. That was his life,' Burke added."

The space is set to be taken over by Salt & Pepper, the take-out restaurant next door. Manager Mohammed Ilyas said he plans to expand his restaurant, which will re-open on March 1. A reader rells me the place has been gutted, and old bar (seen below) stripped away.

No comment from the landlord in the article. Natch.

Monte's Venetian Room Officially Dead and Gone

As long as Monte's Venetian Room just sat there being Monte's—albeit a shuttered, out-of-action version of itself—there was a whiff of hope that he century-old restaurant would overcome its never-sufficiently-explained difficulties and reopen. And, in the last few weeks, when there was construction activity and permits issued, there was more of a whiff.

Today, that hope died. The space will reopen as a restaurant, but not as Monte's. Brownstoner reported that "a recent stroll by confirms that a restaurant will definitely be coming to 451 Carroll. This permit came in at the end of January to renovate the existing eating establishment. And a liquor license for 'Dominick's of Carroll Street' was posted on the window."

An Italian restaurant, I'm guessing, given the name. But I'll be surprised if they keep the murals or booths. And how can a restaurant possibly attract diners to this remote location without the pull of a decades-old reputation?

Montemarano's never had but one owner: the Montemarano family. (The restaurant's name is a shortened version of their moniker.) It was founded in 1906 by Angelo and Filomena Montemarano, newly arrived from Naples. Why they called it "Venetian," I have no idea, unless it was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the nearby canal. During Prohibition, the joint remained open and made its own liquor. All seven of the Montemarano boys were born above the restaurant. All worked in it, but Nicholas went on to run it. He didn't accept credit cards until 1982. In 1978, he painted the nearby Carroll Street Bridge the colors of the Italian flag, very likely without City permission. The bridge was closed for repairs from 1985 to 1989, which hurt business. When the bridge reopened, Monte contributed a 100-foot hero sandwich that was only seven feet shorter than the bridge.

O'Connor's Bar to Be Ruined

I knew changes were afoot for O'Connor's, the wonderful old dive bar on Fifth Avenue at the edges of Park Slope. The last time I was there I heard the regulars grumbling about how the new owner was going to "improve" the place and make it more acceptable to the kind of people who like to rent bars for parties and receptions and such.

But I had no idea how devastating the changes would be. How, after they were done, O'Connor's wouldn't be O'Connor's any more, but something completely different and far blander.

The blog Here's Park Slope talked to owner Mike Maher, who bought the 80-year-old bar three years ago. He said the beautiful old bar will be expanded to at least three times' its original size (goodbye coziness!), with the addition of a huge back room, a kitchen serving the usual Irish far like fish and chips, burgers and such, and a second floor with an outdoor beer garden. There will also be a stage for live music (goodbye twilight-like, dive-bar silence).

"We're modernizing the room, but a priority is to keep the old look," Mayer told the blog. "We'll be saving the bar and the booths and as much of the room as we can, but the seats will be replaced, because they're falling apart. If we want to serve food, we have to bring it up to code." He added, "That O'Connor's brand, the O'Connor's feeling, that's not going anywhere."

Brand?

I'm doubtful. It sounds like O'Connor's is just going to become another run-of-the-mill Irish pub. Same kind of food, same "live music" program, same upstairs space for large parties, same, same, same. I supposed the great old bathrooms with be cleaned up, and the wooden telephone booth ripped out.  I loved that O'Connor's was just a bar, didn't have food besides those little bags of chips you could buy. I loved that it only had a jukebox, and a good one, too. I loved that it wasn't party central, but more an insulated retreat from the harsh world. 

This City has declared war on the dive bar.

The Avenue U Donuts & Luncheonette

Avenue U in Sheepshead Bay is a pretty bleak stretch, replete with chain outlets and bank branches. The independently owned stores, meanwhile, are blighted by ugly plastic and vinyl awnings. As I walked along the street, I kept checking under these awnings to see if an older sign had been covered up and was still there, hiding under its garish successor. I didn't have much luck—most of the old signage had been stripped from the buildings—until I reached NY Grocery Deli V at E. 18th Street. (Where are NY Grocery Delis I thru IV?)

A quick peek underneath the awning revealed that this was formerly the home of the splendidly named Avenue U Donuts & Luncheonette, where coffee was "Made Fresh Daily."

