A Good Sign: Antelis Pharmacy

In Midwood, Brooklyn.

Midwood's Classic Paskesz Kosher Candies Store Has Closed

Paskesz Kosher Candies, an old school confectionary on Midwood's 13th Avenue shopping strip, has closed, a reader writes in. The sign has come down and new restaurant is in the works.

Paskesz is a kosher candy line that is widely sold. The Hungary-born company is a century old, but its products weren't available in the U.S. until the 1950s. According to the Paskesz website, the family began with a store in East New York, soon moved to Crown Heights and then eventually to Borough Park. These was the business' retail store, and it actually closed last fall, a spokesperson told me.

Some Stuff That's Interesting

Not everyone's falling for Bloomberg's con. Certainly not District Council 37, the largest union of city government workers. "He's arrogant," they said. Well, yeah. [NY Times]

The six-way race to succeed Councilman Bill DeBlasio (my Brooklyn district) has gotten slimy. Brad Lander's campaign has taken the low road by trying to make an issue of the fact that opponent Josh Skaller, his biggest rival, sends his kid son, who has special needs, to a private school. “I have pointed out that I am the only public-school parent in the Democratic primary, but I have never questioned or attacked any of the other candidates for their choices, and never said a word about anyone’s family,” Lander told The Brooklyn Paper. “It is simply false.” However, folks who have had direct contact with the Lander campaign know that the candidate's people have been trying to make hay of this issue for some time. [Brooklyn Paper]

Bloomberg has killed small business during his reign. [Queens Crap]

Di Fara's Dom DeMarco really look like what he looks like. [Slice]

Now that's a stove. [Scouting NY]

A variety of New York skylines. [Architakes]

The characters on "Mad Men," set in the 1960s in NYC, apparently are drinking with historical accuracy. [NY Times]

Some Stuff That's Interesting

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Good Sign: D'Still Liquors

D'Still Liquors. Get it? Distill—D'Still. Get it? Get it?

At 7020 New Utrecht Avenue in Brooklyn.

Mysterious Grandiosity on Coney Island Avenue

On a recent stroll down Coney Island Avenue (yes, I stroll down such streets), this grand four-story building at the southeast corner of Coney and Foster Avenues had me scratching my head.

Coney Island Avenue is five-mile-long thoroughfare of almost unrelenting ugliness, lined primarily with funeral homes and auto repair shop. (Fix your car. Fix your corpse!) This mansion-like structure, with its still downright beautiful roof, is entirely out of place.

Forgotten New York has previously wondered over the building, which is now filled with a variety of shops on its long ground floor. The old Coney Island and Brooklyn Railroad ran along the avenue, and FNY speculated that it might have been a roadhouse for weary travelers making the journey. It does have the look of a hotel about it. Why else have that roof with its palace-like turrets, and the fine, arched windows?

I can find no record anywhere of what this thing used to be, aside from a DOB Certificate of Occupancy from 1938 that says it had stores on the ground floor (like today) and single family residences on the two floors above. One has to imagine its life was something different around the turn of the century. Also, my hunch is the roof used to be symmetrical, with the green turrets on the south side matched by a similar pair on the north side.

Tough Talk in Midwood

A Good Sign: Metropolitan Heat and Power

I like the bold, muscular feel of the sign. It marries well with the nature of the business. And the blue, cursive bits at either end act as nice bookends. In Midwood. The outfit has been around for more than 60 years.

A Good Sign: Sun Brite Cleaners

A splash of riotous color, and then the black-lettered prosaic "Cleaners." It works for me. In Midwood on Coney Island Avenue.

A Good Sign: Dutch Boy Paints

Midwood Paints no longer exists, as far as I can tell, but this lovely remnant of the old Coney Island Avenue business remains.

A Good Sign: Lupu's

This old sign, in Midwood, was apparently revealed over the summer, brought to light once more by a neighboring construction dig. Note the ellipse after "Lupu's." That means Lupu's was the full name of the store, a store that had coats, suits, dresses, sportswear.

This Weird Place Used to Be Fun Once

This sad Flatbush Avenue structure with the weird Tudor-Castle-left-out-in-the-rain architecture apparently used to be a kind of nexus of fun some decades ago. (Which is not to say its current function as a Baptist Church is a drag, but...) Records show it was a sprawling eatery called the Midwood Restaurant in the years following World War II. Musta been a theme restaurant or something, judging from the Ye Olde England design. It was owned by Paul Padower and Eli Hahn, two young Air Force veterans. And during the Depression, the second floor contained a dance hall and cabaret space. Hot-diggety! The Church moved in in 2004, as far as I can tell.

A Good Sign: Future Fabrics & Appliances

The future of fabrics is on Coney Island Avenue. So, according to this wonderfully colorful and optimistic sign.

Warning to potential patrons: There are NO appliances within.

Some Stuff That's Interesting, and Some That's About Pizza

There's hope for St. Savior's in Maspeth.

Ancient Carroll Gardens bar P.J. Hanley's may soon serve ancient food of Italy.

The facade of 211 Pearl Street just doesn't look happy.

Developer Billy Stein gave 360 Smith architect Robert Scarano the heave-ho. Now, how do we give Billy Stein the heave-ho?

Di Fara slices are up to $4 and I don't care. They charge $3.50 for the crap as Sbarro's, don't they?

A Good Sign: Schnitzel King

How can you resist this sign? Schnitzel King! They're the Schnitzel King, in a day and age when no one is clawing to get on top of the schnitzel heap. And "The Best Cutlets"! Cutlets of what, I wonder. What you can't see in this picture of the Midwood restaurant is a sign in the window that reads "We now have Thursday Cholent." Thursdays just got a little bit better in Midwood.

A Question From Midwood

Which of these Midwood businesses is the more inessential and marginal in today's society? Top This Hats, a milliner catering to women, or The Sock Exchange, the outfit it supplanted (without having removed the sign)?

Pizza Drought Over: Di Fara's Opens

Di Fara's, the little corner of Midwood that may make the best pizza in America, finally reopened today, according to the vigilant Slice.

Three weeks without Dom's pies, that was. Maybe the DOH will be satisfied for a while now, and let us all get some slices in.

I'm using one of Slice's photos for this article, because I'm so goddam sick of my own shots. Gotta get down there and take some more candids. Oh, and have some pizza, too.

Di Fara's to Reopen

Slice has the scoop that Di Fara's pizzeria in Midwood, closed down by the DOH on March 15, will finally reopen tomorrow, April 4. Geez, that took a long time, didn't it? Three weeks with no Di Fara's. But then, Dom DeMarco takes a long time doing everything, including putting together a pie. Good luck to him.