The Last Remnant of the Commodore Hotel

Little Italy Pizzeria on W. 43rd off Fifth Avenue in Midtown doesn't look particularly historical. However, the independent business is actually nearly a half century old and perhaps the last existing link to one of New York's most storied hotels.

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Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Neary's?"

Part of what makes my "Who Goes There?" columns for Eater so much continuing fun is the solid knowledge that, no matter how long I do it, I will still come across a New York classic or oddity every now and then that I have never visited before and sometimes had never known of before. A regular reader suggested I go to Neary's on E. 57th Street a few months ago. I had never heard the name, but made a note of it. Everything I read about the place mentioned the host, Jimmy Neary, as being the jewel of the enterprise.

I finally ate there last week, and weren't all those accounts right. Jimmy's a gem. And the place is cozy, in a rich, Upper East Side kind of way and the food decent. I am intrigued by the fact that Neary's is open until 4 a.m.—a rarity in that neighborhood. I plan one day to see what the joint is like in the wee hours.

Here's my column:

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Lost City Asks, "Who Goes to La Grenouille?"

It took me 25 years of living in New York to get to La Grenouille. Now that I've been, I will be back many times. It easily established itself within five minutes as one of my favorite New York restaurants. There's some sort of magic going on in that beautifully lit, flower-strewn place—a combination of lighting, service, decor, food, conversation and company—that makes life good for the couple hours you're in there. Unlike most of the hot new restaurants today, La Grenouille sends me away becalmed, happy and satisfied. I don't mind spending $100 there on a dinner with that payoff.

Here is my Eater column:

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Lost City Asks "Who Goes to The Famous Oyster Bar?"

I thought, by finally dining at The Famous Oyster Bar, I might crack this mystery of a restaurant, which has dumbfounded me for 25 years. Who owns it? How have they managed to hang on to this prime piece of real estate (54th Street and Seventh Avenue) for more than 50 years? Do they own the building? What's their secret? I have been able to uncover little on my own, because it seems that no one has ever written the story of the longstanding restaurant, in either newspaper or guidebook form.

But I left discovering only that the place has been owned by the same Greek family since 1959 and has always been in the same location. There are no framed reviews or stories on the walls that would have told me more. And the waitresses are not forthcoming.

After digging through newspaper archives and finding nothing about the Famous Oyster Bar prior to the 1980s (the results of health inspections, mainly), I begin to doubt the joint's story. Maybe it didn't open in 1959. Since the idea of it's being a "famous" restaurant is obviously a fantasy, maybe the owners also made up the founding date. The only think dissuading me from this theory are the neon signs, the only thing about the Oyster Bar that does look like it's been there since 1959.

I'll get to the bottom of this one if it's the last thing I do. In the meantime, here's my Eater column:

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Lost City Asks, "Who Goes to Le Périgord?"

Little did I imagine the love that abides out there for the dusty French midtown mainstay Le Périgord. The comments on this particular "Who Goes There?" Eater column keep coming. (Mimi Sheraton: Whenever you comment on one of my WGT columns, my heart goes all a-flutter.) It's heartwarming that people appreciate such a time capsule. Long may it keep its silent vigil on E. 52nd Street. 

Who Goes There? Le Périgord

Something about the padded, sequestered interior of Le Périgord, the French haute cuisine holdout on east-east-east 52nd Street, turns people into librarians. Nobody at a typical lunch shift at this nearly 50-year-old restaurant talked much above a whisper. And yet the air—which smelled vaguely of your grandmother's living room—is so still (no music inside, no traffic outside) you could clearly hear conversations a few tables away.

"You go to this restaurant to feel like a human being," said a man to his friend. I pegged the speaker being in his late 50s, but later realized that he was a well-preserved septuagenarian. No one in the room, waiter or patron, was under 40. When a pair a twentysomethings came in later, they were so befuddled by the unfamiliar scene of relaxed gentility that they seated themselves, thinking that was OK. The maître d' soon resituated them.