Old Yorkville Memory

I've been getting some wonderful comments about life in Old New York lately. Here's one of the Bavarian Inn, a former German restaurant in formerly German Yorkville:

I was present on the last night the Bavarian Inn was open for business in 1983. I was introduced to the place by my father, who first encountered it as a serviceman during WW2. At that time, Yorkville was still going strong, despite the fact that we were engaged in a world war with the Nazis! He related that he an his buddies went up and down the street, having beers at the B.I. and other german joints - everything was on the house. Not a single bartender would charge a G.I. in uniform for a beer. I used to visit the place often myself when I moved to manhattan, and even turned on an intern at my ad aency from Austria to the B.I. - he thought is was a blast. The Cafe Geiger, and Kleine Kondittorei were two other authentic german spots that are now history as well.

Columbus Circle Diner Memory

A couple years ago, I posted this photo of an old luncheonette that used to be on Columbus Circle. (There's a Starbucks there now.) The other day a reader who actually visited this drug store wrote this:

I went to this beautiful luncheonette after dropping my band's CD with Atlantic Records. It was a very big day for me as a young musician. I am a Canadian songwriter, today writing a song about how my friend- now gone by suicide, connected me with Arif Mardin, of Atlantic. A perfect chocolate shake and tuna sandwich at this classic NYC soda shop made me feel special and at home. I'll share the moment in the song. Thank you for the photos and history of a treasured place in time...where I sat with my hopes and dreamed a little while. ..... Arif liked the record, bless his soul (and my late friend's) and that of the Columbus Circle Pharmacy that place had plenty of soul!

Astounding News About Lüchow’s

There are few vanished New York businesses this blog has been more obsessed with than Lüchow’s, the monarch of all German eateries in Gotham history. So it is hardly surprising that my elbows slipped off the desktop when I read this item on Grub Street.

Lüchow’s bar is not gone forever, but lives on at a Bay Ridge joint called Cafe Remy!

Reports the food blog: 

Walk into Café Remy and the back bar may seem familiar — the three mirrored arches with floral wood carvings, flanked by bottle cabinets, were left over from the space’s previous incarnation, T.J. Bentley’s. But it turns out, they date back even further. Remy owner Eddie Batiz tells us that the owner of T.J. Bentley’s bought the face of the back bar at auction some time after 1982, when Lüchow’s closed after a century on 14th Street. The panels, says Batiz, were transported directly from Lüchow’s to Bay Ridge. When Batiz moved Remy Lounge from its original Manhattan location into the T.J. Bentley’s space in 2007, he wasn’t about to get rid of the bar. “It’s a beautiful bar,” he tells us. “So I had to design the place to try to match the bar.” And so a bar that once saw tuxedoed string ensembles performing waltzes is now on duty at reggaeton parties. Who knows what Victor Herbert (the composer who founded ASCAP at Lüchow’s in 1914) would think of that.

Sweet, suffering Lord, what a find! What's more, there are further chunks of Lüchow’s sitting in a Hudson, New York, antique store run by Steve Stollman, a man who restores and sells antique bars. If you have the lettuce (I wish I did), you could have a larger arch (eight feet long) from the back bar for $4,000, a smaller one (four feet long) for $2,500, and a eight-foot-by-eight-foot wall panels for $3,500. 


According to Grub Street, "Stollman helped restore the bar before Lüchow’s closed in 1982. Years later, he snuck into the building just months before it was demolished (it was razed in 1995 after a suspicious fire and eventually replaced by an NYU dorm). “The roof was breached,” he says. “There were homeless people living in there. People’s legs went through the floor; it was so rotted out. I climbed in and peeled the paneling off the walls and got some of the columns and some of the back bar.”


God bless Stollman.

What You Didn't Know

From a reader, Some stuff you never knew about this building:

Grew up around the corner. The tall narrow building is actually wider in front, it is 125 Madison Street between Pike and Market... a building that was condemned and closed by the city when rules for air, light, and sanitation changed until the landlord (50+ years ago) made necessary corrections. Three apartments per floor... and get this... TOILET IN THE HALLWAYS, bathtub in the kitchen. Wood burning stove in the kitchen, with gas as well. My grandfather was the Super from the 60s to the 90s: lots of great memories. Basement held a speakeasy way back in the day... Chaplin posters and soforth on the walls. Most recently, allegedly, a brothel. Classic, old school NYC building.

THE UNION STREET PROJECT: 131-133 Union Street

This is the second post of "The Union Street Project," in which I unearth the history of every building along the once bustling Brooklyn commercial strips of Union Street between Hicks and Van Brunt, and Columbia Street between Sackett and Carroll.

