Lost City's Guide to Tribeca

The recent news about the coming possible loss of Bazzini's nuts and dry foods store on Greenwich Street got me to thinking that it was time to take a tally of what history is left in Tribeca that lives and breathes and isn't just a handsome stone shell housing ritzy condominiums. Well, there isn't much. A lot of beautiful architecture. But few slivers of functioning history. So many of Tribeca's living landmarks, including El Teddy's and Montrachet, have died in recent years (and even they weren't of such phenomenal importance). And the nabe's days as an industrial and warehousing center, where New York went to get much of its foodstuffs, are well in the distant past. In other words, if you're looking for Old Tribeca, go to Hunts Point. For what's left, look here.



THE NEW YORK SUN BUILDING: We'll start on Broadway and Chambers Street. The old headquarters of the New York Sun (the first one), which ceased publication in 1950, wouldn't be worth a mention if it weren't for those wonderful clocks latched to the north and south corners of the structure. Each bears the paper's name and its motto "The Sun Shines for All." The southern ornament is a four-sided clock; the northern one tells the temperature. Both were broken for many years, but recently have been in good working order much of the time. I hope they're never taken down.

DUANE READE: Walk to the block of Broadway between Duane and Reade Streets. Here stood the future pharmacy giant's first warehouse. That's right: it got its name from a couple of random streets. (A block north and it would have been called Thomas Duane, which still sounds like someone's real name.) Nearly 50 years after its founding, it's still got a stranglehold on the city.

ODEON: Walk north to Thomas Street and turn left to West Broadway. In Tribeca, 30 years is an eon for a restaurant. Odeon was the "21" Club of the 1980s, the joint where all the hip, hot, young writers hung out. You may not have thought much of McInerney, Ellis, Janowitz and the like, but theirs was a literary scene like we haven't seen since and probably won't see again. They were the Last of the Fitzgeralds. (Bookwriters don't generate social scenes anymore.) Logic would dictate that Odeon should have faded with the careers of its habitues. But somehow it's survived and thrived. Before Odeon came along, this was the old Tower Cafeteria.


COSMOPOLITAN HOTEL: Walk south to Chambers Street. Here is the boxy, spartan Cosmopolitan Hotel, favorite of young, visiting European tourists. It was once the Hotel Bond. According to some sources, this is the oldest, ongoing, extant hotel building in the city. The address has been used for that function since 1861, when the Civil War began.

BAZZINI: Go west on Chambers to Greenwich Street and travel three blocks north to Jay Street. Want to know what Tribeca was like a century ago? Imagine a hundred stores like Bazzini, warehouses selling of nuts, fruit, eggs, cheese and whatever along every street. None of them looked as nice and slick as this 120-year-old company; Bazzini stayed in business by converting its factory into a gourmet store. Recent reports are that current owner Rocco D'Amato wants to get out and call it quits.

STAPLES STREET: Walk a half block east along Jay to Staples Street. This narrow passageway runs two blocks from Duane and Harrison. (Duane Harrison!—another good name for a drug store!) Once, here is where you went to get eggs, cheese, milk—staples, in other words.

HARRISON STREET HOUSES: Walk north on Staples, turn left on Harrison and cross Greenwich. Here are a lovely set of beautifully preserve Federal house, dating from the early 1800s. Wouldn't you like to live in one of them?

TRIBECA GRILL'S BAR: Walk one more block north to the corner of Greenwich and Franklin. Robert DeNiro's vanity restaurant doesn't interest me, though the food's OK. What's interesting here is the bar, which used to belong to a better and far more famous restaurant: the one and only Maxwell's Plum.

WALKER'S: Walk to North Moore and turn right two blocks until you hit the corner of Varick. I've always had a bit of a problem with Walker's claim that it's one of the oldest bars in the city. What it is is an old building that's often been used as a bar since the 1890s. But not the same bar. And sometimes not even a bar: it was an Irish restaurant in the '40s, then a Spanish eatery in the '50s. Jerry Walker, who also owns the Ear Inn, brought the place bar to its original purpose in 1987. Oh well. In Tribeca, you'll take historical patina where you can't get actual history.


FOURTH PRECINCT, NYPD: Head up one block north to the corner of Varick and Ericsson Place. This Renaissance Revival building is the 4th Precinct of the NYPD. Used to be the 1st precinct. The facade says both 4th and 1st.

ST. JOHN'S LANE: Look across from the precinct house, to the block bounded by Hudson, Varick, and Laight Streets and Ericsson Place, and heave a sigh. This was once St. John's Park, a private park as elegant as Gramercy Park, surrounded by red brick Federal row houses and anchored by St. John's Chapel. It died in 1866 when Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt bought the park and constructed a freight warehouse for the Hudson River Railroad. The Holland Tunnel was then built in 1927. A little further east is a small alley called St. John's Lane—all that's left to remember the area's bucolic past.

AT&T HEADQUARTERS: Take Ericsson east to Sixth Avenue between Walker and Lispenard. An immense Art Deco gem, completed in 1932, with a fantastic lobby, if you can find a way to see it. The guards aren't that friendly. AT&T is long gone.