Le Périgord is still owned by Georges Briguet, who bought the place from the original owner two years after the restaurant opened. Without too much mental effort, one can guess the sort of celebrity that came here once upon a time. Truman Capote, Henry Kissinger, Jackie Kennedy, etc. Plus, a regular salting of nearby UN officials. And, of course, your run-of-the-mill, blue-suited moneybags who thinks Kissinger wasn't so bad, and Capote was mean to write that stuff about Babe Paley in Answered Prayers.

My relatively talkative neighbor was certainly a regular—so regular that he asked whether a favored lamb dish that wasn't on the menu was available. It was. "Well, why don't you put it on the damn menu then?" he muttered as the waiter walked away. (Just because the customers look polished doesn't mean they are. My friend dropped an F bomb every other sentence, and talked with great relish about past trysts.) "I have some friends coming into town and they asked for restaurant recommendations," he told his more docile friend. "I thought of sending them here, but thought they might think it too dull. So I told them to go to Le Grenouille."

I took my neighbor's tip and ordered the wonderful Le Buffet Froid—a delicious selection of chilled asparagus, celery, cheese, pâté, cornichons, shrimp, tomato and other tidbits. Almost a meal in itself, it was sublimely satisfying. I followed that with Sole Meunière, grilled with a mustard sauce. Hey, if I'm in a place like this, I'm going to order a dish like that. It was worth the $45 just to watch the waiter expertly bone the fish tableside. Where does that happen anymore in Manhattan? Plus, the fillet was delectable; the veggies perfectly steamed. There was a dessert trolley—of course there was!—but I passed. The espresso was expert.

My neighbor had moved on to the topic of money. Actually, he seldom left it. Most conversations at Le Périgord are about money or old times. The two men reminisced about sitting on stoops in Brooklyn back in the days when they had no scratch. Recently, the guy's house was reappraised at a value of $4 million. He seemed to be in the art game. "25 years ago, I could have told anybody I knew how to get rich. You buy a Hopper etching for $500. Today, it would be worth $150,000." He laughed. "Why didn't I do that, and make myself rich?"

His friend paused briefly over his pâté. "But, you did," he replied.

—Brooks of Sheffield

Gallagher's Steak House to Close After 85 Years

UPDATE: Looks like Gallagher's, thankfully, is changing hands, not closing down. More to come.

*****

Now not even the stalwart steak houses are immune from the forced death march imposed upon New York's culinary and bibulous landmarks by cutthroat real estate values, a sunken economy and indifferent governing from City Hall.

Gallagher's Steak House, born in 1927, a child of the Roaring 20s, will die on Jan. 16.

Up until now, New York's iconic steak houses have seemed fortified against a New York that no longer seems to care about its New Yorkiness. Peter Luger's, Old Homestead, Smith & Wollensky, Keen's—they all still stand. Such places have always been patronized by fat cats with big bankrolls. As long as such luxurious creatures of business (and their expanse accounts) exist, cow palaces such as these have no worries. Such was the assumption. But rhe death of Gallagher's represents a worrisome fissure in the chop house facade.

Gallagher's began its existence as a Theatre District speakeasy, patronized by show folk, sports figures writers and politicians. It was founded by Helen Gallagher, a former Ziegfeld girl who had been married to Ed Gallagher of the famous vaudeville team Gallagher and Sheen; and her second husband, gambler Jack Solomon. When Prohibition ended in 1933, it continued on, business as usual, without missing a beat. When Helen died in 1943, Solomon married showgirl and florist Irene Hayes. Solomon died in 1963, leaving Irene sole owner. Hayes then sold to Jerome Brody, who had been the head of Restaurant Associates, the famous corporation which owned such places as Four Seasons, La Fonda de Sol and The Forum of the Twelve Caesars.

To most New Yorkers, Gallagher's is most famous for its sidewalk display of its wares. Large windows look into meat lockers, where various cuts of red meat sit and/or hang, a tantalized (or revolting, depending on your inclination) taste of the hearty fare that awaits inside.

