A reader the Flickr contribution recently sent the above picture. I recognized it as a familiar stretch of small indy businesses along the south side of 23rd Street near Fifth. I was sad to see the old signs go.
I passed by the location today and saw the replacement signage. Shiny. Clean. New-looking. An improvement? I don't know. Some might say so, I guess. I thankful the businesses didn't change, anyway. Live long, Luz!
My favorite part of maintaining Lost City are the occasions when, while reaching out to New York’s past, New York’s past reaches out to me. After writing about their family’s long-gone businesses, I have been contacted by descendents of the founders of Krauser Hardware and Cafiero’s restaurant in Brooklyn and The Colony restaurant in Manhattan.
Recently, I posted something about the Grand Saloon on 23rd Street, a former brothel and speakeasy that spent a good deal of its existence (as an extant sign, above, attests) as Klube’s Restaurant. Soonafter, I received an e-mail from the great-grandchild of the Klube who founded the place! As I usually do in such situations, I pressed this person for information. After all, the information we have on Klube’s is sketchy at best.
The original Mr. Carl August Klube had worked in Germany as a waiter before he came to America and bought what would become Klube’s in 1911. In 1908, he married Agnes Klinger, who had also been born in Germany. Agnes’ brothers Henry and Joe had butcher shops on Third Avenue.
Klube’s was a restaurant and bar. It was actually originally called Klube & Klinger’s, which is, frankly, a mouthful. Since the Klube family owned it during Prohibition, it’s a pretty safe bet that they ran it as a speakeasy in the 1920s. In its day, it was known as the Little Luchow’s—a reference to the more famous German restaurant.
The family apparently did pretty well by the place. Old man Klube wore three-piece suits, a diamond stick pin and a pinky ring. His wife was an avid shopper with a driver and a personal maid. The couple had one son, Carl Henry Klube, who eventually assumed control of the place and ran it into the 1960s. Victor Borge was a regular guest. A 1950 Times account has a man named Hans Nitzsche as having been Klube’s chef for decades. The third-generation Klube worked there for a short time, but soon after it was sold.
I have also discovered some old recipes from Klube's, but I'll save them for a future day.
Attached to the New York Life Building. Building that were so important they had their own private subway entrance (Bloomingdale's, the Knickerbocker Hotel, Rockefeller Center) are the coolest.
The Fishs Eddy on Broadway near Union Square wants you to know exactly what is going on with it.
There's a Duane Reade drug store on Broadway and 20th that's making a half-assed attempt at looking like part of Old New York.
Before you enter the store, you tread over some well worn tile (far below), a remnant of whatever store used to be at this address before Duane Reade took over. Inside, though, the tile theme continues, and a variety of newer colored tiles are arranged to clearly spell out the message "Welcome to Duane Reade."
Nice! Except that the current manager of the store obviously doesn't give a good God Damn about this charming bit of artistry. Half the letters are covered up by black floor mats and a large display unit holding bottled water. "Welc to Duane Ade."
I write enough about the City's old taverns, you'd think I'd know every musty watering hole in town. I guess not. A reader wrote in recently and asked if I'd ever been to his favorite dive, the Grand Saloon on 23rd Street near Lex. What? Who? Neverhudduvit.
I have an out. Grand Saloon had been called a million things since it began life in the 1880s, so its history isn't as obvious as, say, McSorley's, which has been just one thing forever. It housed a brothel during the days of "Diamond" Jim Brady, who was a frequent patron. It was called the St. Blaize Hotel & Restaurant in those days.
In 1911 it became Klube's Steak House, as the lettering about the door still states. I like the pictures on either side of a lobster and a plate of fruit, showing just what sports like Brady ate, and how much. It was a speakeasy in the 1920s.
The new owners have done a nice restoration, even if the interior is scrubbed a tad too clean. The tile floor is obviously original. They say they removed the ceiling and found a tin ceiling underneath, which they restored. They also uncovered the brick fireplace. It's a nice place to get a drink. It needs to be lived in a bit more, though.
This corner at 22nd Street and Broadway in the Flatiron District, now home to the faux-antique charms of Restoration Hardware, has seen its fair share of action in the past. The building is as old as hell without drawing too much attention to the fact. It was built in 1861 and soon after opened as the Glenham Hotel. Madison Square was hotel central back then, home to the grand Fifth Avenue and swank Hoffman House, which sat side by side on Fifth Avenue between 23rd and 25th, and entertained prominent Republicans and Democrats, respectively, as well as plenty of actors and sporting types.
Horace Greeley conducted his campaign for the Presidency from the Glenham in 1872. In the mid-1860s, Jerry Thomas, the most famous bartender of his day, and the first American to publish a guide to mixing cocktails (an American invention that Americans were throwing back with reckless abandon back then), opened up one of his last saloons at this address. It was damned popular, and Thomas did well, buying himself more diamond studs for his ascots. It's a good bet that the most famous men of the day spent a good amount of time here.
Thomas' tavern closed in the mid-1870s and soon after he went broke and died. After that, the fortunes of 935-937 Broadway grew darker. On April 2, 1882, Cornelius Jeremiah Vanderbilt Jr., son of shipping magnate Commodore Vanderbilt, shot himself at the Glenham after a night of drinking and gambling. The Commodore, a mean old bastard, has disowned all by one of his sons, William, upon his death in 1877. Cornelius Jeremiah and three daughters contested the will, but failed after a year of trying (though he did reportedly get a settlement of an extra million). Nothing like being disinherited by the richest man in American, who also just happens to be your daddy, to send your spirits spiraling to the gutter. Compounding Cornelius Jeremiah's troubles was the epileptic fits he had suffered for 25 years.
Great old diner at the corner of Third Avenue and 16th Street. Not sure of its birthdate, but based on the class "Steaks Chops Seafood" line, I'd have to say it dates at least to the 1950s. The happy kid licking his chops makes it.
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