CAPSOUTO FRERES: Walk back to Greenwich, go five blocks north (right) to Watts and turn left one block. Nice restaurant. Been around about 30 years. But it's in this survey for two reasons. One, it's housed in one of the most beautiful buildings in Tribeca, a neo-Flemish beauty done up in hues of orange and gold, built back in 1892 when someone apparently thought that this grimy neighborhood of warehouses deserved a lovely building. Two, there's an old wooden phone booth in the basement, near the bathrooms.

Lost City's Guide to Woodside

Residents of Woodside, Queens, love where they live. They crow about the sense of community, the safeness, the good schools, etc. To the uninitiated, though, you have to squint a bit to see the charm. Woodside is notably lacking in green spaces or grand structures, and the housing stock is so ramshackle and just plain ugly, it could make Williamsburg look good. (Admit it: Williamsburg is homely.) But I've come to appreciate the place over the years. It is homey, and, as New York nabes go, completely without pretensions. Also, though its Irish roots show most vividly, it is a melting-pot community in the best sense. And the 7 line elevated tracks that cast its downtown in shadow give the place a distinctly old, working-class New York air.

ORANGE HUT: We're going to start way out at the northern end of Woodside, at the Northern Boulevard stop of the R and V trains, where Northern meets 54th. Here is the singular Orange Hut, one of the best breakfast-and-lunch-only diners in the city. Also one of the cheapest. It began life as a White Tower Restaurant in 1930.

PLAYBILL: Walk down 54th Street to 37th Avenue. Turn left and walk a number of blocks to 61st Street. Turn right here and you'll see a two-story, brick building with a familiar, big yellow sign on it saying "Playbill." This is where the theatrical publishers make the programs that serve Broadway and Off-Broadway shows every day.



ST. PAUL'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH: Walk along 61st to 39th Avenue. The sad, boarded-up church on the corner is St. Paul's, a Gothic Revival wooden church that was founded and built in 1874, when Woodside was little more than a kind of frontier town. It was—unbelievably—never landmarked, and suffered a terrible fire in December 2007. Its situation hasn't improved much since then. But at least it hasn't been razed.


STATION CAFE: Keep walking on 61st Street, under the LIRR tracks. Just as you reemerge into the light again on the other side, you'll see this dive to beat all dives. The squat building with red-metal siding and a perpetually drooping awning has stood its ground here for 80 or more years, making sure Woodsidians are not denied beer at 9 AM. God bless its heart.


STOP INN DINER: Pause at the corner of 61st and Roosevelt Avenue, the center of life in Woodside. Across the street is a diner with a punning name, the Stop Inn. It doesn't look like much, but most everyone in Woodside pays a call on this place once or twice a week. It's a standard diner, with fewer frills than most. But it truly grows on you. There has been an eatery at this corner since 1935, when Ray's Diner opened.


V&V BAKERY: Turn left, back into the shadows of the elevated train tracks. A few yards east is the tiny V&V Bakery, which has baked bread and treats on this site for at least 40 years. Family owned as far as I can tell.

ST. SEBASTIAN CHURCH: Turn around and walk up Roosevelt Avenue to 57th St. Here is St. Sebastian's Church, the hub of Irish-American religious life in Woodside. It's not very beautiful, but it's what they've got. The structure opened in 1952. If you turn around and look past the nearby public square, you can see the associated St. Sebastian School, which is a few decades older. It stands on the site of the old Kelly family mansion. According to Forgotten New York, "Kelly's son, John A.F. Kelly, pursued a career as a journalist and co-founded a newspaper with his sister, Maria, published out of Brooklyn. The paper was eventually bought out by the Brooklyn Times, but Kelly stayed on as a columnist. At this time Kelly was living in Brooklyn, but he wrote a column called Letters From Woodside about life at his parents' estate, which he called Woodside." And that's how the neighborhood got its ironical name. (No woods about now.)


DONOVAN'S: Directly across the street from St. Sebastian's is a sprawling, one-story, white-sided building. Donovan's is Woodside's heart, if you ask me. It's been here since the 1960s, which, by Woodside standards, makes it fantastically old. And though Woodside has many, many Irish Pubs, this is its ur-Pub. It is absolutely comfortable inside. There are many rooms, but stick to the oldest of them, straight to the back as you enter, with the fireplace. Donovan's is renowned for their burgers, so give one a try. The Shepherd's Pie is good, too.

MICHAEL SPILLANE: OK, a bit of a detour here. Turn left (south) on 54th Street to Queens Boulevard. Cross over and turn left to 59th Street, and turn right to No. 47-50. On May 13, 1977, Michael Spillane, former leader of the Westies Gang, was murdered outside this building, where he lived. Spillane had fled Hell's Kitchen for Woodside when his authority in Manhattan was brutally challenged. The move didn't save him, though.


NUNZIATO FLORIST: Get yourself back to Roosevelt, turn left and walk to No. 5128. The family-owned Nunziato has been around since 1901. The cramped, oddly shaped building, forever enveloped in darkness, is a poignant sight. City Councilman Eric Gioia is a scion of the Nunziato clan.

Lost City's Guide to Red Hook

The once-bustling waterfront community of Red Hook has lost a great deal of its original life. Nearly all, really. Van Brunt, Conover, and Richards Streets are lined with the ghosts of formally vital storefronts. If you want to know what life was like in the shipping days, when work was plentiful for Irish, Italian and Swedish laborers, and street life teemed with pushcarts and stickball, you'll have to talk to the old-timers still hanging on, because there's not much evidence of it on the streets themselves. Unlike other nearby neighborhoods, the recent gentrification has not been hung on a few enduring businesses and institutions, but built from the ground up. If I wished to tell you what used to be in Red Hook, this guide could go on and on. As it is, the tracing of Red Hook's living history is a much short affair.

