The History of the Valley Candle Company

A couple years ago, I posted an item about how the television series "Miami Vice," in 1985, was allowed to blow up up an old business on Columbia Street called the Valley Candle Company.

I didn't know much about the company when I wrote that post. Since then, however, I've been contacted by a descendent of the company's founder. That was Saverio DellaValle, pictured below. (Hence, the name of the business.) Saverio came to Brooklyn from Naples in 1905. He made religious candles and delivered them to the churches in NYC. An open-minded businessman, he also made candles for the religious Jewish holidays. There were family stories that, while he was making candles, Saverio ran a still running in the factory during Prohibition. There's an enterprising gent!

The family sold the business in the '70s.

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A New Look for Defonte's

The owners of Defonte's, the oldest ongoing business in Red Hook and arguably the finest sandwich shop in New York, have slapped a new coat of paint on the old building at the forlorn corner of Columbia and Luquer Streets. (I always want to call Defonte's non-neighborhood Five Points because of the odd confluence of five streets that lead to the store.) The address has gone from the odd pale green is boasted for many years (and which always reminded me of the interior of a public bathroom)—see below—to a bold dark green, with bright red for the blocked-out windows, and white for the lintels.

I guess it's an improvement. Anyway, it's going to look fantastic at Christmastime.

Old John Grace Bakery Oven to Burn Bright Once Again

About a month ago, Pizza Moto, a roving pizzamaker that sells freshly baked pies at Brooklyn Flea and other outdoor markets, announced it had found a permanent home in Red Hook, and has started a Kickstarter campaign to finance it.

This is the building, 338 Hamilton Avenue, a lonely three-story brick thing shivering under the shadow of the BQE near Court Street. It's quite an old structure. So old that, when Moto ripped down a back wall, they found what they called "a 130-year-old oven," which they plan to revive and use to make the pizzas.

Actually, the oven's possibly even older than that. According to a March 1874 article in the Brooklyn Eagle, the John Grace Bakery was here then. Grace won a deed to the land in 1867, but seemed to have surrendered it to the Sheriff in 1880.

If this location seems like an odd one to place a bakery, you have to remember that Hamilton Avenue looked a lot different one hundred and so years ago. The highway was not there, but the trolley lines leading to the Hamilton Ferry were. Many hundreds of people passed by the John Grace bakery every day. The ovens are brick-lined and were made by "New System Oven Construction Company" in New Jersey.

Pizza Moto still needs about $40,000 to restore the oven. So go and kick in $25 or so, so we can all see what a pizza made in a 19th-century Brooklyn over tastes like.

Merry Christmas From Red Hook

A couple weeks ago, when I did a post-Sandy tour of Red Hook, I expressed dismay when I saw a familiar old storefront on Van Brunt covered in plywood. The ancient, long-defunct shop had always served as a living museum, its window displays full of antiques. And during the holidays, it was always decked out in its evergreen fineness. I despaired the the store would fulfill its yuletide goal this year. So I was happy to see this sight the other day. Way to bounce back, Red Hook.

What's Under the Siding

There's nothing positive to say about the state Hurricane Sandy left Red Hook in. But the storm did pull off one slightly interesting trick.

In the mid-20th century, in a misguided effort at beautification, many a Brooklyn and Queens building was sadly blanketed in aluminum siding. I've often wondered, as I walked by these eyesores, what sort of structure lay beneath the sheath of cheap metal blandness. I always pictured a handsome red-brick home or a brownstone.

Sandy ripped off a good chunk of siding from a three-story home on Verona Street. And the surface beneath it was not what I expected. There's basically a kind of plaster, stucco facade, colored a sort of umber. Nothing very attractive. It looks like the building was made of oatmeal. The window lintels are somewhat more interesting, but only slightly.

That said, it's still better looking than the siding. But you kind of understand why the owners, a half century ago, opted to a new, somewhat cleaner look.

Sunny's Bar to Reopen Soon

When Hurricane Sandy hit, Sunny's Bar in Red Hook was in its direct path. Few, if any New York bars, are closer to the waterfront or sit upon such a high water table.