In 1942, when LaGuardia's City Hall imposed a voluntary "meatless Tuesday" policy on the city, Gallagher's didn't even try to adapt; it closed. A sign in the window said: "Okay, Uncle Sam! We'll cooperate to the letter. We'll ever go you one better. Tuesday is meatless and also is eatless, for we will be closed on Tuesdays." The steak house fought bitterly with the government throughout WWII over meat rationing.

Gallagher's has franchise branches in Newark, Atlantic City and Las Vegas.

The Lost Colony

I passed by the midtown location of Colony Records, the iconic music store in the Brill Building that went out of business last month after a half century in Times Square. The place is empty, but the signs remain. I wonder what will become of them.

The Oddball History of the Hotel Roger Smith

Manhattan has a lot of old hotels with great, storied names. The Waldorf=Astoria, the Peninsula, the St. Regis, the Carlyle, the Edison, the Warwick, the Roosevelt. (I still mourn the fact that the Stanhope converted to apartments before I got a chance to stay in it.) But my favorite of all may be the Hotel Roger Smith, a mid-sized, unassuming structure at 47th and Lex, convenient to Grand Central.

I think I like the name because it's so odd. Who's Roger Smith?, I wondered every time I passed by the handsome vertical, green neon sign. Well, you know me. I don't tend to wonder about such obscure New York historical questions too long before I go off and try to find out the answer.

As is frustratingly often the case in this City, the hotel's website tells you next to nothing about the place's history. Actually, completely nothing.

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Lost City Asks "Who Goes to Prime Burger?

I used this week's "Who Goes There?" column on Eater to pay my respects to Prime Burger, which is closing today, Saturday, May 26. Here's an account of my visit:

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Prime Burger to Exit as Midtown Integrity Teeters

Prime Burger, the Midtown diner of great longevity and startlingly un-ironic urban authenticity, is going to close. The news comes from Eater, who hears it from a tipster, who said the end may come as soon at Saturday. The reason: the building, owned by the Prime Burger people, has been sold. So I assume this is a decision that they readily invited.

The place, situated opposite St. Patrick's Cathedral, is 74 years old, and has a timeless New York diner atmosphere and wonderful school-desk-like individual tables you won't see anywhere else in town. The burgers are simple and cheap and good. That it is closing is a crippling loss to the City, and to the character of increasingly faceless Midtown, which only a few weeks ago lost the beautiful bar Bill's Gay 90s. The foodies who run the James Beard Awards prized it enough to give the joint a trophy back in 2005. If you want to know more about it, read this.

They haven't announced an exact closing date yet. But it will be soon. So I'd run.

The Subtle Westmore

The Westmore is a fairly typical mid-century apartment building. It's located on W. 57th Street, west of Columbus Circle. It was built in 1936 and is eight stories tall.

I'm sure the apartments inside are mighty fine, but what I love about it is the low-key, Art Deco way the building announces itself. Those stylish metal letters pictures—following the graceful curve of the small metal awning—are no more than six inches tall. And that's the only thing on the building's facade that says Westmore. It's quite beautiful, especially when the morning sun hits the sign, as it does in this picture. I assume the builders were anticipating that effect, and that's why they put the lettering on the east side of the awning.

Inside, the Westmore features a large garden court the width of a city block. Most of the apartments have bay windows looking over either the garden or the street.

Jean's Silversmiths

Keep looking. You keep finding.

Jean's, a metal storefront with a plain name and a number, on a saddish block of W. 45th Street in Midtown, is a dealer in fine silver. You'll fine no silver plate inside, only sterling. Tea services, silverware, barware, jewelry, gifts, trays, candlesticks, objets d'art, from every decade of the last century and the century before that. Tons of it. Piles of it. From Tiffany, Gorham, Paul Revere, and dozens of other famous makers, many of the items sporting patterns rare and long since discontinued.

Jean's was founded in 1910, and has been in it's current location since 1958. It's still a family business.