DEFONTE'S: This sandwich outpost at Columbia and Luquer Streets, near the north end of Red Hook, is about as old as surviving businesses get in Red Hook, to my reckoning. Somehow, the 1922 eatery has survived in the middle of absolutely nowhere for decades. The mint-green building with all the upper windows boarded over is pure Hopper, sitting lonely on its blighted corner. It's family-owned, founded by a immigrant from Mori di Bari (the hometown of so many of the local Italian families). The sandwiches are big, good and cheap. They recently opened a Manhattan branch, so they must be doing well.

ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH OF THE VISITATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY: Walk south down Columbia and then Dwight Street to Verona. Turn right along the north side of COFFEY PARK. The dark forboding Roman Catholic Church of the Visitation dominates this central green of Red Hook. The church was established in 1954. This building is the second to stand on the site. A former structure, erected in 1878, was destroyed by fire on July 12, 1896. The present Gothic affair was built in 1896.

THE "R" SIGN: Look above at the abandoned billboard atop the building at Richards and Venona. This used to belong to paper goods manufacturer named E.J. Trum. When John Turano & Sons Furniture took over the address in 1978, they tried to tear down the Trum letters. All but the stubborn "R," and a period, were removed. There they remain. Let's just say it stands for Red Hook.


RED HOOK POOL: Walk back to Dwight, turn right, walk down to Lorraine. Turn left and walk to Clinton. Turn right to Bay Street. The Red Hook Pool, officially know as the Sol Goldman Recreation Center and Pool, is a gem of a relic from the WPA area, a gloriously huge pool and in great condition. It's an attraction of constant popularity in the summer, fostering a wonderfully democratic picture of community summertime fun.

RED HOOK BALLFIELD VENDORS: Kitty-corner from the pool, in Red Hook Park, during the summer months, are a gathering of Latin food purveyors collectively known as the Red Hook Ballfield Vendors. From these carts, offering the best local versions of delicacies from El Salvador, Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic, you will receive some of the best street food in all of New York. The vendors have been working their magic for 20 years or so, and though they are singularly unappreciated by the City or the Parks Department, they are beloved of New Yorkers.


ERIE BASIN PARK: Walk west on Bay to Otsego. As you go, look south to the rusted-out behemoth of the PORT OF NEW YORK GRAIN ELEVATOR TERMINAL, standing starkly again the horizon like some accursed post-industrial City of Oz. Turn left on Otsego to Beard Street. I haven't brought you here to admire the new IKEA, but Erie Basin Park, which IKEA built as a sort of olive branch to the community for tearing down the historic Todd Shipyards. They did a fairly excellent job, and the expansive collection of piers, greenery, walkways, bike paths and maritime paraphernalia nicely captures the spirit and air of old Red Hook.

BEARD STREET: As you walk west on Beard toward Van Brunt, take note of he Belgian Blocks on the road. These can be found all over Red Hook, as well as remnants of old trolley tracks.

FAIRWAY: Again, I didn't bring you hear to appreciate the produce, but to take a look at the pre-Civil War coffee warehouse Fairway renovated as its Brooklyn home. It's an undeniably handsome object. Inside, head to the back patio. There, you can enjoy unadulterated views of Staten Island, the Statue of Liberty and the water traffic in New York Harbor. To the left are three old TROLLEY CARS, the sad testimony of Brooklynite Bob Diamond's doomed effort to bring trolley service back to Red Hook.

BEARD STREET WAREHOUSES: Across Van Brunt from Fairway, and continues south along Erie Basin are the long, red-brick Beard Street Warehouse, simply one of the most beautiful and beautifully situated industrial structures in America. Catch the Civil-War-era buildings at sunset for an unmatchable sight.

WEIRD MARITIME BUILDING: Walk west on Reed Street, just in front of Fairway, to No. 20, a curious two-story black building that looks like it's auditioning for the part of Old Maritime Building, covered as it is with plastic fish, life preservers, ship wheels and flags. It's actually just a building some guy uses to work on his old cars and have a few beers with his buds. Adds local character, though.

SUNNY'S BAR: Walk to Conover and turn right. Sunny's Bar is one of the few holdouts from the old days. In the Balzano family since the 1930s, it is now opened only occasionally, whenever Sunny feels like it. The well-preserved interior is well worth a looksee.

Previous Lost City Neighborhood Guides

Lost City’s Guide to Yorkville

The key to enjoying Yorkville these days, it seems to me, is to keep to the sidestreets. The main thoroughfares (Third, Second and First Avenues, and 86th, 79th and 72nd Street), once packed with the color of teeming German, Hungarian and Czech populations, have been scrubbed clean of interest and lined with banks and chain stores. The blocks in between are infinitely more appealing and contain, if you squint, choice remnants of Yorkville’s living past.

GLASER'S BAKE SHOP: Let’s start with the good stuff, First Avenue near 87th. German pastries and cakes made from 102 years of experience. Glaser’s is one of the neighborhood’s strongest remaining ties to Yorkville’s Germanic history. Try the apple turnovers, black and white cookies or whoopee pies. And don’t fail to notice John Glaser’s name spelled in tile on the floor.