Sure enough, the old tavern—run today by the great-grandson of the founder—was slammed. But it won't stay bowed for long. A message on the bar's website tells us:

Sunny's is sadly closed due to Hurricane Sandy (or superstorm Sandy, however the news wants to call it.) We took on about 2 feet of water above the basemant. It's been great to have the love and hard labor of those who have come to Red Hook to help out and it is greatly appreciated from all of us who live here. We are hoping to be back in business by next Friday or Saturday. Keep checking in to see any updates. And if you want to help Red Hook please check in with the Red Hook Initiative 402 Van Brunt St. They are organizing relief. We'll be back. All of us. And more importantly The Rockaways, Breezy Point and Staten Island can still use much help. We are hurt but OK in the grand scheme of things, so please try to devote your attention to those who need it most.

Weird Thing Growing in Red Hook

I saw this strange sight on Reed Street in Red Hook, opposite the Fairway, rising out out what has long been an empty lot. Couldn't make heads or tails out of it. The shape of the building's skeleton doesn't say house or apartment building. It's the huge deck or balcony or whatever that throws one off. Makes it look like a beach house or a resort-ish restaurant of some kind.

The DOB postings say its going to be an "eating and drinking establishment." A damn big one, by the looks of it. Brownstoner says the place will be called Brooklyn Crab. "The applicant for this liquor license states that it will be a seafood restaurant with hours of operation being from 5 to 10:30 week days and 5 to 11:30 weekends and holidays. There will be two open air spaces, to wit: a deck and a covered roof area." That explains that. So will they buy their crabs from Fairway?

The Red Hook Ahava Nut Has Given Up—Maybe

For many years, a certain protest sign on Van Brunt Street has been a familiar landmark to Red Hook residents. It is sturdily posted to a telephone pole (yes, Red Hook, unlike many New York neighborhoods, still has those) outside a house covered with aluminum siding. I assume it was placed there by the owner of the house, for it complains bitterly about the horrible noise that comes from the Ahava kosher dairy plant just down the street on Beard Street.

Ahava has been hated by the neighborhood since it moved into Red Hook in 2001, at the behest of the City. The sign entreats Mayor Bloomberg and Marty Markowitz to "Stop the Noise" and implores locals to call and complain.

The sign is crazy but the author has a point. The factory generator never stops humming, day or night. If I lived nearby, I'd be pissed to.

Recently, weather and wear and tear have caused the sign to fade and, now, crack in two. Only half of its there, and the half remaining would make no sense to a pair of new eyes. So what happened? Did the author of the sign move away? Lose hope? Die? Run out of wood and markers?

Old Rusted Eyesore Now Haven of Lush Greenery

The Red Hook-ish corner plot where Hamilton Avenue meets Summit Street in Brooklyn has long been commanded by an old industrial shed made of sheets of rusted corrugated metal. For a long time, the shed was filled with old cars and the land around it overgrown with weeds. In the past year, the cars and weeds have been cleared out, but the shed remained as ugly as ever.

Now it has become the home Liberty Sunset Garden Center, which recently left its home further south in Red Hook. The land surrounded the shed is now a lush forrest of greenery, instantly changing the address into a sort of beauty spot.

The area has a wealth of garden centers. In addition to two along Van Brunt Street, Gowanus Nursery is virtually around the corner from Liberty's new location.

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Hope & Anchor Has "Bureaucratic Permit Foible"

Red Hook's Hope & Anchor diner is presently closed due to a "bureaucratic permit foible." Which is a quaint  way to put whatever the problem is. My question: their foible? or the City's?

UPDATE: Hope & Anchor is once again open.

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

I know one person who goes to DeFonte's in Red Hook. Me. Have for years. Unlike most of the subject of the "Who Goes There?" column on Eater, Defonte's was already a place I was quite familiar with. To be truthful, I find their work somewhat unreliable. Sometimes I walk away thinking "That sandwich should have been better than that." Other times, I am very happy. On this occasion, I had a meatball sandwich and was very satisfied.

Recently, my wife made friends with someone who lives down the block from DeFonte's. She can back excited one day, saying "I found this great sandwich place in Red Hook you have to go to. It's called DeFonte's. I looked at her like she had two heads.

Who Goes There? DeFonte's

Seen from the corner of Commerce and Van Brunt Streets, DeFonte's looks like an apparition; an isolated four-story, hospital-green mirage at the center of a crumbling, five-way intersection, roped in by telephone lines. The Ghost of Red Hook Past. And it is. The sandwich place is the oldest surviving eatery in the neighborhood by a very long shot. It was founded in 1922 by the DeFonte family, who still run it, and own the building it's in, and it is one of the few links to the area's industrial, longshoremen, shipping past.