It is one of those New York businesses that is so needed, and so knows what it's about, that it doesn't need to worry about the noise of showmanship. As you can see, the outside's nothing to write home about. The interior's even more ramshackle. (Given their wares, you can understand why I didn't even try to take photos inside.) The glass cases are all in good order, and the clerks are neat and prim. But there are pipes and duct work hanging from the ceiling, and the high tin ceiling surely began rusting when Roosevelt was in office. They're here to sell you Tiffany's old silver, not to look like Tiffany's.

People come into Jean's all the time, trying to sell their old silver. Nice people and nutty people. Jean's treats them all with dignity and respect. A Jean's worker can look at an item and deduce its era and producer in a few minutes. I myself can afford almost nothing in this store. But many a sparkly object caught my eye, and the counter staff showed me each with patience and deference. When I finally did find something I liked and could manage—a small matchbox case—they sent it to the back for a polishing and then put in a handsome box. That's service.

A Visit to the Reweaver

I hadn't been to a reweaver since I wrote about (and thus discovered) the trade for a New York newspaper about four years ago. And I missed it. The vanishing trade is so old-world-immigrant, so idiosyncratic, so invisible to everyday view—and, also, so necessary!—I couldn't help but love it. Reweavers are relics of a thriftier, more sensible time, when people actually had their old garments mended and darned. They are a rebuttal to our diseased, disposable lifestyle.

I had a couple beloved sweaters that had a hole or two; it was time. I grabbed them and headed to midtown Manhattan. Last time I checked there were still three or four reweavers around. The oldest, by far, is Alice Zotta. Like all the other reweavers I know, she works out of a cubby hole on a high floor of a highrise. Hers is on W. 45th, near Fifth Avenue.

Last time I visited, little Alice was still on the job, as she had been for 70 years. She has since retired, I was told, but the company continues, run now by her daughter. Otherwise, the "enterprise" is the same. There's a small, anonymous vestibule, and you conduct your business through a doctor's office window, passing your garments through to a woman, pointing our the spots that need repair.

They're a salty group, the reweavers. Dyspeptic, unsmiling, truth-tellers. They'll let you have it in no uncertain terms. "I don't know if we can do this," they'll begin. "This is a big job." "This might be impossible." "This is gonna cost you." "Are you sure you want to do this?" Comments like that. They really do their best to turn you away. You have to pay in advance, because, as the worker told me, "We've been burned to many times." Zotta's office is filled with clothes people have left and never paid for.

I'd go to the reweaver more, but the work does cost a lot. The reweaving of one smallish hole will run you $50, and many jobs start between $70 and $100. So you better goddam love that suit or pair of pants to pay the sort of money that could easily buy you a new garment. I did love these three sweaters. But one had been attacked by moths so viciously I was told it would cost $200 to repair. So, with a sigh, I abandoned it to the trash. The other two, however, I decided to save.

I'm looking forward to picking them up. Zotta always does peerless work in a dying craft.

Can New York's Restaurant Swells Please Keep Their Glitter-Stained Hands Off the City's Landmarks?

First Graydon Carter souped up the legendary Waverly Inn and the Monkey Bar. Then Gabe Stulhman fancified  the Village icon Fedora. And Torrisi Italian Specialties, is threatening to take over Rocco's, the old Village Italian standby. Now this:

Former Waverly Inn chef John DeLucie is opening a new front in the restaurant war with his former boss Graydon Carter. The team behind clubby eateries Crown and The Lion — Mark Amadei, Sean Largotta and DeLucie — is in talks to take over 1920s speakeasy Bill’s Gay ’90s right across the street from Monkey Bar, co-owned by Carter. If the deal goes through for the East 54th Street townhouse, they hope to reopen it by the spring. Sources say they plan to re-create the old-time feel of the original bar with a first-floor tavern and several private rooms. Carter was partners with DeLucie at Waverly Inn until he left last year to open The Lion. A Crown rep had no comment.

Here's a news flash to Mr. DeLucie: Bill's already has an old-time feel. Don't fuck it up with your vile whoring-after-the-1%, faux-authentic sensibilities. This is not your element. You have no idea what a real New York tavern is. So: Back. The. Hell. Away. From. Bill's.