SCHALLER & WEBER: Walk over to Second Avenue, just south of 86th (which was once called German Broadway). Here is the epicenter of bygone Yorkville, a sausage purveyor supreme—though you can also get almost anything else of German pedigree here as well. Schaller & Weber meats are available in many groceries citywide now, but don’t spare yourself a visit to the actual place. Here since 1937. Family-owned.

HEIDELBERG RESTAURANT: To eat a hot Schaller & Weber bratwurst, walk two doors south to the sole remaining German restaurant in the area, in business since 1936 (one year before Schaller & Weber—whose sausages did they serve then?). Dark timber, frothy mugs of imported ale, waiters in leiderhosen. There used to many like it, places with wonderful names Die Lorelei, Cafe Mozart, Kleine Konditorei, and, my favorite, the Ideal Restaurant.

BRANDY'S SALOON: Walk to 84th Street and head west. Brandy's has lived many lives over its time. It a speakeasy back in the day. It is currently enjoying a considerably less romantic existence as a piano bar.


THE YORKVILLE CLOCK: Keep walking west on 84th and turn north on Third. This sidewalk clock is one of the few left in the city. It dates from 1898 and once stood in front of Adolph Stern’s jewelry store at 1508 Third Avenue. The E. Howard Clock Company built the clock. Stern moved it to 1501 Third Avenue in 1923 to sit in front of his pawn shop (and put three balls, the sign of pawn shops, on top of the clock). It was removed for a time in the 1980s, but howls of protest brought it back, fully restored. It had to be renovated again in 1998. It is landmarked and keeps proper time.



ZION ST. MARK'S CHURCH: Turn around and walk east on 84th. Between Second and First is what was christened in 1888 the Deutsche Evangelische Kirche von Yorkville. A pretty little house of worship with the old name still carved into the façade.

ST. ELIZABETH OF HUNGARY ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH: Go down to 83rd between Second and Third. Another religious relic of Yorkville’s ethnic past. Neo-Gothic with a great vaulted ceiling inside.


OTTOMANELLI BROTHERS: Walk back to Second, down to 82nd and over York Avenue. The Ottomanelli clan split a long time ago. One branch of the family (Onofrio) stayed in the Village, on Bleecker; the other (Joseph) went way the hell up here. It remains one of the oldest butchers in the city, and one of the best as well. Also one of the greatest family names around. It looks fine on a sign.


HUNGARIAN MEAT MARKET: Walk down to 81st and over to First. The remnants of Hungarian Yorkville, which was centered around 79th Street, are even harder to find that those of German Yorkville. The Hungarian Meat Market, a Schaller & Weber of its kind, traces its history back to the 1950s, though it doesn’t look very old. You can get your Tirol salami, Csabai smoked sausage, and Szekely Goulash here, as well as authentic Hungarian paprika.

ORWASHER'S BAKERY: Walk down to 78th between First and Second. At No. 308 used to be this old 1916 bakery, which still lives on, after a fashion, as Over Artisans, an outfit that bought the space from the third generation of Orwashers in 2007.


JAN HUS PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH: Walk down to 74th between First and Second. All the churches around here seem to have been built in the 1880s. This one served the Czech community. A weird story in connection to the church: In 1895, Pastor Vincent Pisek traveled to “Nebraska when a hunter killed a mother wolf and presented the new-born cub to Pisek who took it back to Jan Hus Church and raised it on a bottle. The wolf wandered freely around the church and was especially protective of children, who also appear to have had free reign of the place. All day in the pastor's study the wolf would sit at Pisek's feet. One day the wolf was missing and they searched everywhere until they found it curled up sound asleep inside the pulpit. Neighbors complained that the church was terrorizing the block with a wolf howling from the attic.” Jan Hus, a Czech Catholic priest, was burned at the stake in 1415 for his heretical views on the Church.


ST. JOHN THE MARTYR CATHOLIC CHURCH: Walk down to 72nd, near Second. This vest-pocket church used to be the Knox Presbyterian Church, a Bohemian congregation founded in 1888. Nicely located for the time, on what was Bohemian Broadway.

PAUL MOLE: Walk west to Lexington and up to 74th. They have been cutting hair at this second-floor barber for a century.

WILLIAM POLL: Further up, at 75th, is this oddball purveyor of fancy dips and other delicacies, which has stood here since 1921.



EISNER CHEMISTS: At 79th is this, another reminder of the area’s German past, here for many decades.

LASCOFF DRUGS: Walk up to 82nd. Of all the ancient pharmacies in the city, perhaps only Bigelow is older, and none is grander than this 1899 Gothic corner masterpiece, where the sale of dental floss is treated with the seriousness of a bank transaction, and conducted in like silence.


LEXINGTON CANDY SHOP: This 1925 soda fountain is a nice place to end your tour. Have a real malted milk shake, or a Coke made with genuine syrup, and rest your feet.

Lost City's Guide to Gowanus

Gowanus always seemed to me a leftover neighborhood. It's composed of the blocks that Park Slope, Carroll Gardens and Boerum Hill don't want for themselves. Still, for those who like landscapes that evoke New York's bygone industrial era (that would be me), it has its share of architectural and cultural attractions.