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Catering For All Occasions

C'mon, you know you want your next affair catered by John & Frank of Red Hook! You know it! They do "all occasions." Need packs of Winstons and Marlboros; Budweiser; Arizona Iced Tea and Snapple? They've got it!

Two South Brooklyn Food Deals

This is pretty off-topic. Lost City's not really in the business of restaurant recommendations. But I do like to see local, independently owned businesses thrive.

Carroll Gardens Fish Market, which just recently installed a sushi chef, is served up some damned fine, amazingly fresh, takeaway sushi. The selection is unusually vast for takeaway (you can eat there if you wish, but there's only one stool), including side dishes like pickled yellow radish and squid salad. And prices are cheap. The place puts all other sushi options on Court Street to shame, and easily bests the abominable, stale, chewy, flavorless stuff pushed by Fairway and Trader Joe's. (The only sushi I ever spit out as being inedible came from Trader Joe's.)

Second recommendation: O'Barone, a humble, but nonetheless excellent, and largely unpatronized Italian restaurant on Van Brunt Street in Red Hook. This is the old 360 space. The new owners are Italian and very friendly. The pasta is homemade. The space is charming, the wine list good, and the prices reasonable. Plus, on Tuesday nights, all bottles are half price and kids eat free. I didn't know this when I strolled in on a Tuesday with the family in tow. Ended up paying half what I expected to. Always a good feeling.

Small Blue House in Red Hook

It's basically a shack, but it sure it cheery. Kudos to whoever owns it and decided to make the best of what they had.

Unfortunate Brickwork in Red Hook

Commonplace looking building in Red Hook, right?

But look closely at the decorative brickwork near the top.

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The Birds of Fairway

I was standing in the organic-food section of the Red Hook Fairway, when I heard a bird tweeting. "I hear a bird," I said to The Wife. Being a good wife, she ignored me. Nutty husband. Hears bird in grocery stores.

Something definitely was twittering. But it was the organic section. Maybe it was a machine, one of those kind that are supposed to put you at peace and send you to blissful rest. Someone was offering a demonstration of the device.

But I couldn't find a machine. And the twirps sounded too authentic. What's more every time I zoned in on the bird, the source of the sound changes. It was here. It was there. "There's a bird in here," I said. A Fairway clerk busy sorting a shelf stared at me blankly. Crazy customer. There are no birds in Fairway.

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Red Hook In Lights Again

Somebody has restrung the lights that spell out "Red Hook" on Van Brunt where it meets Hamilton. The welcoming beacon shines bright once again.

Former 360 Restaurant Finally Has Sign

Through its brief, celebrated, tortured life, the Red Hook restaurant 360 had everything—fame, a reputation, a following, kudos—everything but a sign. It was just 360, same as the address on Van Brunt Street.

Last July, a new restaurant called O Barone opened there. But still no sign. Until now. 360 Van Brunt now has an actual sign saying what it is for the first time in the building's life as a restaurant. If even says "Food and Wine," in case people get confused.

How pedestrian.

Queen Mary/Dead End

The Queen Mary 2 moving out to sea Tuesday night, as viewed from the end of Sullivan Street, Red Hook. Party music drifted clearly through the air from the deck to the streets.

A Vision of the Urban Crapscrape to Come

Pieces of ungodly crapitecture go up every week, and we dutifully rail against their plastic, cookie-cutter, soul-killing awfulness. But very often they exist in our minds as a sore thumb, an annoying eyesore upsetting the block. We put in the back of our mind, as too terrible to contemplate, what our city will become when these isolated pieces of shoddy "architecture" pile up and reach critical mass.

I had a horrifying vision of what that city might look like the other day as I was biking around Red Hook, looking for trouble. I came upon this deadening row of houses on Richards Street, three in a row, all completed within the last five years. The unstoppable blandness of the trio overwhelms you like a wave of nausea. The absolute and transparent ersatz quality of their materials and conception injures the eyes. There is no corner of relief, no minute aspect of beauty to latch your peepers in hopes of momentary solace. It's all dreck.

Notice how every detail is fake and half-assed: the quasi bay windows; the half-hearted cornice on one, the why-bother shingled "roof" on another; the barely there lintels (where there are lintels at all); the afterthought keystones on the one of the left; and rotten, rotten, cheapo windows on all three.

These buildings are not worth having a pigeon shit on. And this is what the City's prepared to vote back into office for four more years next month.