Today we're looking at 131-133 Union Street. This is the most imposing building on the block between Hicks and Columbia (note the double address), and one quick glance at it will tell any free-lance historian that it was once a bank. Note the faux marble pillars, the vaguely classical architecture, the high doorway, the fake balconies. Of course, in the isolated Italian ghetto that this neighborhood once once, it wasn't a bank the way you and I think of them. It was a private banking house, owned and run by one Antonio Sessa and his son Joseph.

A Good Sign: Wines Liquors

Don't know the name of this liquor store in Astoria. Doesn't really matter. Great sign.

More of Brennan and Carr

I kinda fell in love with Brennan and Carr when I visited in for my "Who Goes There?" column. I feel a need to try everything on their menu. In the meantime, here a whole bunch more photos of the joint.

Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Brennan and Carr?"

Who goes to Brennan and Carr? Me! From now on. That roast beef is a narcotic. Love the odd little building. Love the cozy inside, and the formal waiters. Love the prices. From Eater:

Who Goes There? Brennan and Carr

Perhaps since Brennan and Carr is barely on the New York map, tucked in a southern corner of Sheepshead Bay, it makes sense that this 73-year-old shrine to roast beef doesn't feel like part of the city. First of all, it's housed in a stand-alone, one-story building, alone on a triangle bordered by Avenue U and Gravesend Neck Road. Constructed of brick and darkened windows and vaguely Alpine in appearance, in would fit in at any rural intersection upstate, or some Chicago suburb. There's also a dedicated parking lot. (This is not an easy place to reach if you don't have a car.)

A Cause in Woodside?

A reader contacted me recently, bemoaning the presumed fate of the building pictured above. It is a house at 39-38 56th Street in Woodside, Queens. And it's for sale. And according to this reader, it was recently sold by the old lady who owns it, and the new owners plan to tear it down.

My correspondent is very upset about this, and wishes she could save the structure. Why, you ask? I can understand you asking. But look beyond the awful layers of be-uglifying siding which have coated the house over the years, and recognize the innately handsome frame of the building, which is actually 110 years old. (Surprise!) And then consider how ugly Woodside is in general and how little it can afford to lose yet more of its older edifices. Look at this real estate listing and squint, and you can see the possibilities. (Ah, the porch! Ooh, the fireplaces!)

Those possibilities are not to be, of course. It will come down. I'm just pointing out the kind of hidden-in-plain-sight thing that is being lost every single day in this short-sighted town. Is there any chance—ANY chance—that the home that replaces this one will be a patch of what will be lost?

Puppy City!

Puppies! Puppies! Puppies!

You want dogs? Go elsewhere. Puppy City has puppies!

In Sheepshead Bay.

Karl Ehmer Leaves New York

Last summer, I pitched a local food magazine an article about Karl Ehmer, the old school German sausage maker in Ridgewood. They went for it and told me to go head. But when I called Ehmer, they were cagey about the idea. They were renovating, the man said. Call back in the fall. I chalked it up to the died-in-the-wool suspicions an old-time Queen merchant had for a Big City reporter. The story was killed.

Now I know why they didn't want to talk. I apologize for being so late to this story—I still feel it's important to report it—but Karl Ehmer closed its shop and main shipping center on Fresh Pond Road in Ridgewood, Queens, in late September of last year. I suppose I should have seen that coming when I noticed that a Karl Ehmer outlet in Glendale closed last winter.

The shop opened in Ridgewood in 1958, but the Ehmer story goes back further than that. The first store was opened in 1932 on 46th St. and Second Ave. Ehmer had a manufacturing plant in Ridgewood since back in the 1940s. He would team up with store managers to co-own Karl Ehmer stores throughout the city and beyond. Karl would put up the money, and the managers would run the shops, carrying fine Ehmer products. It was a chain, and they were franchises, basically. There was one prominent store on E. 86th Street, in then-German Yorkville. By 1970, there were 30 Ehmer stores; by the late '70s, there were 50, some as far flung as Florida and Pennsylvania.

But the Germans died or moved away, and Ehmer's presence in Manhattan vanished. Ehmer followed his clientele out to Ridgewood and Glendale. But they, too, eventually faded away, and the store hurt for business. The brand will still be found in stores, since the family sold the name to Bosco's Family Food Company, a distributor in Oceanside, Long Island. But for the first time in nearly 80 years there is no longer an Ehmer store in New York City.

I visited the Ridgewood store back in December 2009. Didn't know it was for the last time.