LYCEUM THEATRE: This triumphant structure stands on Fourth Avenue, the eastern border of Gowanus, between President and Union Streets. It was built in 1906 as a public bath, though it actually looks more like a theatre. Now, it frequently is used as a theatre, among other things. Anyway, it's active.

TWO TOMS: Walk west down Union and turn left at Third. The downtrodden patch of Third Avenue below Union Street has always been a favorite area of mine, mainly due to its hints at the Italian enclave the once thrived here. The classic corner Italian-American Grocery is gone, but the Glory Social Club is still around, as is Two Toms, an old-school Italian restaurant that feels like a social club. Plain tables, no decor and no menu; the waiter will tell you what's available. It's often closed for private parties.


MONTE'S VENETIAN ROOM: Walk down to Carroll and turn right, heading toward the canal. Monte's, though much altered, may be the oldest Italian eatery in the City, having been founded in 1906. They let you know that Frank Sinatra used to frequent the place by pasting the Voice's portrait near the entrance. During Prohibition, it was a speakeasy. Inside there are curved red banquettes and a huge mural of Venice that dates back to the Depression. That such a place should survive a century on a nondescript side street next to a fetid canal is a miracle in itself.


THE CARROLL STREET BRIDGE: Walk a few paces closer to the canal. Here is one of my favorite landmarks in the entire city. The Carroll Street Bridge may not look like much at first gander, but it is one of a kind. Or, rather, one of four of a kind. Built in 1889, it is the oldest of four remaining retractable bridges in the country. It is still cranked back every time a ship comes through. The Belgian bricks of Carroll Street give way to the wooden planks of the bridge, making for a very pretty picture. Artists often choose the bridge as a place to paint.


SOUTH BROOKLYN CASKET COMPANY: Walk north up Nevins Street to Union and turn east to Third Avenue. Gowanus doesn't have much industry left, but this outfit stands firm, because there's never a dip in the death market. When people on the B71 bus see the name lettered across the low, red-brick building, they usually laugh or gape in awe, not certain of what they're seeing. The name is too classic; it's like something a novelist of screenwriter would come up with. The business is the subject of ghoulish fascination for many, and the workers do not appreciate the curious who hang around trying to get a peek of what goes on inside. Sometimes, however, if you're lucky, you'll catch the workers loading their cargo onto trucks idling on Union. Brooklyn at work! And rest.


DAILY NEWS BROOKLYN GARAGE: Turn north on Third and walk to the block between Degraw and Douglass. This forlorn area of Brooklyn seems to have been where the big newspapers kept their warehouses. The New York Times facility is just up the avenue a few. Here is the former Daily News haunt. The News decamped a while ago, but we can still enjoy the bold, mausoleum-like structure, particularly the detail used in carving out the tabloid's signature image of the camera.


THE GOWANUS WATER STATION: Proceed north to Butler and turn left until you get to Nevins Street. Finding living history in Gowanus is tough; so many of the historic things have closed or disappeared. This beautiful pumping station is a supreme example of how utilitarian civic structures can bring beauty and majesty to an otherwise rough area. Check out the insignia with the Dutch windmill up top.


AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS BUILDING: Across the street from the pumping station, further down Butler, is a building erected in the 1920s by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animal. It was the headquarters of all society activities in Brooklyn, and contained offices, an ambulance house and even shelters for animals. The words above the door say the building is the Rogers Memorial. Who Rogers was I have not learned.

ST. AGNES ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH: Turn left on Nevins, heading south. Turn right on Union and cross the UNION STREET BRIDGE—not as famous as the Carroll Street Bridge, but not an unenjoyable span. Walk to Hoyt Street and turn right to Sackett. As it so dominates the skyline around here, it's funny that the hulking St. Agnes doesn't get more attention. I think it's one of the more unappreciated churches in Brooklyn. It's the sole surviving creation of Thomas F. Houghton, the son-in-law of Brooklyn's most prolific church builder, Patrick Charles Keely.



MAGIC TOUCH RESTAURANT: To end, double back on Hoyt, walk south until you reach 3rd Street. Look up. Here is one of my favorite lost eateries in the city. The Magic Touch is long gone, but the swankarific sign hangs on for all to enjoy. I tip my top hat to it.

Lost City's Guide to Boerum Hill

This is the eighth of Lost City's guides to the shards of living history and cultural potency that remain in various New York neighborhoods. The tours are published occasionally. Previous guides can be found along the right-hand navigation bar.

First off, let me say that I consider the western border of Boerum Hill to run straight down Smith Street. I know that there is some dispute about this. Some say it stretches to Court Street. But I suspect this is the work of real estate brokers who know the listing "Cobble Hill" will fetch them more money that "Boerum Hill." Furthermore, I don't know any merchant on the east side of Court who thinks they're part of Boerum Hill.

I am perfectly in accord with the other borders: State Street at the north end, Fourth Avenue to the east and Warren Street to the south. For many years, I considered the neighborhood a kind of Johnny-come-lately wannabe area, riding on the fast-gentrifying coattails of Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens. In the last five years though, though many bike trips through its street, I've come to love the place and recognize it as having a distinct character of its own.

THE NEW ST. CLAIR RESTAURANT: This diner is as good a place as any to begin a Boerum Hill tour. Founded in 1920 at the corner of Smith and Atlantic, it's one of the oldest, consistently operating businesses in the area and has seen many waves of incomers, from Italians and Irish to Hispanic peoples to Yuppies. It's been through a few transformations in that time, the most recent being in 2008. So it doesn't look very old. But its spirit is.