Broadway Shoeshine Now Much Harder to Get

One of my favorite shoe shine shops used to be on the south side of W. 44th Street between Broadway and Sixth Avenue. I often stopped there to give my zapatos a gloss when on my way to a Broadway show, or when visiting one of my favorite bars, Jimmy's Corner, which is just a couple doors down. It was called Star Shine, was quite spacious, and a nice place to catch up on the papers while you had your shoes done. I was appalled (and left with dusty walkers) the other day to find it was gone, and replaced by another branch of the loathed chain Subway, which is a verminous kudzu spreading across the metropolis.

One of the the things I've always loved about New York is ease with which one can get one's shoes shined. Little hole-in-the-wall shops used to be everywhere. Lately, I've been noticing they're closing. It's not a good sign.

D'Aiuto Bakery Building For Sale

Not sure what's going her, but a reader tipped me off to the fact that the D'Aiuto Bakery building in the Garment District is up for sale "by Owner."

D'Aiuto has been there for a generation or four at 405 Eighth Avenue. It was founded in 1924. I don't know if they own the building, but given the way they feel at home with all the signage, my guess would be: yes, they do.

Rockefeller Center's Grimy Southern Border

I like the way the block of W. 48th Street between Fifth and Sixth continues to act like a real Midtown block, stubbornly providing a grimy southern bracket to the polished swank of Rockefeller Center. There's an OTB (now closed) and a string of sketchy restaurants housed in crumbling townhouses.

You can see two of those eateries above, at 28 and 30 W. 48th Street, not to mention assorted psychics, palm readers and nail salons. What attracted to me to these building this particular day, however, were the upper floors. Obviously built as a pair, they sport some very unusual windows and lintels, more and more gently rounded on the top as you go from the first story to the top story. Very unique and attractive.

As far as history, 28 W. 48th was a store back in the 1920s. There's more info about 30 W. 48th. It was offices in the 1940s; an eatery and bar in the mid-50s; and a greeting card story, with a beauty parlor and barber, and a portrait studio above, in the 1960s.

30 W. 48th's secret history is much more interesting. It was raided by police at 4 AM one February 1977 night as an illegal casino.

Carnegie Deli Endangered

The Carnegie Deli, one of the few Jewish deli standard bearers left in Manhattan, is in danger.

According to the New York Post, the Seventh Avenue institution "has had a cordial, decades-long relationship with adjacent property owner Woodward Affiliates, which has allowed Carnegie to use a portion of its property for $2,500 a month. The extra space allowed the deli to provide seating for up to 200 people, as well as a legally mandated second exit door. Any agreement between Carnegie and Woodward, which owns 200-210 W. 55th St., has to be approved by the city Buildings Department, but just as the two sides were working out a new deal, Woodward balked, Carnegie claims in a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit filed last week."

This snag may somehow lead to the closure of Carnegie, though I'm not clear why. Maybe they need those extra 200 seats to survive. Sounds to me that Woodward is just angling for more money. 

I'm not giving up on the Carnegie yet. Both it and its neighbor, Stage Deli, periodically throw up death cries, and usually the issue is somehow resolved. I'm not among those who like to bash the place, saying it's a tourist trap, the service is rude and the prices too high. All of these things are true to an extent, but think of it—the deli is unique and once it's gone, it's gone, and nothing like it is going to come along anytime soon.

Intersection of Forced Shopping

I was about to cross the intersection of Lexington and 58th when I was suddenly transfixed by the towering horror of 731 Lexington. Couldn't stop looking at it. I've passed by this humorless tower of glass hundreds of times, but I never really realized until that moment how absolutely awful the building was. Maybe it was the way it impudently glowed in the twilight. An unending, graceless pile of climbing glass, with its lower, retail floors walled in clear panes, forcing us to the see the innards of every corporate, chain store inside.

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Optical Illusion

This lovely old building on Fifth Avenue in the 30s, while bright white on the Avenue side, seems to bear a pale green tint on the street side, as if it were made of oxidized metal or a specific type of colored marble. The fancy of a creative architect a century ago?

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