Donut Shoppe Fights Valiantly on In Sheepshead Bay

Gaze up the Donut Shoppe, independently owned shop on Avenue U in Sheepshead Bay, just steps to the west of the Avenue U B/Q elevated subway stop. There aren't many like this left in the city. Dunkin' Donuts, the fasting growing chain in the fat ol' U.S. or A., knows this, but would be happier if there were actually none. Big old DD has set up shop on the next block, just steps to the east of the subway stop. I don't think the location is a coincidence.

Richard Yee's Revisited

Last year, I mourned the old school Chinese-American joint called Richard Yee's Chinese Restaurant in Sheepshead Bay without having ever had the chance to go there. Recently, I was in the neighborhood, so I went to check on the place.

It's still there, the great signage still in place, and as far as I can tell, the interior is intact, booths, bar and all. There are "For Rent" signs all over the front, but apparently nobody knows what to do with the huge place. That's fine with me. As soon as some chain (it will be a chain) takes over the address, those wonderful signs will come down and hit the scrap heap. I want them up there as long as possible. 

Richard Yee's was founded 1952. It closed in 2009. It was an old-style tiki place, with a "Polynesian Room" that served exotic drinks, and the place was famous for its pupu platter. 

Strong Place Church Bell Gets Its Close-Up

There doesn't seem to be much in the way of fencing around Cobble Hill's ongoing Strong Place Church condo rebuild these days, so I was able this weekend to walk onto the lawn and right up the wonderful, 158-year-old bell that was rescued from the church's steeple.

As I reported before, this is the church's original bell, forged at the once-world-famous bellmaker Meneely's in West Troy, New York. Below are a few more images of the massive and aged ironwork that once held the bell in its place.

THE UNION STREET PROJECT: 225 Columbia Street

I reside among those bisected blocks that were cut off from the rest of South Brooklyn back in the 1950s by Moses' Trench (aka the BQE). My house is not far from the intersection of Union and Columbia Streets. As local historians and readers of this blog know, these two avenues were once teeming commercial strips on a level that would knock the current Court Street on its ass. But the businesses were killed off by the trio of plagues; the building of the BQE; the long, slow death of the waterfront;, and a decade-long sewer dig along Columbia that undermined the foundation of dozens of buildings, causing them to plummet into dust, or be torn down in the name of public safety.

Which left us with the virtual ghost town we have today. There are still businesses, of course, included a number of new and successful restaurants. But the area is nothing like what it used to be, bustling with life day and night. And certainly the pushcasts that once lined Union Street (and whose position were assigned and controlled by the Mob) are long gone.

Over the years, I have naturally because curious about the past lives of the old buildings along Union between Hicks and Van Brunt, and along Columbia between Sackett and Carroll. More recently, I've made it a casual mission to learn in as many details as I can the history of each building and address. Thus, here debuts what I call "The Union Street Project." Once a week (probably on Mondays), I will post an item telling all I've learned about one building on one of those two lanes.

As I do this, I encourage and implore all those out there who know things I do not about about these buildings. Write to me with information, memories and (let's hope) photographs.

Otto's Scandinavian Bar

I've written a lot about South Brooklyn's vanished Scandinavian heritage in the past. I didn't think there was much I had missed. But this article, while covering a lot of the same familiar ground, turned up one toothsome tidbit that had escaped me.

I have passed by the above bar, at the corner of Columbia and Kane Streets, a couple hundred times, having no idea it was once a tavern with the glorious name of Otto's Scandinavian Bar. It was a popular watering hole, and was used as a location in the Jimmy Breslin-inspired film "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight," before closing sometime in the 1980s. That would make it perhaps the last working vestige of the area's once teeming Norse population. From what I can gather, Otto himself tended bar well into the 1970s.

I found the mind-blowing picture below on the Who Walk in Brooklyn site. What fantastic signage Otto had. The painted words on the western side—"Otto's Forste Og Siste Stop—translate to "Otto's, First and Last Stop." A great motto for a bar if I ever saw one. On the north wall, I think it says "Otto Hansen," and man's full name.

Most recently, Otto's was the home of an uninspiring bar called Blue Stone Bar & Grill. It closed at least three years ago, and the space has remained dormant, though I'm told the owners of Blue Stone retain the lease. That may change soon. I've noticed that the old Blue Stone signs have been removed and the windows papered over. And today, I spied a man in a suit inside looking over some blueprints. Could his name be Otto Jr.?

More Doings at Monte's Venetian Room

Recently there were reports of new construction at the long-silent Gowanus institution, Monte's Venetian Room.