THE STATE STREET HOUSES: Walk north to State Street. The block of State between Smith and Hoyt contains 23 beautifully preserved Renaissance Revival brownstones dating from the 1840s to the 1870s. The group is landmarked.

CHURCHES: Head back to Atlantic. At the north corner with Bond, there's the stark Byelorussian Autocephalic Orthodox Church, which is kind of simple and plain, but which I love because it's called the Byelorussian Autocephalic Orthodox Church. Down the block is the House of the Lord Pentecostal Church, a nice Romanesque Revival job. It used to be the Swedish Pilgrims' Evangelical Church, when there were tons of Swedes along Atlantic.


SYNAGOGUE: Look across the street at 368 Atlantic at what used to be Talmud Torah Beth Jacob Joseph. The slim 1917 structure was an antique store for a long time. Now it's something tacky called the Deity Lounge. You need an invitation to gain admittance. Eesh.

EX-LAX BUILDING: Walk down to 423-443 on the North side of Atlantic. Yes, Ex-Lax, the king of all laxatives, had its factory here. Even though the huge building was convented to co-ops in 1981, the doorway still proudly proclaims the address' former use. I wonder how it must feel to say you live in the Ex-Lax Building.

TWINS PIZZA: OK, here comes my favorite part of Boerum Hill, the remnants of what used to be "Downtown Caughnawaga." In the middle part of the 20th century, this area was settled by a large collection of Mohawk families, who had moved from a Quebec reservation in the 1920s to take jobs building New York's new skyscrapers. They were particularly adept at this task, as they were not afraid of the dizzying heights at which they had to work. Joseph Mitchell chronicled their lives in his essay "The Mohawks of High Steel." Turn a half-block north of Atlantic on Nevins to the Twins Pizza store. This address, 75 Nevins Street, used to be the Wigwam, a dark bar favored by the Mohawk workers. Over the door was the slogan "The Greatest Iron Workers in the World Pass Thru These Doors." Canadian beer could easily be had.


HANK'S SALOON: Head down Atlantic to Hank's Saloon, at Third Avenue. This rather scary-looking, low-slung dive bar has enough character on its own to merit a mention. It's of further interest, however, as another bar once popular with the Mohawks. It was called the Doray Tavern before it became Hank's, and some Indian workers lived upstairs, above the bar.



CUYLER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH: Walk down to Pacific Street to No. 358 between Hoyt and Bond. This former church—now a private residence with a landmarked facade—was where the Mohawks went to worship for decades. There was a yearly pow-wow, with traditional dances, prayers and smoke signals. It was built in the 1890s.



NEW YORK TIMES WAREHOUSE: On the block of Third Avenue between Dean and Pacific is a highly ornate, neo-Classical warehouse befitting the proud nature of its former owner: the New York Times. Notice the various noble friezes at various points on the building.

THE SIDE STREETS: As you roam around Boerum Hill, be sure to take note of the curious array of short and unusual brick structures that line Hoyt, Bond and Nevins Streets between State and Bergen. Unlike Cobble Hill, which tucked its carriage house and stables on the east-west streets, reserving the north-south veins like Clinton and Henry for grand brownstones, Boerum Hill seems to have employed its east-west thoroughfares such as Dean and Bergen for displaying the public face of its architecture. The workaday structure meant for storing stuff were put Nevins et al. Today, this makes for fun viewing as you turn corners and confront odd-job one-story and two-story structures, now converted into quaint homes.



THE BROOKLYN INN: Be sure to make time for a beer at the Brooklyn Inn, at the corner of Hoyt and Bergen. One of the oldest watering holes in the borough, it has retained much of its 19th-century architectural details and feel, and has an invitingly anonymous atmosphere.


108 WYCKOFF STREET: An impromptu piece of urban, outdoor art. Half the three-story home is caked with a near-decades worth of tiles, sequins, mirrors and do-dads, all applied one by one by artist Susan Gardner, who lives inside. It's a delight.


ZIAD'S DELI: Head back to Smith, just north of Bergen. For me, and many others, Boerum Hill is Jonathan Letham Land, an area depicted in colorful detail in the writer's novels "Motherless Brooklyn" and "The Fortress of Solitude." Ziad's is a nothing-special deli, except that it was the basis of the deli Zeod's, which the hero of "Motherless Brooklyn" frequently visited. The Brooklyn Inn also makes an appearance in the book.

Lost City's Guide to Hell's Kitchen

First of all, Clinton is a perfectly fine and respectful name for a neighborhood, but to abandon the infinitely more expressive name of Hell's Kitchen is just foolhardy. The midtown blocks west of Eighth Avenue will always be Hell's Kitchen to me. Despite the increasing number of towers sprouting up and down Eighth, the area still has a raffish, slightly edgy charm which speaks of its immigrant, gangland past. And despite losing some irreplaceable landmarks like Pozzo Pastry Shop, Ninth Avenue and the side streets still boast a healthy number of independent and individualized shops and restaurants. Here are a few to catch. (FYI: I'm going to cover the blocks south of 42nd, which are often considered part of Hell's Kitchen, in a separate guide.)

HEARST TOWER: We'll start at the northern reach of the area, at the corner of Eighth and 57th. From 1928 on, William Randolph Hearst and his minions commanded the news magnate's empire from this former six-story Joseph Urban building, now a mere shell used to prop up Sir Norman Foster 46-story glass jungle gym.

THE WINDEMERE: (above) It's still there, for now, at the corner of 57th and Ninth Avenue, despite the malignant efforts of its negligent landlord, Masako Yamagata, to allow the 127-year-old building to fall in a heap of dust. The Romanesque Revival structure is one of the oldest large apartment houses still standing in Manhattan.


S. WOLF PAINT: Walk down Ninth to 52nd. Here is a big Benjamin Moore paint store. Peek around the corner and you'll see another storefront to the L-shaped building bearing the sign S. Wolf. That's what the store used to be, when old Simon Wolf, and later son Stephen, commanded the New York paint biz from this perch during most of the 20th century. Stephen's son, Matt Wolf, is a well known London theatre critic, which goes to show how far from the tree the apple can fall.


TOUT VA BIEN: Walk to 51st between Eighth and Ninth. Sixty years old and still basically the same, this old-school French bistro acts as if the neighborhood has never changed from the days when the visiting French fleet used to make it their home away from home.

DRUIDS: Walk to Tenth Avenue. Near 50th is Druids, a nice, dark, atmospheric bar that's been there for a decade or more. It was once the incongruously titled Sunbrite Bar, a haunt of the murderous Westies gang.

LANDMARK TAVERN: Walk to 11th Avenue and 46th. This 1868 building has always been a restaurant and bar. It once looked onto the lapping shores of the Hudson. It's owned by the same guy who runs Druids, who apparently has a thing for old Hell's Kitchen saloons. The upstairs rooms are where the original owner raised his family and where, during Prohibition, there was a speakeasy.


MARKET DINER: Walk down to 43rd Street. This diner, a favorite of cabbies and other working stiffs, almost died last year, but then reopened in December. A victory for budget-conscious eater and lovers of diner architecture.

MANHATTAN PLAZA: Walk along 43rd to Ninth. On the southwest corner stands this tall residence, built in 1977, the nondescript facade of which belies the colorful characters of its inhabitants. If you don't like actors and showfolk, don't step inside. Half of working-class Broadway lives here.

WESTWAY DINER: Look across the street at one of the last places where the starving actors in the neighborhood can get a cheap meal, and at any hour of the day, too. Cops like it, too. Supposedly, the idea for "Seinfeld" was hatched here. But I think a lot of ideas have been hatched here.


RUDY'S BAR AND GRILL: Walk up a block on Ninth, between 44th and 45th. Free hot dogs. Big statue of a pig outside. Duct tape on the well-worn red booths. Barflies aplenty. Everyone knows this place, right?


POSEIDON GREEK BAKERY: Just next door to the raffish Rudy's is this dignified, longstanding family bakery, purveyors of Greek delicacies and old-style service. It's been around 89 years.

FILM CENTER BUILDING: Across the street is this landmarked Art Deco building. A hundred fascinating showbiz related outfits do work inside.

BRUNO RAVIOLI: On the next block north of this amazing section of Ninth is this 103-year-old maker of great pasta.

MAZZELLA'S MARKET: Between 47th and 48th, this half-inside, half-outside market gets my vote for the most purely old-New-York-ish business in Hell's Kitchen. The place, which sells both wholesale and retail, has done an impeccable job of ignoring every bit of modernity that surrounds it. All that's needed is a pushcart to complete the picture.


RESTAURANT ROW: Jog back to 46th and walk the block between Ninth and Eighth. As long as anyone can remember, people starring in plays and people going to plays have eaten at restaurants lining this street. Among the most lasting is BARBETTA, more than 100 years old and with only two owners, the father and daughter of the same family. Among the most storied is JOE ALLEN, named after its crusty owner, who once dated Chita Rivera and who also owns Orso and Bar Centrale next door.

THE CAMELOT: Walk down a block to 45th. This apartment building was built in the 1960s and was named after the popular musical. I just like the fussy lettering on the side of the building.

THE WHITBY: Walk west on 45th. This sweetly old-fashioned apartment complex was built in 1934 as a residential hotel, and has a surprisingly starry history. The Andrews Sisters Doris Day, Joe DiMaggio, Charlie Chaplin and Betty Grable have all lived here. Somewhere on the south side of this block, at what was Billy Haas’s Chophouse, on Aug. 6, 1930, Judge Joseph Force Crater left the restaurant, stepped into a cab, and was never seen again.

Lost City's Guide to the Upper West Side
Lost City's Guide to SoHo
Lost City's Guide to Midtown East

Lost City's Guide to the Upper West Side

If you want to understand the toll the last 16 years of short-sighted City Hall governance has taken on the City's soul, the quickest way is to take a dispiriting stroll down upper Broadway, anywhere between Columbus Circle and 96th Street. The central vein of the Upper West Side—a neighborhood that was long a bastion of New York's penchant for independent thinking and expression—has been almost completely denuded of local, individualized businesses. On some blocks, it's impossible to find a single storefront that isn't an outpost of some corporate entity. It could be Dayton or Scottsdale, for all the personality. As with SoHo, without the unique architecture, the area would be completely undistinguished.