The work apparently continues at the 1906 restaurant, one of the oldest in Brooklyn. The Department of Building reports a Jan. 28 partial permet to "RENOVATE EXISTING EATING & DRINKING ESTABLISHMENT. INSTALL NEW KITCHEN EQUIPMENT," and a Feb. 1 approval. The workers will also "REPLACE /REPAIR FLOOR JOISTS AND REPLACE CEILING." Are the same owners renovating it? New owners? What of the famous murals and banquettes? Don't know.

Monte's was founded in 1906 and is one of the last remnants of what was once a thriving Italian community along the Gowanus Canal. Frank Sinatra was rumored to be a patron (but then he seemed to have gone to every New York Italian joint at least once). It was last owned by Toni Monti. Nick Monte, his father, died on Oct. 13, 2007, at age 90.

Main Street Ephemera to Close Shop on Columbia

The owner of the beloved Main Street Ephemera—depository of old photos, maps, menus, bills, books and other paper remnants of Old New York, Old Hollywood and the Good Olde World—is closing his shop on Columbia Street. He will still sell his wares at fairs and on the web, but can not afford to keep the store.

This is a sad loss. Stores such as these are more and more rare in New York. They were quite abundant when I first arrived here 22 years ago. Most of them have now made the transition to the web. This robs the average New Yorker of the joy of browsing through the ephemera of the past, of holding it in one's hands before considering a purchase. I've bought many an item in the store: old photos of Smith Street; old city maps of blocks I have lives on; movie posters; matchbooks from restaurants long gone. I have featured many of these items on this blog.

The owner said he will have a big sale sometime before closing, probably near the end of February.

Pete's Cafe Without Pete

I was in The Bronx recently, waiting for a bus, when I noticed what looked like a nice old school diner on E. Fordham Road. I peered inside. Counter, stools, booths, veteran waitresses. A sign that said "Fordham Students 10% off." Looked nice, if a bit tacky. (Plastic plants, fake Tiffany lamps.) Then I saw a large oval decade stuck to the glass front door. It showed a portrait of a man with long dark hair, thick dark eyebrows and an elaborate waxed mustache worthy of Dali. There was a cross over his head and the legend "2-2-2010. RIP" below.

The figure depicted must be Pete himself, I surmised, and Pete must have died. I digged around, and found my supposition, sadly, to be correct. He was Pete Nikolopoulos and he was struck down by a heart attack on the date indicated, while on a trip to Sparta, Greece. He was 56. Pete came to America from Greece in 1976 and began working at the diner as a busboy. In 1978, the Greek couple who owned the diner sold it to young Pete. (He was just 24 at the time—think of it.)

He was beloved by locals, particularly generations of Fordham students and educators. Students often went there late at night to nurse hangovers. One professor of media studies regularly sent students there on assignment to write a restaurant review of the scrambled eggs.

The diner now sells t-shirt with Pete's visage on it. It is currently run by Pete's widow, Anna (who, incidentally, never liked the mustache).

Lost City: Providence Edition: Haven Bros. Rolling Diner

One of the strangest, and best, culinary traditions in Providence, Rhode Island, is the Haven Bros. diner, which, every night at 5 PM, rolls to the corner of Dorrance and Fulton, right outside City Hall, and parks there until 5 AM. A door opens on the metal truck, a set of stairs come out, and the public is invited to climb in and chow down on chili dogs, french fries, coffee milk and "Murder Burgers." The kitchen fills up half the interior, the other side taken up by a few stools and a counter. They even have an ATM in there. Prices are cheap, the food is acceptable and you leave full. (I wonder who eats here at 4 AM? Besides drunken Brown U. students, I mean.)

It's a weird thing, this truck. They call themselves one of the oldest rolling diners in the U.S., having been founded as a horse-drawn cart in 1888 by the widow Anne Philomena Haven. The Havens went through two more generations before selling in 1953 to the Mollicone family. Currently, the Giusti family owns the truck.

Some years ago, a Providence mayor tries to kick the diner to the curb, saying it didn't fit in with the rest of "modern Providence." The population protested, and the Haven Bros. diner was allowed to stay. That mayor is gone now.

During my sole visit, I had a chili dog and a coffee milk. The grizzled old fry cook implored that I could "handle" two dogs. I declined. He seemed quite disgusted with my timidity. Which made me like the place even more.