The Upper West Side is a large chunk of land, and, quite frankly, what you get in living history for walking all those blocks doesn't quite compensate for your aching dogs. But, for those who are really curious, here's some of what's left:

MURRAY'S STURGEON SHOP: We'll start way the hell up north, on Broadway near 90th Street, with one of the region's mercantile gems. This narrow store has been here serving up fish and meats and soup since 1946 under several different owners. The current owner, Ira Goller, has been there since 1990.



BARNEY GREENGRASS: "The Sturgeon King." To a certain extent, culinary life on the UWS has always centered on the finding and consuming of very good smoked fish. At Amsterdam and 86th Street, you get some of the best. Barney Greengrass (what a name!) has been luring them inside in droves for a century with its classic version of the Jewish "Appetizing" store. There's an accompanying restaurant, whose few tables are crammed together and routinely occupied.


WEST PARK PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH: Next door to Barney is this slice of red sandstone. The UWS has a lot of great churches. I'm including this one, however, because through some mystery it has never been landmarked. The 1890 building is a rare example of Richardsonian Revival, a robust style I dearly love. The church is currently closed and things don't look good for it.

AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY: Go over to Columbus and walk off all the food from Murray's and Barney's on the way down to 81st Street, where the huge Museum of Natural History takes up a few blocks. Take it in. It's kinda impressive. If you decide to go in, don't forget to go to the Hall of Ocean Life and stand under the model of the Blue Whale. Nothing quite places you in New York as does standing under that whale.

DUBLIN HOUSE: Turn west on 79th Street and head to Broadway. You can't miss the Dublin House. It's got a big neon harp outside. A great old watering hole as old an any business in the area.

ZABAR'S: OK, now you're within the UWS's heart of hearts—the tight ten blocks or so where the neighborhood still looks and acts the most like itself. Landmarks, both of the architectural and cultural kind, are thick on the ground from 81st to 71st, starting with the business that perhaps epitomizes La Vie Upper West Side more than any other: Zabar's. Crowded, cluttered, full of itself, beloved, hated, overproud and justifiable so. However you slice it, it's an experience.

WESTSIDER RARE & USED BOOKS: A narrow, hard-to-navigate, used book store across Broadway from Zabar's. A quintessentially New Yorky space and business. It's easy to lose a couple hours in here.


H&H BAGELS: Head south a block and enter the boiled-dough shrine that is H&H Bagels, as praiseworthy for its fat, circular bread products as for its spare, unshowy (save the weird chandeliers, above) decor.

THE APTHORP: At 79th is the Anthorp, one of those places where every New Yorker, at one time in their lives, dreams of living. Built on land acquired by William Waldorf Astor in 1879, and filling a full city block, it has an enormous, dreamy inner courtyard that evokes Europe, and the feel of a Renaissance palace. It should. It was modeled on the Pitti Palace.

FAIRWAY: Further down Broadway, around 75th. The food miracles keep coming. This is the original, the hopelessly crowded, the infuriating, the spendiferous Fairway. "Unlike Any Other Market." And they're right. It is. It's like a Middle-Eastern bazaar, in its multitude of products and its boisterous, rude, heterogeneous clientele—only with a roof.

CITARELLA: Never my fishy cup of tea (a little too hoity-toity, and too pricey), but generations of New Yorkers have sworn by it. It's 97 years old, for Christ's sake. I give it its due.

THE BEACON THEATRE: At 74th Street on the east side of Broadway, a 1929 Art Deco gem, recently restored.

FISCHER BROTHERS AND LESLIE: Turn right at 72nd. Half a block in, on the south side, is the family-owned butcher Fischer Brothers and Leslie. Hideously expensive, but they know what they're doing, meat-wise, and they keep the Glatt Kosher flame burning on the UWS.

72nd STREET SUBWAY KIOSK: As you turn around and re-cross Broadway, look at and admire the landmarked subway kiosk at the 72nd Street stop. If every subway station had a kiosk like this, what a place New York would be! It's 105 years old. One of only a few remaining in the City.

THE DORILTON: Glance down Broadway to 71st Street. That big red-and-white buster on the left is the Dorilton, built in 1902.

TIP TOP SHOES: Keep going east and head to this largish, 69-year-old rarity: an enduring family-owned shoe store! Lots of New York personality. (Maybe too much; charm, the sales clerks sometimes lack.) And the name and sign are to swoon from.

THE DAKOTA: Keep going east until you hit the park. Here is the Dakota. If you've never heard of it, there's something wrong with you. Built in 1880, it was so named because its then-surroundings were as empty and desolate as the Badlands. It has another of those great inner courtyards you only find in large apartment buildings on the UWS. All famous Upper West Siders who haven't lived at the Apthorp has lived at the Dakota.

EMERALD INN: Double back to Columbus and walk down to 70th. Nothing so special, except that it's been around for 70 years or so. Recently, it was threatened with extinction. Drink up; you're almost done walking.

TAVERN ON THE GREEN: In Central Park, near 67th, it the sprawling, be-mirrored, over-chandeliered, ever-cheesy Tavern on the Green. But it's one of a kind. And when you're eating your Eggs Benedict in the Crystal Room on a Sunday morning and the equestrians gallop up outside the glass wall to rest their horses, it can be kind of magical.

CAFE DES ARTISTES: On 67th near the park, it is 92 years old and a byword for romantic dining. Known for its murals. The kind of New York landmark that wouldn't change if you held a nice to its throat.