Bigelow's Second Floor

Call me ignorant. Until now, I had no idea that Bigelow Chemists, the eternal pharmacy in the Village, had a second floor. Anyway, it's not much to see, that second floor. But it has a nice view of Sixth Avenue and Jefferson Market. And the stairwell leading to it is pleasantly of another era.

I Hate Capital One, But...

I hate Capital One, but I have to admit that this branch in Williamsburg has a certain neato-speedo Modernist appeal. If we were told it had been built 50 years ago, we'd consider it a modern landmark worth saving. Reminds me somehow of pictures of the old White Castles back in the 1960s. The logo still sucks, however.

Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Stage Deli?"

A trip to the Carnegie Deli—the Stage's longtime rival—might have been more appropriate at the moment, given the rumors of that place's possible closing. But the Stage is where I went, mainly because, well, the photos had already been shot. I'll get to the Carnegie soon.

Who Goes There? Stage Deli

It was not quite fair of me, I thought, to visit Midtown's Stage Deli on a Tuesday night at 8 PM during a snow-rain storm, when the joint was certain to not be at its vibrant, pulsating best. But, then, it was a good time to see what the 74-year-old sandwich palace is when it's not its usual self—that it, a tourist-clogged cliche.

Goodbye, Shoe Row

When I was a more youthful man, just arrived in New York, and I found I needed to clothe my feet, I headed down to 8th Street in the Village. There, I recall, were at least a dozen show stores, some obviously of many years standing. Literally one shoe shop after another. It was very easy to shop and compare goods and prices. And I always went home with shoes.

In recent years, however, you see less shoe stores and move of the above: vacant storefronts. Also various crappy eateries and assorted oddball businesses. The street is a lane of economic depression. Da'Vinci, seen up top, is one of the footwear survivors. (Great sign, by the way.) I remember it being there in the late '80s, though I'm sure it's older than that. I found two others left, including Kinway, below. Otherwise, this is no longer a shoe street.

Why did it change? Well, streets evolve. After all, in the first half of the 20th century, 8th Street was known for its many new and used book stores. Then it was shoes. Now the lane is on its way to something else. But it's also the same old story: rising rents. They began to go up in the first decade of the 21st century and the shoe merchants left, including the Village Cobbler, at 60 W. 8th Street, which sort of anchored the block. (No one ever got rich selling shoes.) Like so many landlords around the city, those of 8th Street hoped to attract high-paying restaurants. But that hasn't happened.

Carmine's Will Not Return

I will be keeping Carmine's Italian Seafood in my Recently Lost Landmarks list, sad to say.

The South Street Seaport eatery closed last summer after 107 years. Soon after, the owner, Greg Molini, made some rumblings about reopening in a new space. I doubted this, knowing landlords and the real estate market. Sure enough, this week he revealed that plans had fallen through with the proposed new space, 29 Peck Slip. The "financials didn't work." In other words, the landlord wanted the moon.

Some Things Never Change

I've always been curious about this old, old, but rather nondescript building at the northeast corner of Court and Douglass in Cobble Hill. It dates from the 1880s, and I always imagined it had a mercantile history, even though it's long been made up solely of apartments.

I haven't been able to find out much, but I was right about the shop. There was a grocery here in the 19th century. And here's what happened in 1886: "Jacob Berlage, a grocer, or 283 Court Street, was charged before Justice Massey this morning with having exposed for sale some canned tomatoes which born no label to show when they were put up. This is a violation of the Laws of 1885."

Grocers still pull that stuff.

Donohue's Steak House Felled by DOH

I was just talking last night with a Upper East Side-dwelling friend of mine about the wonderful unchanging character of upper Lexington Avenue, mentioning such stalwarts as the Lexington Candy Shop and Donohue's Steak House.

And today I wake up to the awful news that Donohue's has been shut down by the DOH. Hopefully, they will clean up and reopen soon. Love that place. Here's my "Who Goes There?" column from two years back.

Old Erasmus Hall May Be Saved

Two years ago, reports were all about how the original Erasmus Hall building, a 1786 structure which sits in the courtyard of the larger, more familiar Flatbush building called Erasmus Hall High School, was in danger of falling down. The Department of Education was apparently uninteresting in this tragedy.

Today, comes good news that the abandoned, 225-year-old building may be saved. The Wall Street Journal states that "a new, $300,000 matching grant from the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation is likely to jump-start restoration of the building, which once housed the oldest chartered high school in New York and counts Founding Fathers John Jay and Alexander Hamilton among its early benefactors."

Why does it always have to be a matching grant? Just give them the damn money. There's no time to waste.